Download or read book Enigma of China written by Qiu Xiaolong and published by Macmillan. This book was released on 2013-06-18 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The eighth novel in Qiu Xiaolong's acclaimed Chinese crime series sees Inspector Chen confronted by a terrible choice between Party politics or his principles - with his career at stake

Download or read book Enigma of China written by Qiu Xiaolong and published by Hachette UK. This book was released on 2015-07-16 with total page 262 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chief Inspector Chen Cao never had a choice about his career. A poet by training, he was assigned to the Shanghai Police Department after college. To his own surprise, he became an excellent detective, and now he's in line to take over the top political position in the department. Which is why the Party has chosen him for the investigation into the death of Zhou Keng. Zhou Keng was running the Shanghai Housing Development Committee when a number of his corrupt practices were exposed. Removed from his position and placed into detention, he apparently hanged himself while under guard. The Party is anxious to have Zhou's death declared a suicide, but the sequence of events doesn't quite add up. Now Chen will have to decide what to do - follow the party line, or seek the justice his position requires and risk angering powerful people...

Download or read book Hold Your Breath China written by Qiu Xiaolong and published by Severn House Publishers Ltd. This book was released on 2020-04-01 with total page 190 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Fascinating... Xiaolong writes with both urgency and grace about modern China is another well-crafted mystery" - Booklist Starred Review Inspector Chen is on the case of a serial murderer when he is called away to report on environmentalists trying to tackle the pollution issues in China. Chief Inspector Chen and Detective Yu Guangming are brought into a serial murder case when the Homicide squad proves incapable of solving it. But before Chen can make a start, he is called away by a high-ranking Party member for a special assignment: to infiltrate a group of environmental activists meeting to discuss the pollution levels in the country and how to prompt the government into action. Chen knows it will be a far from simple task, especially when he discovers the leader of the group is a woman from his past. Meanwhile, Yu is left to investigate a serial murder case on his own. Both Chen and Yu face pressure from those above to resolve the cases in a satisfactory way . . . even if that means innocents face the punishment.

Download or read book Death of a Red Heroine written by Qiu Xiaolong and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2003-07-01 with total page 445 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A TIME “100 Best Mystery and Thriller Books of All Time” Meet Inspector Chen of the Shanghai Police in this “refreshingly brave exploration into political China, woven around a tense thriller” (Huffington Post). “A matchless pearl.” —Maureen Corrigan, NPR’s Fresh Air A young “national model worker,” renowned for her adherence to the principles of the Communist Party, turns up dead in a Shanghai canal. As Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Special Cases Bureau struggles to trace the hidden threads of her past, he finds himself challenging the very political forces that have guided his life since birth. Chen must tiptoe around his superiors if he wants to get to the bottom of this crime, and risk his career—perhaps even his life—to see justice done.

Download or read book Don t Cry Tai Lake written by Qiu Xiaolong and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2012-05-08 with total page 273 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Dark, gorgeous...feels authentically Chinese and it works like a charm." --Washington Post Book World on A Case of Two Cities Chief Inspector Chen Cao of the Shanghai Police Department is offered a bit of luxury by friends and supporters within the Party – a week's vacation at a luxurious resort near Lake Tai, a week where he can relax, and recover, undisturbed by outside demands or disruptions. Unfortunately, the once beautiful Lake Tai, renowned for its clear waters, is now covered by fetid algae, its waters polluted by toxic runoff from local manufacturing plants. Then the director of one of the manufacturing plants responsible for the pollution is murdered and the leader of the local ecological group is the primary suspect of the local police. Now Inspector Chen must tread carefully if he is to uncover the truth behind the brutal murder and find a measure of justice for both the victim and the accused.

Download or read book Inspector Chen and the Private Kitchen Murder written by Qiu Xiaolong and published by Severn House Publishers Ltd. This book was released on 2021-09-01 with total page 212 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Chen Cao has been removed from his chief inspector role, but that doesn’t stop him investigating a ‘private kitchen’ murder that has similarities to a Judge Dee story. No longer a chief inspector, Chen Cao finds himself as director of the Shanghai Judicial System Reform Office. To outsiders it’s a promotion, but Chen knows he’s being removed from the spotlight as he’s immediately placed on involuntary ‘convalescence leave’ to stop him interfering with any cases. However, with various high-profile crimes making headlines and fears escalating over vigilante reprisals, Chen’s superiors know he must at least appear active. One case revolves around Min Lihau, a mingyuan, who runs a ‘private kitchen’ for powerful figures in Shanghai. Min’s accused of murdering her assistant, yet Chen is struck by its similarities to a historic case involving the famous Judge Dee. When an acquaintance of his is murdered in connection with Min, Chen knows he can’t stand idly by . . . but he must act in secret, under the cover of writing a Judge Dee novel.

