The End of Cheap China, Revised and Updated: Economic and Cultural Trends That Will Disrupt the World

REIN MASTERFULLY CAPTURES WHERE [CONSUMERS] HAVE BEEN AND WHERE THEY DREAM OF GOING. FORTUNE PRAISE FOR THE END OF CHEAP CHINA Brilliantly written. Financial Times Rein combines elegant writing and methodical research. Years of working in China have given him access to important players. Incisive interviews with billionaires, business executives, government officials, and migrant workers guide the pulse of the narrative . . . essential reading. USA Today Engaging. Full of vivid anecdotes from Chinese billionaires to senior party officials and even prostitutes. For any foreigners thinking about doing business in the Middle Kingdom, The End of Cheap China is a good place to start. Reuters Must–read. Consulting Magazine A lively read. Straits Times An inside look. Industry Week Compelling, engaging, informative. The Cayman Islands Journal Lively, well–written book. South China Morning Post Engaging, highly readable style with real–life examples from vast catalog of China research. For good measure, Rein wedded into Chinas elite, marrying the granddaughter of 1980s Politburo chairman Marshal Ye Jianying Asia Times

Prologue ix Chapter 1 Chinese Billionaires Outnumber American Ones 1 Chapter 2 Cheap Chinese Labor? Not Anymore: China’s Workers Are Demanding Better Pay and Better Conditions—And They Are Earning Them 19 Chapter 3 Stability Is the Key to Happiness: How China’s Government Thinks and Why It Acts the Way It Does 39 Chapter 4 The Modern Chinese Woman 63 Chapter 5 Why Chinese Consider Kentucky Fried Chicken Healthful: China’s Iffy Food Supply Chain Is Putting a Premium on Safe Food 85 Chapter 6 Understanding Corruption in China: What China’s Underground Sex Trade Shows about Its Government 103 Chapter 7 China’s Real Estate Sector: Boom or Bust or Something Else? 125 Chapter 8 Chinese Neo–Colonialism in Africa and the End of American Hegemony? 147 Chapter 9 China’s Educational Sector: Preventing China from Cementing Its Superpower Status 171 Chapter 10 What the End of Cheap China Means for the Rest of the World 189 Epilogue 203 Postscript 205 Acknowledgments 209 Index 211

SHAUN REIN is the founder and Managing Director of the China Market Research Group, a leading strategic market intelligence firm that advises Fortune 500 companies, private equity firms, and hedge funds about profiting in China. Millions read his weekly CNBC column on business in China. He regularly appears on Bloomberg TV, MSNBC, BBC, CNN, and NPR, and is often featured in The Wall Street Journal , the Financial Times , and the New York Times .