Centre the dragon
A new analysis of the fire in China’s belly. And hinterland stories on who gets burnt
Image: PublicDomainPictures/ Pixabay
This Week Those Books is chock-full of crucial context — from fiction and non-fiction — to the shouty, doomscroll news cycle.
Go to this link for a quick read
The Big Story:
Much of the world is beating a path to China with some leaders visiting after nearly a decade as an erratic United States repels allies. Is China ready to take centre stage?
The roll call of visitors to Beijing is long:
- Keir Starmer arrives January 29 for the first visit by a British prime minister since 2018.
- Petteri Orpo flew in January 25 for the first visit by a Finnish prime minister since 2017.
- Ditto Mark Carney, who was there from January 14. No Canadian prime minister has been in China since 2017.
- Micheál Martin’s early January trip was the first by an Irish leader since 2012.
- Five months ago, India’s Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in China for his first visit since 2018.
- In February, Germany’s chancellor Friedrich Merz will be in Beijing.
- In April, Donald Trump promises to head over too.
Our first book challenges common perceptions of China:
“Too many outsiders see only the enrichment or the repression. Living there puts you face to face with both a sustained rise in living standards and the authoritarian pulses emanating out of Beijing. It became no contradiction for me to appreciate that things are getting better and getting worse. I saw how China is made up of both strong entrepreneurs and a strong government, with a state that both moves fast and breaks things and moves fast and breaks people.”
This Week’s Books:
- China has engineering feats; the US has lawyerly hold-ups.
- Short stories on those left behind by ‘progress’.
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Originally published at https://medium.com
