The End of Copycat China: The Rise of Creativity, Innovation, and Individualism in Asia

Prologue

The stage lights beamed so brightly that I could barely see. I wiped the sweat beading on my brow and squinted to my left, where Dylan Ratigan, the host of his eponymous MSNBC show, sat readying to question me about China's changing economy and the release of my book The End of Cheap China: Economic and Cultural Trends That Will Disrupt the World.

On air, Ratigan hulks as a towering presence—physically imposing and unafraid to grill guests. In real life, Ratigan looms even larger, like an NFL linebacker. He rotated his head to gaze at me. The way he looked at me reminded me of a lion stalking prey.

I tried to hide my nerves. I had appeared on television many times before but never from 30 Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, where NBC records shows I had grown up watching, such as Saturday Night Live. I could not believe 18 hours earlier I had been home in Shanghai and now sat on the same stage many of the world's famous had sat. I saw Eliot Spitzer, the former New York governor caught frequenting $1,000-an-hour hookers, heading toward a green room to get his microphone. Was I really in 30 Rock, I wondered, or was I dreaming?

“On air in 3, 2, 1,” a stagehand yelled out, and I hurtled back to reality. The show aired a clip of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton musing about China–United States relations. She posed a question: “What happens when an established power and a rising ...