Rival Partners

“Rival Partners is a major contribution to the study of Chinese development and global capitalism. Weaving together rich materials on Taiwanese manufacturers, local Chinese officials, and migrant labor, Wu details how China’s export manufacturing model thrived and unraveled, leading to today’s crisis and transformation. It is a meticulous study of the rent-seeking and developmental dual characters of the Chinese state.”—Ho-fung Hung, author of The China Boom

“Based on decades of theoretically informed and expertly crafted empirical research, this book is an intellectual feast connecting shop-floor realities and local citizenship regimes to cross-strait relations and global political economy. A rare and singularly insightful Taiwan perspective on China’s rise.”—Ching Kwan Lee, author of The Specter of Global China and Hong Kong: Global China’s Restive Frontier

“Wu has written a magnificent monograph on the collaborative construction of development between two seemingly rivaling actors: Guangdong officials and Taiwanese entrepreneurs. It points to the significance of invisible coalitions in developmental theory.”—Nan Lin, Duke University

“Rival Partners explores export-oriented industrialization in China as a chapter of the post-war capitalist development of Taiwan. With its sharp research question and original argument combined with solid fieldwork, meticulous analysis, and comprehensive theoretical dialogue, Rival Partners is a milestone in our understanding of China as the world factory since the 1980s.”—Gwo-shyong Shieh, Academia Sinica, Taipei, Taiwan