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The wacky hilarity that can only happen when 1980s corporate America tries to sell Jeeps in China

A retrospective review of Beijing Jeep, James Mann's classic tale of clashing business cultures

Looking back, maybe Las Vegas wasn’t the best environment for high-level negotiations over the future of a floundering joint venture between Detroit stalwart American Motors Company and their Chinese partner, Beijing Automotive Works…

This month’s entry for the China Books Review Archives is James Mann’s 1989 account of what happens when unbridled enthusiasm for the China market and low-cost manufacturing triumph over common sense and basic math.

Read the full review

In 1983, the Detroit-based American Motors Corporation (AMC) signed a joint venture agreement to produce Jeeps in China. AMC executives had dreams of a low-cost manufacturing hub and early access to potential Chinese automobile buyers. “Everyone salivates when they think of the China market,” AMC Chairman and CEO W. Paul Tippett, Jr., told The Wall Street Journal at the time the deal was signed.

There was (at least) one problem. The average cost of an entry-level AMC jeep in 1983? About $7,000. The average annual salary in the People’s Republic? About $350.

In a decade that gave us questionable business decisions, including New Coke, the DeLorean, and banks loaning Donald Trump money to build casinos in Atlantic City, AMC’s venture stands out for its collision of bad math, divergent aspirations, and intercultural misunderstandings.

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China Books Review Associate Editor Alexander Boyd joins me to talk about the China Archives project, what we can still learn from Mann’s book in this time of fluctuating US-China trade tensions and the rise of China’s EV industry, and great China reads for this summer.

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