China's Disruptors: How Big Business has Thrived Despite Murky Laws and the Party

"Countries don't transform themselves — transformations are wrought by people."

This phrase from the second paragraph of Tse's book, in his Author's Note, captures the essence of his book, and reality, rather well. We've read endless praises over the past few decades that "China has accomplished [fill in the blank]" or "the Party has achieved [same]."

This is mostly arrant nonsense. The breathtaking, millennial-level rise of China from the ashes of the insanity and evil of the Mao years has come from three sources: the mainland Chinese people themselves; foreign direct investment on a scale the world had never seen before; a remarkable and laudable willingness of the Communist Party of China (CPC) since the Deng era to simply get out of the way, and let the first two elements carry on. Tse cites research in the 2014 Markets Over Mao, by old China hand Nicholas Lardy, which asserts that almost all the growth in urban employment in China since 1978 has been down to the private sector.