Shannon Conrad is an information specialist focusing on China and Tibet in the East Asian Research Division of the Voice of America.

hina Wireless Landscape is a fairly comprehensive wall chart of wireless activity in mainland China, excluding Hong Kong and Macao. Produced by ARCchart Ltd. and researched and designed in association with Beijing-based MFC Insight, the chart includes data through May 2002 and was published in September 2002. (The chart will be updated in September 2003.) All of the data is also available for purchase in a spreadsheet format. Overall, the chart provides a detailed yet easy-to-read visual snapshot of China's wireless technology market.

The chart's centerpiece is a map of China that lists data for each province: subscribers by global system for mobile communication (GSM), general packet radio service (GPRS), code-division multiple access (CDMA), and personal access services (PAS); primarily mobile service providers; monthly average revenue per user (ARPU); network construction contracts; and mobile penetration rate. A side chart compares the average provincial ARPU and total subscribers for each province.

A small but useful section of the chart is a series of pie graphs detailing equipment vendor network building contracts for each mobile technology: GSM, GPRS, CDMA, and PAS. A corresponding section on mobile handset providers would have been a useful addition. The final part of the chart lists China's telecom service providers and their ownership structures, including overseas listings.

—Julie Walton

Julie Walton is Business Advisory Services associate at The US-China Business Council in Washington, DC.

Hard Sleeper by Jennifer Scheel Bushman and Jean Artley Szymanski. Fort Bragg, CA: Lost Coast Press, 2003. 253 pp. $24.95 hardcover.

ard Sleeper, so named because the story is partially set in a Chinese hard-sleeper train car, is a gripping novel that addresses change, war, family, and mother-daughter bonds. The story unfolds in contemporary times, when an American documentary film producer, Pippa James, attempts to flesh out a documentary lead on a mother-daughter reunion in Chengdu, Sichuan. She is told that the mother, Jane McPherson, is an elderly American who has not seen her half-Chinese daughter, Di Meihua (Mei), for roughly 60 years. Jane, who was born and raised in China until she was 17, and Mei slowly share their life stories with Pippa over the course of a cross-country train ride.

Through a series of flashbacks, readers learn that Jane's parents were missionaries in Beijing in the 1920s and 1930s. After Jane's mother and father are murdered, Jane and her brother move to Shanghai to live with family friends whose lifestyles clash with their missionary upbringing. Because of their parents' unsolved murder—and several other unanswered questions—the novel quickly becomes a suspenseful, page-turning mystery.

The stories of the two women unfold against the backdrop of China in the 1930s, a period marked by the dominance of foreign concessions and other humiliating legacies of the Opium War, warlordism, poverty, internal strife, and the Anti-Japanese War leading up to World War II. Hard Sleeper details foreign missionary life as well as the life of swanky, party-hopping Western businesspeople in Shanghai. An American Sinophile who adopts Chinese ways and has many Chinese friends is contrasted with foreigners who live in China years without learning a word of Chinese. Chinese friends, missionaries, servants, communists, businesspeople, and gangsters are also portrayed. Race and class problems pervade the story. At one point, contemporary-era Jane questions whether feelings between foreigners and Chinese have changed over the decades or whether there is still underlying prejudice.

The story's main character, Jane, retains her positive outlook on life despite a series of devastating events, and when she looks back at her early years in China, she finds that "tragedy led to blessing"—a reference to her personal life and to China's history. But even with these positive affirmations, I was exhausted by the myriad of plot twists and personal tragedies.

All in all, Hard Sleeper is a fast-paced book that is suitable for a wide range of readers, including those with little knowledge of China (because Pippa is a China novice, ample historical background is provided). The novel will satisfy readers interested in China, history, and mysteries, among other subjects.

The authors—Jean Artley Szymanski, a former foreign service officer in Beijing, and Jennifer Scheel Bushman, who has lived and worked in several countries—wrote as a mother-daughter team. They undoubtedly worked closely over long nights on the book—a project that focused on mother-daughter relations. Adding to the weight of the personal tragedies in the book, Jean Szymanski died of breast cancer in 1998, shortly after the book's completion.

—Paula M. Miller

Paula M. Miller is assistant editor, The CBR.

 

	Research on China's Lost Tax Revenue by Jia Shaohua. Beijing: Finance and Economics Publishing House of China, 2002. 477pp. ¥32 ($3.87) softcover.

ecent studies by Chinese researchers have attempted to determine the amount of money lost to China's economy and government budget through smuggling, corruption, capital flight, and value-added tax rebate fraud. In 2002, the country focused unprecedented attention on a crackdown on tax evasion by individuals and companies. The crackdown has coincided with the publication of several studies that try to estimate the amount of money lost to tax evasion, of which Dr. Jia Shaohua's Research on China's Lost Tax Revenue has had the highest profile.

Jia, a professor of economics and presently director of the State Administration of Taxation's Yangzhou Tax Reform Institute in Jiangsu, has produced a comprehensive analysis of the losses caused by tax evasion in China. Jia defines tax loss as the revenues that should have been collected under current tax law and regulations from both individuals and companies but went unreported or uncollected. With examples and statistics, Jia estimates the extent of China's missing tax revenue by looking at the official "above-ground economy" data and unofficial underground economy estimates. Analyzing data from 1995 to 2000, Jia estimates losses of ¥371.7 billion ($44.9 billion) for the official economy and losses of ¥72.9 billion ($8.8 billion) for the underground economy in 2000. Among other trends, the chart shows that tax loss from personal income tax has been increasing every year as more earners pass the ¥800 ($96.76) monthly income level, the level at which income tax kicks in. Jia estimates that ¥73.2 billion ($8.8 billion) of personal income tax was lost in 2000, two-and-a-half times the amount thought to have been lost in 1997.

Jia then analyzes the reasons for tax loss by employing game theory and budget maximization models. He suggests that tax evasion in China results from an irrationally designed system, which encourages individuals and enterprises to avoid paying taxes. He says that the lack of supervision, monitoring, and even basic collection mechanisms is preventing tax collection at adequate rates.

The third part of Jia's study offers comparisons with other countries that have addressed similar difficulties in tax collection. He introduces practices used in developed countries, as well as in Hong Kong and Taiwan, to produce a list of 12 recommendations to reduce tax evasion in China. The recommendations include tightening supervision of invoices and payments, developing professional tax auditors, raising penalties, and improving the quality of tax administrators. Jia concludes his book with measures the Chinese government should take to control tax evasion, including strengthening the rule of law and educating the public about the benefits they receive from paying taxes.

With the crackdown on tax evasion by celebrities and the recent institution of a revised Law on Levying and Collecting Taxes and its implementing rules, Chinese officials seem to be taking Jia's advice. Research on China's Lost Tax Revenue is a helpful reference for government officials and scholars interested in quantifying the magnitude of China's tax collection problems and seeking means to lessen China's fiscal woes.

—Brian Goldstein and Sharon Liu

Brian Goldstein is former research manager at The US-China Business Council in Beijing. Sharon Liu, a former intern at the Council's Beijing office, now works for KPMG.