Trading With China Is Not Like Trading With Japan: A Cultural Comparison For Foreign Investors

The People's Republic of China has a growing trade surplus with the Western World which, with the United States alone, has increased from $23 billion to $29 billion, inspiring fear of another Japan in the making. She is a country with an authoritarian form of government, but in recent decades has pursued an “open door” policy on matters of trade. Many view this as a gradual conversion to a true free market economy. If that comes to pass, she will be the first Communist country to succeed in an apparent contradiction between political and economic philosophies.