In the shadow of the rising dragonq book

Over the last decade China has undergone a transformation After the dark days of the Cultural Revolution it has emerged as one of the twenty first century s most powerful economies with millions of citizens now entering the middle class Yet despite these rapid changes China s human rights record remains abysmal and a heavy shroud of secrecy protects the one party system from accountability In In the Shadow of the Rising Dragon Chinese citizens from all walks of life share their stories of brutality and oppression While inconceivable in the West public beatings grueling official questioning unexplained detentions and house arrest have become common place occurrences requiring only a minor infraction to set into motion Those that dare to push the boundaries of the totalitarian regime including one essayist s visit to the human rights activist Chen Guangcheng are sentenced to life long imprisonment subjected to physical and psychological torture and frighteningly made to disappear What emerges is a pattern of harassment directed not at opposition figures but ordinary citizens who live in crippling uncertainty of their future Edited by two Chinese scholars both of whom have experienced surveillance control abduction and detention this is a probing and revealing look at life under the police state of the world s most populous country In the Shadow of the Rising Dragon Stories of Repression in the New China