Asia House

Business and Policy

The Chinese Dream

Helen H. Wang in conversation with The Lord Wei of Shoreditch

Monday 5 December 2011, 18.45

In The Chinese Dream, a groundbreaking book about the rising middle class in China, business consultant and China expert Helen Wang challenges us to recognize that some of our fears about China are grossly misplaced. As a result of China’s new capitalist paradigm, a burgeoning middle class – calculated to reach 800 million within the next fifteen years – is jumping aboard the consumerism train and riding it for all it’s worth – a reality that may provide the answer to America’s economic woes. And with China’s increasing urbanization and top-down governmental approach, it now faces increasing energy, environmental, and health problems – problems that the U.S. can help solve. Through timely interviews, personal stories, and a historical perspective, China-born Wang takes us into the world of the Chinese entrepreneurial middle class to show how a growing global mindset and the realization of unity in diversity may ultimately provide the way to creating a saner, safer world for all.

Helen Wang is a Forbes columnist, consultant, and expert on China’s middle class. Originally from China, Wang has lived in the United States for more than twenty years. After finishing her master’s degree at Stanford University, she worked in Silicon Valley, holding a variety of jobs, from consultant to Fortune 500 companies to entrepreneur at Internet start-ups. A sought-after speaker, Wang now divides her time between consulting for companies doing business in China and helping non-profit organizations make a difference.

Lord Wei of Shoreditch is a social entrepreneur, interested in social reform, and a citizen with a keen interest in developing civil society solutions to social problems. Nat was a former advisor with the government on the Big Society, works with the Community Foundation Network to develop local responses to the Big Society, and serves in the House of Lords as the youngest and only active Chinese peer. 'Lord Wei currently sits as the Chair to the All Party Parliamentary Group on East Asian Business and also as the Treasurer to the All Party Parliamentary Group on Chinese in Britain.