Penguin Speakers Bureau
Biography
Alexandra Harney’s book THE CHINA PRICE: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage is an insider’s look at Chinese factories and the human stories behind their ultra-low prices.
THE CHINA PRICE takes readers behind the headlines about made-in-China product recalls, toxic environmental pollut …
Read moreAlexandra Harney’s book THE CHINA PRICE: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage is an insider’s look at Chinese factories and the human stories behind their ultra-low prices.
THE CHINA PRICE takes readers behind the headlines about made-in-China product recalls, toxic environmental pollution, and the exploitation of villagers to explain the system that fosters these problems. It exposes the practice of using “shadow” factories to conceal labor abuses and documents the arrival of a new generation of workers who are standing up for their rights—with consequences for politicians, corporations, and consumers.
In the decade that Harney has been reporting on Asia, she has become an important voice on the global implications of business, politics, and social issues in this vitally important, dynamic region. From the disgruntled Chinese factory worker to the understaffed government official, she brings to life the people who make the news, providing insight that listeners and readers connect to on a personal level.
Harney is fascinated by the intersection of human stories and global themes, particularly the dispersion of manufacturing to developing countries, the international implications of our consumer behavior, and the role of multinational corporations abroad.
Harney has devoted her career to international affairs. She spent nine years as a reporter and editor at the Financial Times, covering China, Japan, and the UK, where she helped launch a flagship analysis section as the second-youngest editor to hold that position. When she joined the paper in Tokyo in 1998, she was the newspaper’s youngest foreign correspondent.
In addition to the Financial Times, Harney’s work has been published in international newspapers, websites, and magazines including Marie Claire, CNN.com, and Campaign. She has contributed to National Public Radio and the BBC World Service, and was a regular commentator, in Japanese, on Japanese television. She has addressed corporate groups and university audiences around the world.
Before joining the Financial Times, Harney researched Japanese defense policy at Tokyo University’s graduate school on a fellowship from the Japanese government and worked as an aide to Nakatani Gen, a Japanese politician who is a retired member of the country’s military. She is the winner of multiple scholarships to Japan and won the 2003 Sir Peter Parker Award for Spoken Business Japanese. Also a Mandarin Chinese speaker, she has been named a Young Leader by the National Committee on US–China Relations. The United States-Japan Foundation recently selected Harney to participate in their United States-Japan Leadership Program in 2008 and 2009.
A 1997 cum laude graduate of Princeton University with a degree from the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs, Harney was born in Washington, D.C., and now lives in Hong Kong.
Speaking Topics
- The China Price: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage
Over the past decade, we have come to rely on China for many of the goods we use every day. Almost all of the shoes and apparel we buy are imported, much of it from China. Our computers, DVD players, even our prescription drugs are either assembled in China or derived from ingredients produced there. The cheap prices of these goods have been a boon to consumers around the world. But that cheapness has come at a price, to China and to ourselves. While making goods for the world has pulled millions out of poverty in China, it has also left a tragic legacy of health and environmental problems around the world. After years of research and reporting on the ground in China, Harney shares her conclusions about the consequences, both in China and abroad, of our hunger for ever-cheaper goods.
- Behind the Headlines About Chinese Product Safety
Behind the headlines about dangerous Chinese exports lies a system where Western brands and retailers push their suppliers for goods at the cheapest price possible. In a world where a difference of pennies can make or break a deal and where law enforcement is lax, Chinese factory managers go to great lengths to survive. That can mean substituting sub-standard material, using unregistered “shadow” factories, coaching workers and falsifying records to hide long working hours, underpayment of wages, and unsafe workplaces. What can Western companies, consumers, and investors do to prevent these practices, which lead to product recalls, sweatshop conditions, and environmental damage, both in China and America? Is the “made in China” brand being used as a scapegoat for bad design and unrealistic demands from multinational companies?
- How China’s Migrant Workers Are Changing the World
The 200 million people who have come from the Chinese countryside to the cities to work are changing China and the world. They dominate China’s manufacturing, construction, and coal mining sectors and are an increasingly important political constituency. While most people think of these workers as a monolithic group, workers born after 1980 are sparking changes inside Chinese factories and in society at large. They are taking their employers to court, fleeing low-paying factories, and building lives in the cities rather than returning to the countryside. As China’s economy races ahead, young migrants are looking beyond the factory gates. Who are these “second generation” migrant workers, what do they want, and what do they mean for China and the rest of the world?
- The Future of “The China Price”
China’s manufacturing sector is in the grip of its most dramatic changes in three decades. The rapidly rising cost of raw materials and labor, new labor laws, a change in tax policy, a membership drive by the union, and the rise of a more assertive generation of migrant workers are forcing the China price inexorably higher. As the cost of Chinese-made goods on the shelves in America rises, and thousands of Chinese factories shut down, what is the future of Chinese manufacturing? What lessons will China’s factory managers have for those in Vietnam, India and other developing countries? Has China become a victim of its own success as a manufacturing power? And what are the implications for global trade and politics?
Featured Book
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THE CHINA PRICE: The True Cost of Chinese Competitive Advantage
"Packed with facts, figures and sympathetic portraits of Chinese workers and managers, Harney’s is a perceptive take on the world’s workshop."—Publishers Weekly
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