Читать книгу Financial Cold War. A View of Sino-US Relations from the Financial Markets онлайн

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In my first year at university, with savings from part-time work and various entrepreneurial ventures, I opened an online trading account and began investing in the markets myself. It was in the middle of the Dot-com boom and I had some initial success but, ultimately, this was to lead to one of my first great lessons in the pitfalls of overexuberance. Nonetheless, my interest in financial markets wasn't extinguished.

As an undergraduate in Beijing in the 1990s, I got to experience first-hand how market reforms were transforming China. I witnessed the launch of Starbucks, Walmart and the trappings of American consumer culture in the country. A huge number of Chinese students aspired to post-graduate studies in the United States (US) and I was regularly asked by fellow students to help them study for the GRE English test, success in which was a prerequisite for acceptance to American colleges (although, frankly, most of them scored far higher than I would have done). At that time, it seemed to me that the ‘Chinese Dream' was pretty similar to the ‘American Dream' and, like many observers, I expected economic growth would ultimately lead to political reforms and a more liberal democratic society.