Managing the China Challenge ─ How to Achieve Corporate Success in the People's Republic

Multinational corporations now look toward China with both trepidation and anticipation.The speed and scope of Chinese economic growth is changing the global distributionof power and resources, possibly to the detriment of the major industrial powers. But this same transformation presents tremendous opportunities for companies who understand China well enough to leverage both its accomplishments and its deep-seatedproblems for corporate benefit.

Longtime China scholar Kenneth Lieberthal brings to bear a unique combination of experiences as former top government official, political scientist, professor of international corporate strategy, and consultant. In Managing the China Challenge, he draws on his deep understanding of China's political and economic systems and the priorities of local and national leaders to illuminate the strategies foreign companies must master to succeed in the Middle Kingdom.

In straightforward language, using numerous concrete examples to support his ideas and recommendations, Lieberthal cogently presents not only how to benefit from doing business in China, but also how to avoid the serious risks that the endeavorentails. The implications Lieberthal lays out for corporate strategy are wide-ranging and critically important.

Kenneth G. Lieberthal is director of the John L. Thornton China Center and senior fellow in Foreign Policy and Global Economy and Development at the Brookings Institution. Before joining Brookings, he was a professor of both political science and business administration at the University of Michigan from 1983 to 2009. He also served assenior director for Asia on the National Security Council (1998?2000). Among his books is Governing China: From Revolution to Reform (W.W. Norton, 2nd edition in 2004).

Dominic Barton is the global managing director of McKinsey & Company. He was McKinsey's chairman of Asia, 2004?09, based in Shanghai.