Trading Partners
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Bibliographic details
- Authors: ELIZABETH VAN HEUVELEN
- Published: February 16, 2024
Overview
- Book reviewed: Made in China: When US-China Interests Converged to Transform Global Trade
- Author of book: Elizabeth O’Brien Ingleson
- Reviewer: ELIZABETH VAN HEUVELEN, senior economist, IMF’s Strategy, Policy, and Review Department
- Publication: F&D Magazine, March 2024
- Book details: Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA, 2024, 352 pp., $37.95
- Focus period: the 1970s
Core argument and analytical framing
- Ingleson argues the transformation of China’s market and the US–China relationship was enabled by three interlinking factors:
- cultural
- diplomatic
- economic
- The book seeks to explain:
- why China converged with US capitalism
- why American capitalists incorporated China into their vision of the future
Key historical episodes and anecdotes
- Early Canton Trade Fairs: used as a lens to view China’s internal debates over foreign trade and how US businesspeople perceived China.
- "Fashion diplomacy": role of US importers such as Veronica Yhap, founder of Dragon Lady Traders, in promoting commercial and diplomatic thaw.
- 1973 purchase of Kellogg fertilizer plants:
- Policy choice illustrated by Lin Hujia (then vice director of China’s state planning commission): “Should we eat 2 million metric tons of imported wheat or buy 10 chemical fertilizer plants…I believe we all agree to buy the 10 fertilizer plants.”
- Early US labor reactions:
- Passage of the 1974 Trade Act
- Quota petition by the Worker Glove Manufacturers Association
Diplomatic and economic dynamics highlighted
- Contrasting incentives for trade during normalization:
- Henry Kissinger and President Richard M. Nixon viewed trade as a mechanism to facilitate diplomacy.
- Chairman Mao Zedong viewed trade as secondary to resolving diplomatic issues.
- Explanation offered for fits-and-starts pattern in early US–China trade: divergent immediate incentives that took time to align.
Contemporary relevance and implications
- Themes that resonate today:
- Maoist concept of self-reliance—zili gengsheng—traced through the period and noted as resurfacing in recent Chinese policy documents.
- Ongoing tensions between political hard-liners and pragmatists over China’s role in trade and geopolitics.
- Interpretive conclusion:
- Convergence occurred when both countries needed each other to meet domestic and strategic objectives.
- The historical account suggests some contemporary challenges may be continuations of past dynamics rather than wholly novel phenomena.
- Suggested avenue for further study:
- How the three interlocking forces—cultural, diplomatic, and economic—have continued to evolve in more recent years.
Review tone and contribution
- Meticulously researched and rich in anecdotes.
- Provides fresh perspectives on early US–China commercial and diplomatic interactions.
- Offers a cautious note of possible optimism: historical convergence may offer lessons for future accommodation if interests align.
F&D Magazine — "Trading Partners" (ELIZABETH VAN HEUVELEN), March 2024.
Content in this bundle
- Book Reviews: Trading Partners