Professor Chow is a distinguished economist who is an elected member of the American Philosophical Society and the former chief of econometrics at Princeton University. His statements carry some weight. The key point of this book may be summarized in this sentence: "Hence the Chinese economy can be expected to generate about the same real GDP as the US economy in 1998 PPP terms in 2020." (p.103)

In other words, China will be an economic superpower rivalling America in 20 years' time.

Barring an unforeseen disaster - like an asteroid from outer space or World War III - Chow's prognostication may turn out right. What does that mean? Well, China will be resuming its former position as an economic superpower which it has occupied throughout history.

The most surprising and controversial part is Chow's contention that China's population is too small (chapter 11). He considers a number of factors in making this odd point, including arguments by Malthus and counter-arguments by Mao, as well as a number of intangibles (like the higher number of intellectual elites available from a larger population base). I think he goes wrong here, because he doesn't seem to have considered one serious fact: most of China is neither arable nor habitable - virtually useless - large though the country may be. What's more, the amount of usable land is getting less by the day, due to desertification from the north. China is bone dry.

Customers who are wondering whether this book is worth the price to invest in would do well to reflect on China's importance on the world stage. China is one-fifth of humanity and is exactly equal to America in territorial size. China has the world's third largest stockpile of nuclear warheads. (The Pentagon believes China's stockpile will quadruple in the next decades fully in line with its economic expansion.) China has a highly developed rocket and ballistic missile technology, and has publicly announced its intention to be the world's third nation to launch astronauts into space (to be realized in late 2003). China is one of the top ten oil producing countries, with larger proven crude oil reserves than America's (the largest in the Fast East - much larger than Indonesia's). China's relations with Muslim countries are excellent, and is probably the only major power to be popular among people of that faith. China has the veto on the Security Council. The WTO recently reported that China overtook Britain in 2002 as the world's fifth largest trader in goods and services, after the US, Japan, Germany and France. If the EU is counted as one unit, China is now the fourth largest trader. And according to the CIA World Factbook, China's economy is already the second largest in Purchasing Power Parity (the fifth largest in nominal GDP), and at $6 trillion it is 13% of the world's total.

Now Chow is telling us that China's rapid growth rate is an average of 7% per year for the next two decades, which is by far the fastest among the major powers (about twice India's, three times America's, and more than four-five times Europe's and Japan's).

In short, China is already a giant today (hardly the "modest" country as described by Bill Emmott of the Economist). People like Margaret Thatcher, Jack Welch and Paul Wolfowitz are already predicting China's rise to superpower status. And the economic transformation taking place there, fully and professionally detailed by Chow, will make it much bigger still. On top of all these, China today is also interesting because it is the oldest civilization among the major powers (America, China, Britain, Russia, Germany, Japan) and by far the biggest of the surviving ancient civilizations: Mesopotamia (Iraq), Egypt, Palestine, Persia (Iran), China, India.

Of course, China's per capita income will remain relatively low for the foreseeable future, but given the size of its population China will be a superpower long before it achieves American levels of income and standards of living - a prospect that is beyond the timeframe of this book.

Overall this book is excellent - serious and credible, without being excessively technical. It fills a big niche, and meets the needs of students, journalists, businessmen, Western observers and analysts alike. All of us should pay attention to the most significant event of the late 20th century and early 21st - the transformation of China's economy - and this book is an authoritative guide. It deserves 6 stars out of 5.