Introduction

In November 1992 The Economist declared China to be the world’s third or fourth biggest economy and growing much faster than those still ahead of it. Since then, many more journalists, backed by the wise thoughts of many economists, have flagged China as the world’s coming superpower and an economy due to overtake all others (Overholt 1993, Brahm 2001).1 A focus on journalism, such as this book provides, raises a number of doubts about these predictions because it obliges us to look beyond economics, at political institutions, social habits and culture too. However, the statistics are undoubtedly impressive.