China began opening to the outside world in 1978. This process was designed to remain under the state's control. But the relative value of goods and services inside and outside China drove cities, enterprises, local governments, and individuals with comparative advantage in international transactions to seek global linkages. These contacts, David Zweig asserts, led to the deregulation of China's mercantilist regime. Through extensive field research, Zweig surveys the extraordinary changes in four sectors of China's domestic political economy: the establishment of development zones, rural joint ventures, the struggle over foreign aid and higher education. He also addresses the crucial question of whether, on balance, internationalization weakens or strengthens state power.

China began opening to the outside world in 1978. This process was designed to remain under the state's control. But the relative value of goods and services inside and outside China drove cities, enterprises, local governments, andindividuals with comparative advantage in international transactions to seek global linkages. These contacts, David Zweig asserts, led to the deregulation of China's mercantilist regime. Through extensive field research, Zweig surveys the extraordinary changes in four sectors of China's domestic political economy: the establishment of developmentzones, rural joint ventures, the struggle over foreign aid and higher education. He also addresses the crucial question of whether, on balance, internationalization weakens or strengthens state power.

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In... his helpfully organized, largely plain-speaking and enlightening book, Mr. Zweig calls for far-sighted leaders and public-spirited citizens to struggle against the 'crony capitalism' that can undermine China's growth.

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Zweig has brought intellectual order to the chaotic process of China's opening to the world.

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Internationalizing China will appeal heavily to scholars and social scientists bent on dissecting the complex phenomena that swept over the Chinese economy in the 1980s and 1990s. And for businesspeople who lived and worked their way through these transformations.... Zweig's book will offer valuable insights and perspectives.

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Zweig shows how China avoided the disruptive Big Bang reforms that have proved so damaging in Russia and Eastern Europe. Zweig's study is also a warning to those in the West who naively imagine that China's market opening is going to lead inevitably to political reform.

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Zweig's goal is 'to explain the how and why of China's internationalization over the last two decades of the twentieth century' (p. 22). His efforts result in both a wealth of factual data and a model of internationalization that is suitable for use by other China scholars as well as by those studying other liberalizing societies.

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Zweig's study provides a helpful analysis and documentation of China's gaige kaifeng policies of the last quarter century, offering useful insights into the pull-push dynamics of local and external forces in the fields of local economic development, education, and development aid.