Book review: The End of Copycat China, by Shaun Rein
Shaun Rein is irrepressible. Hot on the heels of the relentless boosterism of The End of Cheap China, he's back with the promise of yet another paradigm shift that will shake the world.
by Shaun Rein
Wiley
Shaun Rein is irrepressible. Hot on the heels of the relentless boosterism of , he's back with the promise of yet another paradigm shift that will shake the world.
The same forces that spell an end to China's role as the world's purveyor of cheap toothbrushes and plastic toys, Rein writes, are also driving a wave of domestic innovation as the easy pickings from the early phase of growth dry up amid surging business costs, reform of state-owned industries and a crackdown on corruption.
Government attempts to shift growth away from investment and towards consumption coincide with a rising sense of national pride and demands for Chinese goods and services designed for the domestic market, rather than cheap knockoffs of Western products, he says.
"Over the past 15 years, there simply has been too much money to make by tweaking ideas that worked elsewhere for the local market to spend too much money and energy on innovation," Rein writes. Now, big companies such as e-commerce giants Alibaba and Huawei are outspending their Western peers on research and development, he says.
