Newswise — In preparation for the Olympics, China has spent an estimated $42 billion, a record-breaking sum that is only a fraction of China's $4 trillion gross domestic product, according to the Wall Street Journal. While this big government spending is emblematic of China's explosive economic growth, the emerging capitalist economy in that nation is largely fueled by millions of small off-the-books transactions made each day by back-alley entrepreneurs, operating independently of Communist Party oversight or support, according to Kellee Tsai, a professor in the Department of Political Science at Johns Hopkins University and author of Capitalism without Democracy: The Private Sector in Contemporary China and Back Alley Banking: Private Entrepreneurs in China (both published by Cornell University Press). As a result of her years of research supported by the National Science Foundation, Tsai can talk with reporters about the political implications of capitalism in China and the pressure from the West to adopt democracy. She can also discuss the importance of informal institutions in private-sector development and the political influence of private entrepreneurs.
Links:A podcast with Tsai (scroll down to November 2007)http://www.jhu.edu/news/podcasts/
Tsai's Web sitehttps://jshare.johnshopkins.edu/ktsai1/web/
Link to the Wall Street Journal article referenced abovehttp://online.wsj.com/public/article/SB121614671139755287.html?mod=Sports90_5
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