Four Decades of Upheaval: Chinese Enterprises, 1978-2018 (Complete in Three Volumes)

This box set contains three books: Ten Tumultuous Years: Big Waters, Big Fish and The Thirty Tumultuous Years (Volumes 1 and 2).

Introduction to Ten Tumultuous Years: Big Waters, Big Fish: “If you had to sum up the past ten years in one word, what would it be?” When I put this question to Professor Zhou Qiren of Peking University’s National School of Development, he replied, “Big waters, big fish!” The professor is known for using concise expressions to reveal profound truths. And indeed, the waters were big, and the fish were big. China’s rapidly expanding economy and ever-rising consumer power were like floodwaters spilling everywhere, restlessly seeking new boundaries. The areas hit hardest by the surge were just as anxiously grappling with the pressure and disorientation of change. This was reflected in conflicts between social classes and in the clashes and compromises among interest groups, as well as in China’s political and economic relations with the United States, Japan, the European Union, and its neighboring countries. In great waters, there are bound to be great fish.

Over those ten years, Chinese companies grew enormously. The number of Chinese companies on the Fortune Global 500 rose from 35 to 115, with four making the top ten. This was a decade of big waters and big fish for China, a decade of upheaval and change. For many people, its impact may have been even greater than that of the thirty years before it. In Ten Tumultuous Years: Big Waters, Big Fish, we follow the author’s words and relive a decade that changed everyone.

Introduction to The Thirty Tumultuous Years (Volumes 1 and 2): Every period of history has its own irreplaceable character, but China from 1978 to 2008 was uniquely impossible to repeat. In a country of 1.3 billion people, the rigid planned economy gradually fell apart. A group of ordinary people turned China into a vast testing ground, steering it irreversibly toward a commercial society under the gaze of the entire world.

Rather than writing this book in the style of a conventional textbook or history book, the author takes a grassroots perspective and vividly recounts how Chinese businesses entered the market and expanded abroad during the reform and opening-up era.