The End of Cheap China
by Shaun Rein
John Wiley & Sons
This is a lively, well-written book about the transformation of China's economy and how it will change the world profoundly.
Author Shaun Rein is the founder and managing director of China Market Research Group, which advises Fortune 500 companies. The quality of the book comes from Rein's interviews with Chinese people and companies, and his working in the country for several years. It has chapters on billionaires, labour, women, food, corruption, real estate, education and overseas expansion.
'The rise of Chinese firms will disrupt world markets in a way most never could have imagined just a decade ago ... The end of cheap China means that Western executives need to be prepared to fend off increased competition from their aggressive, battle-hardened, well-capitalised counterparts,' Rein writes.
He illustrates the transformation with the change in prostitutes. One night in a hotel in Changchun in 1998, his sleep was constantly interrupted by offers of sex, including a woman at his door who could have been a model for a fashion magazine and was available for 20-25 yuan.
In October 2011, on a street in Shanghai, he was accosted by a badly dressed middle-aged woman with no teeth and her face covered in make-up; she was offering her services for 100 yuan.