Monday, September 3, 2012

The Dragon's Gift: Chinese Translation Published

The Dragon's Gift has now been published in a Chinese translation, by Chinese Academy of Social Sciences press. The cover is a lot less interesting (and they never ran it by me) but CASS has done a lot better job generating buzz about the book than OUP ever did! I've been doing a lot of interviews in the Chinese press, last week and this. Most reporters want to know why on earth I started doing research on this topic as long ago as 1983.

The Dragon's Gift, in Chinese, is available at at 15% discount at China's Amazon.com, at Dang Dang, or direct from the publisher: Social Sciences Academic Press.

CASS has also translated work such as Chinese Politics: New Sources, Methods, and Field Strategies. Cambridge University Press, 2010, co-edited with Allen Carlson, Mary Gallagher, and Kenneth Lieberthal; James Holmes, Red Star over the Pacific: China’s Rise and the Challenge to U.S. Maritime Strategy (with Toshi Yoshihara).

Postscript: Some of the Chinese media stories in the usual places: Global Times (Sept. 2, 2012) People's Daily (Sept. 7, 2012), China Daily (Sept. 8, 2012), Changjiang Daily (Sept. 11, 2012) and a taped show aired on CCTV this weekend, I gather... well-orchestrated, but I wonder if any of the more independent media will cover it?

4 comments:

Unknown said...

布罗蒂加姆教授,恭喜您!Congratulations on the publication and release of the Chinese edition of The Dragon's Gift. My order is in, can't wait to get my copy. This is a major contribution to the evolving conversation about Chinese foreign aid and investment. I look forward to sharing, recommending and discussing this work with Chinese friends and colleagues engaged with China.

Anonymous said...

Unfortunately your "Global Time" link is not working.

It leads to a portal at John Hopkins Enterprise Authentication log in page.

Anonymous said...

At this link - http://cjmp.cnhan.com/cjrb/html/2012-09/11/content_5061096.htm - you mentioned - _twice_ - that the percentage of China's GDP to its foreign aids is way smaller than that of the United States.

I am afraid that you haven't taken into account of the different kind of "foreign aids", in term of what the United States is doing versus the one from China.

The so-called "foreign aids" from the United States of America (and from the Western European nations) consist of mainly commodities - food and medicine.

Or put it in another way - what the Western nations have been giving to Africa for the past 60 years are "fishes".

On the other hand, China doesn't give out "fishes". Instead, China's foreign aids come in the form of road building, railway construction, electricity power generation and power distribution grid - all were/are designed to uplift Africa's infrastructure.

Instead of 'giving fishes' China prefers to help the Africans so that they can manufacture their own fishing rods and weave their own fishing nets.

In Economy, there's a thing call the "Multiplier Effects" - http://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/multipliereffect.asp

While it's normally used to describe effect from money supply towards the economy, the "Multiplier Effects" can also be used to measure the effectiveness of foreign aids in places like Africa.

For the past 60-some years or so, the West had been supplying Africa with aids. Tons and tons and tons of foods had been sent to Africa to feed the hungry.

And after the food is consumed, what's next?

Nothing.

People go hungry again, and they need more food.

So more food is sent, and consumed, and ... you get the drift.

On the other hand, the "Multiplier Effects" from a road, or railway, or power generation project had on a nation is much more than mere food.

A road where there was no road before will ease the travel for people from town A to town B. The more people travel, the more businesses get generated, and the more businesses there are, the more people are involved in commerce - and the more skill they gain from dealing in trade.

It's all intangible - but the cumulative effect of infrastructure projects far surpass that of food aid.

The amount of foreign aid China is giving out may not be much, but if you figure in the "Multiplier Effects", what China did (and is doing) in Africa can have a longer-lasting and much more beneficial effects to the African continent than the food aid from the West.

Deborah Brautigam said...

Sorry about the Global Times link -- not sure what happened there, and I no longer have the original link. If anyone can find it on the www, please let me know.