Greatest Hits: Back to the Start

Moreover, Mexico has many entrepreneurs who are as Chinese as the most entrepreneurial Chinese. Mexico would not have exported $138 billion worth of goods to the United States in 2003 if that were not the case. And you have many rural Chinese who are no more advanced or productive than rural Mexicans. But on balance, when you add it all up, the fact is that China has become the hare and Mexico has not, even though Mexico seemed to start with so many more natural advantages when the world went flat. Why? This is a question Mexicans themselves are asking. When you go to Mexico City these days, Mexicans will tell you that they are hearing that “giant sucking sound” in stereo. “We are caught between India and China,” Jorge Castaneda, Mexico's former foreign minister, told me in 2004. “It is very difficult for us to compete with the Chinese, except with high-value-added industries. Where we should be competing, the services area, we are hit by the Indians with their back offices and call centers.” No doubt China is benefiting to some degree from the fact that it still has an authoritarian system that can steamroll vested interests and archaic practices ...»