“China’s economy and people are evolving rapidly, but the underlying cultural blueprint has remained more or less constant for thousands of years.” ~ Tom Doctoroff
By Catherine Austin Fitts
At our family dinner table, my father would tell stories of living and working on the Burma-Chinese border under General Stillwell’s command during WW II. A portion of the University of Pennsylvania Hospital had been “lifted” by the US Army and sent to China. My father’s admiration for “Vinegar Joe” made The Stillwell Papers required reading in our home. It was matched by his admiration for the Chinese people. Stories of China wove threads of a fascinating people and places into our worldview.
I found myself in my second year of college studying geopolitics with a former US Ambassador to Laos who ran the third year abroad program. My classmates were headed to Paris, London and Rome for their third year abroad. Somehow Europe did not hold out the same fascination as China.
I headed in the opposite direction to Hong Kong to study Mandarin, the mainland still being off limits to Americans. After leaving Hong Kong in 1971, I did not return until 1997. Right before the British turned the colony to Chinese governance, Hong Kong was much changed. Shanghai and Beijing were growing and bustling. I was accompanied by an employee who was a PRC citizen, having attended MIT after participating in Tiananmen Square. It was quite an education to see the speed at which China was adapting to entrepreneurship and a market economy.
These experiences left me with a life long appreciation for China and its people. I am no expert, but have experienced enough that I am often surprised at what my fellow countryman sometimes say – pro and con- about the current and future Chinese role in the global economy and financial system.
China is joining the United States in the super power ranks. A successful relationship between the US and China leads to peace and prosperity globally. So the more we learn about each other, the more opportunity there will be.
One of my business partners lives in Pasadena. Noticing the extraordinary influx of Chinese families buying real estate in the area, he started to learn about his new neighbors. One day, he sent me a link to Tom Doctoroff’s What Chinese Want: Culture, Communism and the Modern Chinese Consumer with a message, “You must read this book!”
Doctoroff is CEO of Asia-Pacific for global advertising agency, J Walter Thompson. His resume describes him as follows: “Tom, born and bred in America’s Detroit and educated in Chicago, somehow took a detour to Hong Kong in 1994, then to Shanghai in 1998, and never quite made it back to the States.”
With two decades of business experience on the ground, Doctoroff has done a good job of describing the Chinese culture and worldview. He translates this understanding to the implications for politicians, business people and engineers who are interacting with the Chinese and their markets.
Even if you are not interacting with the Chinese directly, I recommend this book. The number of Chinese Internet users is now double the US population. We are connected – so let’s get to know one another.
