China’s Unfinished Economic Revolution

Nicholas R. Lardy will introduce his new Brookings book, China’s Unfinished Economic Revolution. Among the issues discussed in Lardy’s book:

• How long will China be able to continue to avoid the worst effects of the Asian financial crisis, despite similarities of its financial system with some of the Asian countries most adversely affected?
• What are China’s vulnerabilities to the crisis?
• What policies has the Chinese leadership adopted to limit China’s vulnerability?
• Finally, and most importantly, is China learning to become a responsible member of the global economic community?

Says Peter G. Peterson, chairman of the Blackstone Group, the Council on Foreign Relations, and the Institute for International Economics:

“Nicholas Lardy’s China’s Unfinished Economic Revolution is a sober, balanced, and realistic discussion of where China has really been in the recent years of economic reform, and where it must go now if it is to continue to be successful. Lardy’s analysis of the reform needed in the banking system and the state-owned enterprises should be read by everyone concerned with China in the political sense, from the economic policy perspective, and certainly everyone involved in investing and doing business with China. I would also hope that this book would be read carefully in Beijing and Washington and that leaders on both sides of the Pacific would listen to its wisdom.”

In addition to his Brookings affiliation, Lardy is Frederick Frank Adjunct Professor of International Trade and Finance in the School of Management at Yale University. Formerly professor of international studies and director of the Henry M. Jackson School of International Studies at the University of Washington, his previous books include China in the World Economy (Institute for International Economics, 1994) and Foreign Trade and Economic Reform in China, 1978-1990 (Cambridge, 1992).