The China Price: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage

Features

• Cover Type: Hard Cover with 352 pages
• Published by: Penguin Press HC, The March 27, 2008
• Written in: English
• ISBN 10 Number: 1594201579
• ISBN 13 Number: 978-1594201578
• Book Dimensions: 9.1 x 6 x 1.3 inches
• Weighs: 1.2 pounds

From Publishers Weekly
Dreaded by competitors, the China price has become the lowest price possible, the hallmark of China's incredibly cheap, ubiquitous manufacturers. Financial Times editor Harney explores the hidden price tag for China's economic juggernaut. It's a familiar but engrossing tale of Dickensian industrialization. Chinese factory hands work endless hours for miserable wages in dusty, sweltering workshops, slowly succumbing to occupational ailments or suddenly losing a limb to a machine. Coal-fired power plants spew pollutants into nearly unbreathable air. Migrants from the countryside, harassed by China's hukou system of internal passports, form a readily exploitable labor pool with few legal protections. The system is fueled by Western investment and, Harney observes, hypocrisy. Retailers like Wal-Mart impose social responsibility codes on their Chinese suppliers, but refuse to pay the costs of raising labor standards; the result is a pervasive system of cheating through fake employment records and secret uninspected factories, to which Western companies turn a blind eye. But Harney also finds stirrings of change; aided by regional labor shortages, rising wages and intrepid activists. Chinese workers are demanding—and gradually winning—more rights. Packed with facts, figures and sympathetic portraits of Chinese workers and managers, Harney's is a perceptive take on the world's workshop. (Mar. 31)
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Product Review
"This gripping, gorgeously reported book lays bare the tumult of hope, fear and skullduggery that exists behind the ubiquitous "Made in China" label. It should spur manufacturers, investors and consumers to worry a lot more about where everyday products come from."
-James Kynge, author of China Shakes the World

"Harney has given us an almost forensic field guide to the strikingly low cost of labor intensive goods manufacturing in China. By systematically sifting through the factors that cheapen the production process, she has denied us the luxury of uncertainty. Some may find the ethics and inevitability of Chinese production conditions debatable, but no business human being involved in global sourcing will be credible claiming ignorance of the basic facts in light of Harney's work."
-Daniel Rosen, Principal, China Strategic Advisory, and Fellow, Peterson Institute for International Economics

"The gritty, corrupt reality of the Chinese economic miracle is the great business story of our time and Alexandra Harney has got it. She has explored the factories, dormitories and urban slums to reveal the devastating cost-to the planet, to American workers, and to Chinese citizens-of the China Price."
-Karl Taro Greenfeld, author of China Syndrome: The True Story of the 21st Century's First Great Epidemic "With unusual insight and reportorial perseverance Alexandra Harney presents the inconvenient truths about China and globalization that flat worlders have overlooked. This book is very important and is a must read for those who want to understand how today's world really works."
--Clyde Prestowitz, President of the Economic Strategy Institute and the author of Three Billion New Capitalists.

Reader Reviews
It's simply impossible to keep track of all the China-related books that come out these days. I mean, they're all over the place. I have a strong interest, both personally and professionally, and I try and read what I can, but quite a few of the recently released books seem to rehash the by now well-known theme of China as a manufacturing powerhouse and the correlating threat China may (or may not) pose internationally. This book, however, takes a slightly different take on things. In "The China Price: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage" (336 pages), former Finantical Times journalist Alexandra Harney delves into the ramifications, primarily for the Chinese, of the ever-growing demand for cheaper products. Harney focuses her research primarily on Shenshen (a city that has grown from half a million to about 12 million in a matter of 2 decades) and the surrounding Guangdong province. Harney demonstrates how a lot of Chinese companies escape the "social audits" many American companies nowadays insist on simply by keeping parallel/fake records on hours worked by/wages paid to Chinese employees. Indeed, the plight of many Chinese workers is deplorable, and not helped by the weak (if that) enforcement of Chinese labor laws by the Chinese government, and the absence of a strong labor union in China. How ironic is that, China being a (so-called) Communist country. Harney spices the book with lots and lots of personal stories of Chinese individuals she interviewed for the book, and that makes it for even more interesting reading. Harney ends her book with this great observation: "In the end, as much as the responsability seems to lie with Beijing, it also lies with the global consumer. Our appetite for the $30 DVD player and the $3 T-shirt helps keep jewelry factories filled with dust, illegal mines open and 16-year olds working past midnight." How true! And doesn't it strike you that the people who shop at, say, Wal-Mart every day are the very same people who tend to lament the fact that US manufacturing jobs are off-shored to China every day. We all make a choice, every single day.