Necessarily I wrote it simply to please myself, and while I hoped others would like it also, I had little assurance they would. For my writing a textbook aroused great hostility. Junior professors were not supposed to write textbooks. Well, I chose not to follow that path. One might observe that the future development of China is heavily dependent on foreign investment.
International business is increasingly important to the development of the local Chinese economy.
An understanding of the financial markets and contracts prevalent in Europe, Japan, and the United States should be considered an essential prerequisite for any Chinese business manager. Of course the markets tolerate amateurs, but usually not in a way amateurs would like. A second reason is intellectual. If China is to emerge from its economic isolation, it must understand what is happening in the rest of the world. And that includes understanding the often-baffling financial markets of the world.