Bleak realities in the shadow of China’s rise

In May 2022, Joanna Chiu won the Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for her debut nonfiction book, China Unbound: A New World Disorder (Hurst, November 2021). A well-versed reporter on Chinese affairs around the globe, she weaves into the book years of her professional and personal experiences that make the reader feel they're on the right vehicle to discovery. Divided into three parts, China Unbound begins with a basic exploration of China's troubled history, progressing to its relations with the western world, and through it all, manages to keep its grip firm on the "human consequences" of China's global ascent to dominance.

Although an economic giant,, China has staggering income inequality. While the Chinese Communist Party supported businesses and entrepreneurs with grants and tax concessions, the poor were made to bear the brunt. This, coupled with an endless crackdown on civil society, ensured the poor's inability to mobilise against the CCP. For instance, to build a heritage park in Chikan in 2007, the government asked the residents to sell their properties and leave. The compensation they were supposed to receive "was nowhere near enough". When they protested, they were arrested and jailed briefly. Layoffs and factory closures induced resentment in the working class as China became a more technology-oriented economy from a manufacturer-based one. Chiu knows that such a reality of income inequality is not exclusive to China. Their troubles are not restricted to the economy, however.

From abundant security cameras with facial recognition technology to "high-tech sunglasses" with the ability to scan through crowds to unhindered access to biometric data, China's surveillance measures have constructed an Orwellian society "where people don't expect much privacy". In this society, the CCP demands utmost devotion from all citizens. So much so that even religion is seen as a threat.

In this spirit, Chiu acquaints us with an underground church lying low from the CCP's eyes. As if to compete with this particular dimension, Chinese surveillance strategy has gone borderless by harnessing the power of technology and social media. "Beijing leaders truly feel anyone of Chinese descent is fair game and they have a right to curtail their freedom of speech years or even generations after they settled abroad", Chiu writes of China's ghostly presence in the lives of Vancouver residents of Chinese origin whose social media likes, posts, or participation in certain events triggered the CCP. What makes it more frightening is the fact that when the residents reluctantly choose to complain to their mayor, "they want the blinds closed".

China's famous Confucius Institutes also play an instrumental role in its surveillance policies across the globe. Since 2004, these institutions have been promoting the Chinese language and the culture's popularity by collaborating with educational institutions worldwide. Allegations of harassment, academic censorship, and spying from the CCP agents have been levelled at these institutions. In a hideous case, we see Dan, a Chinese student in Canada, alarming the CCP agents by criticising the government on Twitter (anonymously). They threatened his family back home. One police officer even reached out to him on WeChat asking him to delete the "offensive posts" or face repercussions.

In a more ominous version of economic coercion, Chiu shows how the Uyghurs' (the ones who have fled to Türkiye) fate hangs in limbo. As China and Türkiye's economic relations continue to prosper, experts fear the possibility of the Turkish Government's betrayal of the Uyghurs. In 2020, China ratified an extradition treaty with Turkey (although Turkey is yet to ratify) for "counterterrorism" purposes. But Chiu echoes the critics' suggestions that China's vague definition of counterterrorism might as well negatively affect the innocent Uyghurs in Turkey.

This review cannot do justice to the extensive research that has gone into the book and neither can it capture the sprawling, multidimensional essence of the topic with Chiu's invaluable insight. Besides illuminating the bone-chilling dystopian tactics of the CCP, the book shines in contextualising China's foreign policy by underlining relevant bits of history (such as China's liking for Russia as an anti-American entity). It also strikes in its humane approach by producing before the reader real victims with real sufferings beyond the blurriness of statistics and numbers. My only longing from China Unbound would be for an account of the human impact of China's presence in Africa, given the continent is a major recipient of Chinese infrastructural aid.

Shah Tazrian Ashrafi is a contributor.