Book Offers Perspective on Chinas New Leader

Neil Hughes, an industrial and urban specialist with the World Bank for 34 years, offers remarkable insight into the economic issues Hu Jintao faces in his book "Chinas Economic Challenge: Breaking the Iron Rice Bowl."

Washington, D.C.-

   China is ushering in a new era with the appointment of Hu Jintao as the leader of the Communist party. Although the country is looking to the future with renewed optimism, Hu Jintao will face the same economic problems that Chinese leaders have struggled with in the past. Neil Hughes, an industrial and urban specialist with the World Bank for 34 years, offers remarkable insight into the economic issues Hu Jintao faces in his book "Chinas Economic Challenge: Breaking the Iron Rice Bowl."

China's reformers insisted over two decades ago that the iron rice bowl, symbol of the Communist Party's compact to provide cradle-to-the-grave security for all, had to be broken if China was going to modernize. China's leaders knew they had to risk their careers and the Party's future, yet the reforms they initiated have not gone far enough. The iron rice bowl is still unbroken. This book reveals how transition from a planned economy to a market-oriented one has been fraught with contradiction, dilemma and difficult choices. Membership in the World Trade Organization poses the greatest challenge yet, because while Party leaders are gambling that more new jobs will be created than old ones are lost, most state enterprises are not ready for international competition.

"Chinas Economic Challenge" also captures the complexity of China's economic revolution, involving wide-open competition, traditional networks exploiting new opportunities, civil servants 'privatizing' state assets, provincial governments putting up regional trade barriers, and the Communist Party's determination to shield a core of state enterprises from the full impact of competition. Meanwhile, fast rising corruption and defiance of the law undermine the reforms.

While 300 million people have been raised out of poverty, in one of the great achievements of human history, and millions more are benefiting from economic reforms, many millions are being left behind or made redundant. Chinas Economic Challenge points out how the fast rising number of disaffected impact every economic policy decision, as the government puts maintaining stability at the top of its economic agenda.

Pieter Bottelier, adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins University and adjunct
lecturer at Harvard University, calls Chinas Economic Challenge, An important book for professional China watchers and generalists alike."

   Neil Hughes is currently retired from the World Bank, where he spent 34 years helping to develop programs for the poverty-stricken in Latin American, Africa, Nepal, Bangladesh, and China. During 1992-2002, Neil Hughes helped Chinese officials and state enterprise managers implement reforms and reduce urban pollution. He is a freelance writer, who has been published in such publications as Foreign Affairs and the Asian edition of the Wall Street Journal. He has an M.A. in international economics and politics from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, an M.A. in anthropology from The George Washington University and a B.A. in history of the College of Wooster in Ohio. Neil Hughes lives in Northern Virginia.

To receive a review copy or schedule an interview with Neil Hughes, please contact Jennifer Hughes, publicist, at jennifer@booksintl.com or 703-661-1533.