Bookshop Barnie: Kerry Brown on China

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Everybody is talking about China. Whether it is the future of the global economy or the geopolitical fallout from Afghanistan, the capacity of humanity to deal with climate change or the question of human rights, China has become a major factor in almost every important debate.

From its twenty-century position as a communist pariah state, in recent years China has been lauded for its development, its economic dynamism, its alleviation of poverty, its urban transformation and its transport revolution, amongst other things. It has also been heavily criticised for its treatment of Tibet and Uyghur Muslims, and its use of economic power to win international influence. Increasingly, discussion of China in the West is dominated by suspicion. For a brief period, China was popular. However, in recent months and years it has becoming fashionable to dislike it again.

In 2015, the then-prime minister David Cameron proclaimed a ‘golden era’ of relations with China. Just five years later, Tory MP Tom Tugendhat called the Chinese leadership’s intentions to be ‘an attack on democracy’. His comments have opened up concerns about Chinese influence in the world. There are worries about Chinese investments, its interference in Western technology, its military build-up, its diplomacy with the Taliban, its treatment of Hong Kong. While a pre- and post-Brexit Britain was happy to do business with the biggest power in Asia, British politicians increasingly have to confront the reality that China is a one-party state resolutely pursuing its own interests.

So, is China a country to be trusted or to be feared? Is it a democracy in waiting, or increasingly authoritarian? Is China becoming the global superpower or retreating into national defence? Is it bringing development to the under-developed world, or tying them into unsustainable debt?

China, by Kerry Brown, provides a long view of the country’s development from its position as the world’s largest single economy in 1820, to the second-largest economy today. En route, it has gone through immiseration and famine; war and civil war; imperialism and communism. Fifty years ago, China was a rural, peasant economy; today, it boasts the rapid emergence of an educated, urbanised middle class. What is the impact on its leadership, its people and its national narrative?

Professor Kerry Brown has written 20 books on modern Chinese politics, has written for every major international news outlet, and been interviewed by every major news channel on issues relating to contemporary China. In this Bookshop Barnie, he will examine the foundations for contemporary Chinese society, but also discuss what likely scenarios there are for the future.

Bookshop Barnies are salon-type discussions that challenge the author to justify their work in front of an audience. Unlike most book launches where the most challenging task for the author is to sign so many autographs, Bookshop Barnies force them to take a stand for their ideas.