Since the mid-1980s, China has used industrial policies to try to build a 'national team' of large corporations that can challenge those based in the advanced countries. By the late 1990s, large advances had taken place in the operational mechanism of china's large firms. However, there has taken place a simultaneous revolution in global business systems. China's large firms are even further behind the global leaders than when they began their reforms.. Under the terms under which China agreed to join the WTO, it will rapidly be required to operate on the 'global playing field' in competition with the world's leading corporations. The increased gap in business systems between China and the advanced economies presents a deep challenge for China's business and political leaders.

This book presents the first in-depth case studies of China's large corporations under economic reform. It combines this path breaking research with systematic benchmarking of these firms against the world's leading corporations during the global business revolution. This book provides a unique insight into the interaction between China and the global business revolution. This process will be one of the central issues in international political economy in the early part of the twenty-first century.

PETER NOLAN is Sinyi Professor at the Judge Institute of Management Studies, University of Cambridge. He is the Director of the China Big Business Programme. This programme is built around in-depth case studies benchmarking large Chinese corporations against their global counterparts. Senior managers of leading global corporations and their Chinese counterparts, as well as senior government officials meet regularly using these case studies as the basis for the exchange of ideas on the development strategies of their respective businesses.