When Rudyard Kipling wrote: “Oh, the East is East and West is West and never the twain shall meet,” he was referring to the unlikely prospects for integration between the British and their colonial subjects in India and elsewhere. Today's East can be seen as China, while the West is represented by American and other western multinationals looking for access to the Middle Kingdom's lucrative market. In his book, American Wheels, Chinese Roads, Michael Dunne, a Detroit native and 22-year veteran of China, reveals how things are working out through the lens of General Motors, the leading foreign automaker in China. GM partners with the City of Shanghai to build and sell some 2 million cars a year. Is Shanghai GM a poster child for US-China relations or is it, as the Chinese like to say, a case of “sleeping in the same bed, dreaming different dreams”?
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