I recently came across two books which provide a scholarly overview
on the economic relationship between China and the United States.
One is Unbalanced: the Co-dependency of America and
China by Stephen Roach, Senior Fellow at Yale University and previous
Chairman of Morgan Stanley Asia. I found
his premise that America needs to take a longer-term, strategic approach to be
very thoughtful and persuasive.
Certainly, he stresses the signs of China’s forward planning and consequences
of its increased emphasis on more internal consumerism while the US continues in
its “bad habit” of limited savings. Our students could begin a discussion about
whether and how US should revise its propensity for spending with a short Bloomberg clip of Roach commenting on his book (begins around 2:30), his New York
Times article, “Chinese Reform, U.S. Stasis” and this slightly
longer video from the Yale School of Management:
Wendy Dobson’s Partners and Rivals: the uneasy future of China's relationship with the United States also
focuses on US-China relations, talking about how both countries consider
themselves to be exceptional. She is a professor
at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management and offers two
strategic principles for cooperation: understanding that neither country can
dominate the other and reducing mistrust between the two. She develops an understanding based on past
history, as shown in another short video:
Dobson’s book seemed like a possible summer read for AP Economics
and made me think of Geography of Thought which shows how very hard it
is to understand another country’s culture and way of thinking – especially
between East and West
Although we currently have several copies of more popular
works by Fareed Zakaria and Thomas Friedman, I will be talking with teachers of both Advanced Chinese and Economics to gauge the level of interest in Unbalanced
and Partners and Rivals. These two titles could provide
additional perspective, particularly on economic issues and join What Chinese Want (Doctoroff), Walmart in China (Chan), and Where China Meets India (Thant Myint-U) on our library shelves.
