In China's Shadow

In China's Shadow: The Crisis of American Entrepreneurship


Reed Hundt


ISBN: 0300108524

Pub. Date: October 16, 2006

Publisher: Yale University Press

Reed Hundt was Chairman of FCC during the Clinton administration. This book has a good thesis. It is well researched and eloquently put together. But it reads like a politician's long public speech. Long.

Make no mistake about it. This book is not about China. It is about America politics. Mr. Hundt would have picked a different topic that threatens some elements of American life-style or value-system. Just that it is easier to set poeple's blood boiling with China, or the aspect of America losing to them.

Don't you see. The crisis is upon us. Draconia actions. Congress must pass laws and allocate huge budget. Administration must enact policies. Citizens must behave differently. Everyone! Everyone! Rally behind me. This is the only way for us to avert the crisis. If you don't, you will certainly regret it. You will no longer be the leader. You will become 2nd class. You will make less money. And I would have said, “I told you so.” Here is the book.

Yes, he hit where it hurts — your pocket book. He sees China as both the threat and the means to America's continued prosperity; defined by taking over 70% of the value-add in the world. It can't be 70%, you see, if China is taking half of it. The only way, he stated, is to think like Cisco where John Chamber wanted to base his company's strategy entirely for China — how to sell there; how to beat the competitors from there; how to procure from there.

The description of government's invisble hand behind many events was scary. According to Hundt, Japan's decade-long depression was carefully designed by US, so was Internet and all those huge successes, like AOL, Google, eBay, etc. Government was so good that even those enterpreurs do not realize the helps government gave them. Proof? Bush administration stopped helping and we are losing the leadership in IT. Yes, he gave the government way too much credit, in both directions.

The general thesis is sound. No companies, or individual, can ignore China for the next 20 years. Only those with a clear strategy and execution strength can continue to prosper. Do you? Do we?

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