Description: In this book, Ian Williams tells the terrifying story of China's vampire economy and the single-minded and ruthless policy of the Party to bend economics and business to its own will. All this is part of realising President Xi Jinping's ambition of China becoming the world's pre-eminent economic, technological and military power.
Brief description: Ian Williams was foreign correspondent for Channel 4 News, based in Russia (1992-1995) and then Asia (1995-2006). He then joined NBC News as Asia Correspondent (2006-2015), when he was based in Bangkok and Beijing. As well as reporting from China over the last 25 years, he has also covered conflicts in the Balkans, the Middle East and Ukraine. He won an Emmy and BAFTA awards for his discovery and reporting on the Serb detention camps during the war in Bosnia. He is currently a doctoral student in the War Studies department at King's College, London, focusing on cyber issues.
Review Quotes: "A penetrating and chilling account of how and why China's rise to global economic dominance has been stopped in its tracks. Xi Jinping's surveillance state is incapable of making the changes necessary to deal with the fact that China's economic policies are unstable, unbalanced, uncoordinated and unsustainable. Now, as Ian Williams writes, we are faced with the problems created by China which is now post-peak rather than on the way up."--Chris Patten, Former Governor of Hong Kong, 1992-97