Delusional defence of Beijing.
China Incorporated: The Politics of a World where China is Number One
Kerry Brown
Bloomsbury, £20, 208 pages
In an October 1939 radio address, Winston Churchill described Russia as “a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma”. I would not necessarily use those words to describe China today, but I would use them to summarise Kerry Brown’s new book, China Incorporated. It is like a sieve – a superficially solid structure with a lot of holes in it.
The fact that it is enthusiastically endorsed by Martin Jacques, former editor of Marxism Today, who joined the Communist Party of Great Britain at the age of 18 and has been one of the most vociferous defenders of the regime in Beijing, should sound alarm bells, although respected Oxford scholar Rana Mitter lends it some legitimacy with his endorsement.
