Empire of Lies: The Truth about China in the Twenty-First Century

Guy Sorman

Apr 2009 · Encounter Books

About this ebook

Before the totalitarian reign of Mao Zedong and his immediate successors, never in human history had an entire nation been under such intense surveillance. The Chinese not only had to speak alike; they had to think alike. Traveling to China regularly since 1967, and spending all of 2005 and 2006 there, Guy Sorman saw it all, and in this jaw-dropping book, he documents the horrifying stories of China through the 21st century. He shows how the Party's primary concern is not improving the lives of the downtrodden; it seeks power more than it seeks social development. It expends extraordinary energy in suppressing Chinese freedoms-the media operate under suffocating censorship, and political opposition can result in expulsion or prison-even as it tries to seduce the West, which has conferred greater legitimacy on it than do the Chinese themselves.

About the author

Guy Sorman is a leading French public intellectual and the author of twenty books on contemporary affairs, covering the five continents. He is a regular columnist for Le Figaro in France, the Wall Street Journal and City Journal in the United States, and other publications around the world. Mr. Sorman taught economics at the Paris Institute of Political Sciences from 1970 to 2000. He has held several public offices, including advisor to the prime minister of France (1995-1997) and deputy mayor of Boulonge, near Paris.