China Against Herself

Will China's growing economy outstrip the economic power of Japan and the advanced industrialized democracies of the West? No. For China to continue its phenomenal growth and develop sustainable comparative advantage, it needs to sustain a huge world market for its products and the technological and organizational capacity for innovation. According to Arayama and Mourdoukoutas, because China cannot secure these economic conditions, its role in the world economy will be limited to that of a mass producer of certain types of products. China's strength is its low-cost, mass-production capacity—but the lack of an ingrained capacity to innovate constrains China to transforming foreign innovations into lower-priced imitations. Arayama and Mourdoukoutas detail their argument carefully and precisely, in a well-written analysis that will be necessary reading for business decision makers and their academic colleagues, and for others who are seriously interested in the future of world business.

YUKO ARAYAMA teaches and conducts research in economic theory and applied economics. He also served as Director of the Contemporary Japanese Economic Research Program at Beijing University in 1997 and 1998. Professor Arayama now publishes widely in the academic and professional journals and presents papers frequently at business conferences.

PANOS MOURDOUKOUTAS is a Professor of Economics at Long Island University, New York, where he teaches and conducts research on the Japanese and Asian economies. He travels extensively throughout Asia and Europe and holds an appointment at Nagoya University, Japan. Among his various books and journal articles is The Global Corporation (Quorum, 1998).