After four decades of learning by trial and error, the CCP has achieved total control over every aspect of society, including all resources, firms, and the population. This, along with its objective of “treating the entire nation as a chessboard” has propelled the CCP to run the country as a giant corporation. Living, working, and doing business in China is not a right, but a privilege granted by the party. To a great degree, state-owned firms are business units, state-related firms are subsidiaries, private firms are joint ventures, and foreign firms are franchisees of the party-state, with the party leader being the CEO of China, Inc. China, Inc. enjoys the agility of a business firm and the vast resources and capabilities of a state. The interplay between China and other countries is essentially a rivalry between a huge corporation and other countries. And the competition between a Chinese firm and a foreign firm can become a match between the Chinese state and the latter. This new perspective will help the international community reexamine global competition. It will also aid researchers to further explore this new phenomenon.

In 1976, Chinese Communist Party (CCP) Chairman Mao Zedong died, providing an opportunity for China to change his revolutionary course that led the country to ruin. In the late 1970s, the CCP changed course and began to open China to investment and trade. The democratic countries welcomed the change and engaged with China, hoping that economic development would lead to democratization. Forty years later, the Chinese economy has become the largest in the world, but democracy and the rule of law are still missing. This chapter provides an overview of the book. The author argues that, wielding its absolute and total control, the CCP has made the entire country into a giant corporation. China, Inc. has the agility of a corporation and the resources of a country, making it extremely competitive globally. However, China, Inc. also has its built-in contradiction: its need to close China from the democracies’ influence, and its reliance on the world’s openness to thrive. Based on the China, Inc. perspective, the author makes policy and strategic suggestions for the democracies and multinational corporations dealing with China.