China Fast Forward: The Technologies, Green Industries and Innovations Driving the Mainland's Future

“China Fast Forward is the first book examining the underlying structure of whether China will become an innovative nation. Bill Dodson provides us with thorough research and insightful analysis on a topic that will define the future of China.”
—Helen H. Wang, author of The Chinese Dream: The Rise of the Largest Middle Class and What It Means to You

“Few issues are as important to China’s economic future as innovation. Bill Dodson’s timely and thought-provoking study, backed by extensive on-the-ground research, offers fresh insight into the challenges China will face as it tries to become more innovative. It is a vital read for anyone doing business in China.”
—Alexandra Harney, author of The China Price

“In this wide-ranging, vividly-written and clearly argued book, Bill Dodson takes on one of the most important questions of our age: Having emulated the West in many crucial technologies, can China now go a step further and innovate its way beyond the hard ceiling that constrains global development? From renewable energy, sustainable cities and green transport to the spread of the internet and civil society, Dodson explores the potential for China to spark a new technological revolution. His sobering conclusions will be of interest to businessmen and policymakers alike.”
—Jonathan Watts, author of When a Billion Chinese Jump

“China Fast Forward clearly illustrates how China has strategically integrated the technologies and industries of other countries to grasp at the mantle of Innovation Nation. The book shows through research, interviews and anecdote how a 21st-century China can become an even more formidable force in the world when it unleashes its own innovation engine.”
—Oded Shenkar, Ford Motor Company Chair in Global Business Management, Professor of Management & Human Resources; author of The Chinese Century: The Rising Chinese Economy and Its Impact on the Global Economy, the Balance of Power, and Your Job and Copycats: How Smart Companies Use Imitation to Gain a Strategic Edge

“China Fast Forward is an important book. Amidst mostly unchecked hype of China’s global economic and technological ascent created in the maelstrom of mainstream Western media, Bill Dodson urges the reader to take a harder look.?? Dodson artfully weaves his first-hand observations from a decade of living and working in China with well-researched facts and figures to provide a compelling account not only of China’s technological aspirations, but how the realities of China’s social polity and ecological constraints will likely frustrate the fulfillment of such aspirations.?? The reader is left with a fuller appreciation of the enormous challenges that China faces in its longstanding quest for modernity.”
—Julian Wong, Esq., founder and editor of The Green Leap Forward Blog

“How China got to where it is today and the challenges that lie ahead thanks to the path taken so far are laid out in fascinating style by Dodson, from just about every corner and niche of the People’s Republic. The juggernaut faces many speed bumps of its own creation if it is to continue its rise.”
—Sam Chambers, author of Oil on Water: Tankers, Pirates and the Rise of China

Everyone knows that China is on the fast track to becoming a truly international superpower, but can it maintain its success? Endless horror stories—from tainted pet food to railroad disasters—severely undermine the nation’s aspirations and, as a result, China now finds itself at a critical juncture: it can adopt a more sustainable approach that will allow it to continue as a dynamic powerhouse, or it can fall far short of its incredible potential.

In China Fast Forward: The Technologies, Green Industries and Innovations Driving the Mainland’s Future, China business expert Bill Dodson takes an in-depth look at the sustainability challenges facing the country as it works to become a global economic leader. Exploring the Chinese approach to innovation—which relies heavily on reverse-engineering foreign technologies, rather than encouraging domestic creativity—and the ways in which heavy industry and new brands are being leveraged to build international standing, the book incorporates personal anecdotes and interviews to bring modern China vividly to life.

If the country is to continue to develop, it needs to improve its ability to generate cleaner, more efficient energy to power its booming industries. China is already moving away from fossil fuels and towards sustainable resources that will allow for true energy independence, and this book shows how, by embracing alternative sources and beginning to address pollution concerns, the country is coming to grips with the value of green power.

China’s path towards superpower status is littered with obstacles. Government intervention is a constant threat to real progress, but the country is meeting global challenges on a scale that few nations can match. As China ponders how to respond to the impediments to its potentially golden future, China Fast Forward takes a look at what lies ahead, and why China’s successes and failures hold important lessons for us all.