China Incorporated

Kerry Brown is a "must read" on China at a time when so much of what we get is crassly pro- or anti-China. Brown knows the country best than most and has a thoroughly realistic and nuanced view on what the country under Xi Jinping means to the rest of the world. Highly recommended.

There is so much hostility to China across the Western government-media landscape that it is gratifying to find a British diplomat break from the suffocating consensus and acknowledge that many of China’s faults and sins are not all that different from those of their accusers and that there is virtue and value in some of their practices and policies. 

It is also refreshing to find someone working in the modern field paying attention to the traditional aspects of Chinese culture, as I myself have (translating various classics).  Having taught Chinese language and Asian history in university for 50+ years I… show more.