R
ather than the usual focus on China’s spectacular economic growth since the 1980s and the new markets it opens for Western capital, this wide-ranging collection of voices from within China provides a forceful and timely corrective by examining the burgeoning superpower’s systemic human rights abuses and the very mixed results of economic “liberation” for the average Chinese without political reform. Editors Hom (executive director of the NGO Human Rights in China) and Mosher (editor of its journal) gather writings from activists, scholars, journalists, former government officials and artists—much of it culled from online sources and translated here for the first time. These accounts starkly unmask deep-seated corruption and the ironfisted tactics of China’s ruling class, while revealing rising individual and collective resistance. Five sections, headed by poignant verses and succinct introductions, cover ordeals on many fronts—like the government’s cynical suppression of publicity about AIDS cases, its plundering of natural resources and forcible relocations (leading to mass unrest like 2004’s uprising against the Pubugou Dam project), rising teen prostitution and the Internet’s role in a fledgling civil society—as well as personal expressions of spiritual revolt from Falun Gong and Christianity to protest art. Often fascinating and eloquent, these analyses, reports, testimonials and poems paint a vivid portrait of the challenges facing China and the world as its nearly 1.4 billion citizens increasingly lay claim to basic human rights. (June)
