Michael A. Santoro, China 2020: How Western Business Can- and Should—Influence Social and Political Change in the Coming Decade

Excerpt

China is emerging as a leading economic and political force in the world. Despite tremendous transformation in the economic sphere, the social and political change many in the West have expected is slow in arriving to China. What role can, or should, the Western multinationals play in helping to define and solve China’s social problems? In his book China 2020, Michael Santoro argues that a major determinant in the evolution of the world’s power structure will be the response Western businesses have to China’s policies and regulations. While believing that Western corporations have a moral and ethical obligation to contribute to advancing Chinese democracy and human rights, Santoro contends that they also possess an extreme amount of influence over China’s reform path, and the way they exert this influence on China will help to define the country’s path leading to 2020. …