China and Globalization is a compact, highly readable introductory text on contemporary China and the massive changes it is presently undergoing. It focuses primarily on how economic structural change is driving the processes, but discusses many other issues as well--politics, social change, reform, international economics, and cultural change. In its quarter-century long shift from communism to capitalism, China has transformed from a desperately poor nation into a country possessing one of the fastest-growing and largest economies in the world. Doug Guthrie covers the social, economic, and political factors responsible for the revolutionary changes, and interweaves this broader structural analysis with a consideration of social changes at the micro and macro levels. The book also considers the potential for further change. Will China become more democratic? Will the government become more serious about protecting human rights and creating a transparent legal system? How will China's explosive growth impact both East Asia and the larger global economy? In sum, this will be a sophisticated, definitive yet compact overview of the effects of massive social, economic, and political reforms on the most populous nation in the world.
Books in this series look at how nations and regions across the world are navigating the tumultuous currents of globalization. Concise, descriptive, interdisciplinary, and theoretically informed, they serve as ideal introductions to the peoples and places of our increasingly globalized world.