But even a management consultant can demystify China. The author variously seeks to explain parallels between today's China and that of the Tang Dynasty (AD618-907) when the country was also extraordinarily open; the evolution of some shan zhai (or knock-off) companies into genuine innovators; and the business opportunities in China's fourth-, fifth- and sixth-tier cities, no fewer than 540 of which have populations between 500,000 and 2m. The slightly breathless style only partially detracts from the fact that Tse clearly knows China well and has a hundred interesting facts and opinions at his fingertips.

For example, he makes an excursion to a convenience store, which the author marshals as evidence that China is even more open to outside products and influences than the US. “Accompanying the western products Coke, Pepsi and Schweppes there are Japanese soft drinks made by Suntory, Kirin and Sapporo, Taiwanese flavours under the Uni-President label, and Hong Kong brands such as Vitasoy. Alongside the bottled waters, colas, and beers are teas, coffees, and soya milk drinks, plus ones made from fruits unfamiliar to most foreigners.” China is clearly a long way from the closed, paranoid society of the 1960s that denied Baum entry. Indeed, here is the brave new world of plenty that Wasserstrom identifies.

As Wasserstrom writes in a section on China's future, we don't know where China's rush for prosperity – the most important global development of recent decades – will end. We can't know for sure whether China will evolve into a democracy, or go to war to reclaim Taiwan. We can't know how it will deal with environmental destruction and endemic corruption. But what we can know, he argues, is that China's experience is not as “other” as is often made out. In assessing the ructions that are bound to accompany the birth of a huge economy and powerful nation, he advises, Americans could do worse than look at themselves.