Download or read book The Coming Collapse of China written by Gordon G. Chang and published by Random House. This book was released on 2001-09-15 with total page 368 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China is hot. The world sees a glorious future for this sleeping giant, three times larger than the United States, predicting it will blossom into the world's biggest economy by 2010. According to Chang, however, a Chinese-American lawyer and China specialist, the People's Republic is a paper dragon. Peer beneath the veneer of modernization since Mao's death, and the symptoms of decay are everywhere: Deflation grips the economy, state-owned enterprises are failing, banks are hopelessly insolvent, foreign investment continues to decline, and Communist party corruption eats away at the fabric of society. Beijing's cautious reforms have left the country stuck midway between communism and capitalism, Chang writes. With its impending World Trade Organization membership, for the first time China will be forced to open itself to foreign competition, which will shake the country to its foundations. Economic failure will be followed by government collapse. Covering subjects from party politics to the Falun Gong to the government's insupportable position on Taiwan, Chang presents a thorough and very chilling overview of China's present and not-so-distant future.

Download or read book Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China written by Ezra F. Vogel and published by Harvard University Press. This book was released on 2013-10-14 with total page 553 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Lionel Gelber Prize National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist An Economist Best Book of the Year | A Financial Times Book of the Year | A Wall Street Journal Book of the Year | A Washington Post Book of the Year | A Bloomberg News Book of the Year | An Esquire China Book of the Year | A Gates Notes Top Read of the Year Perhaps no one in the twentieth century had a greater long-term impact on world history than Deng Xiaoping. And no scholar of contemporary East Asian history and culture is better qualified than Ezra Vogel to disentangle the many contradictions embodied in the life and legacy of China’s boldest strategist. Once described by Mao Zedong as a “needle inside a ball of cotton,” Deng was the pragmatic yet disciplined driving force behind China’s radical transformation in the late twentieth century. He confronted the damage wrought by the Cultural Revolution, dissolved Mao’s cult of personality, and loosened the economic and social policies that had stunted China’s growth. Obsessed with modernization and technology, Deng opened trade relations with the West, which lifted hundreds of millions of his countrymen out of poverty. Yet at the same time he answered to his authoritarian roots, most notably when he ordered the crackdown in June 1989 at Tiananmen Square. Deng’s youthful commitment to the Communist Party was cemented in Paris in the early 1920s, among a group of Chinese student-workers that also included Zhou Enlai. Deng returned home in 1927 to join the Chinese Revolution on the ground floor. In the fifty years of his tumultuous rise to power, he endured accusations, purges, and even exile before becoming China’s preeminent leader from 1978 to 1989 and again in 1992. When he reached the top, Deng saw an opportunity to creatively destroy much of the economic system he had helped build for five decades as a loyal follower of Mao—and he did not hesitate.

Download or read book Mr Selden s Map of China written by Timothy Brook and published by Bloomsbury Publishing USA. This book was released on 2013-11-12 with total page 241 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the author of the award-winning Vermeer's Hat, a historical detective story decoding a long-forgotten link between seventeenth century Europe and China. Timothy Brook's award-winning Vermeer's Hat unfolded the early history of globalization, using Vermeer's paintings to show how objects like beaver hats and porcelain bowls began to circulate around the world. Now he plumbs the mystery of a single artifact that offers new insights into global connections centuries old. In 2009, an extraordinary map of China was discovered in Oxford's Bodleian Library-where it had first been deposited 350 years before, then stowed and forgotten for nearly a century. Neither historians of China nor cartography experts had ever seen anything like it. It was so odd that experts would have declared it a fake-yet records confirmed it had been delivered to Oxford in 1659. The “Selden Map,” as it is known, was a puzzle that needing solving. Brook, a historian of China, set out to explore the riddle. His investigation will lead readers around this elegant, enigmatic work of art, and from the heart of China, via the Southern Ocean, to the court of King James II. In the story of Selden's map, he reveals for us the surprising links between an English scholar and merchants half a world away, and offers novel insights into the power and meaning that a single map can hold. Brook delivers the same anecdote-rich narrative, intriguing characters, and unexpected historical connections that made Vermeer's Hat an instant classic.

Download or read book Decoded written by Mai Jia and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2014-03-12 with total page 320 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Decoded tells the story of Rong Jinzhwen, one of the great code-breakers in the world. A semi-autistic mathematical genius, Jinzhen is recruited to the cryptography department of China's secret services, Unit 701, where he is assigned the task of breaking the elusive 'Code Purple'. Jinzhen rises through the ranks to eventually become China's greatest and most celebrated code-breaker; until he makes a mistake. Then begins his descent through the unfathomable darkness of the world of cryptology into madness. Decoded was an immediate success when it was published in 2002 in China and has become an international bestseller. With the pacing of a literary crime thriller, Mai Jia's masterpiece also combines elements of historical fiction and state espionage. Taking place in the shadowy world of Chinese secret security, where Mai Jia worked for decades, it introduces us to a place that is unfamiliar, intriguing and authentic. And with Rong Jinzhen, it introduces us to a character who is deeply flawed and fragile, yet possessing exceptional intelligence. Decoded is an unforgettable and gripping story of genius, brilliance, insanity and human frailty. Mai Jia (the pseudonym of Jiang Benhu) is arguably the most successful writer in China today. His books are constant bestsellers, with total sales over three million copies. He became the highest paid author in China last year with his new book, Wind Talk. He has achieved unprecedented success with film adaptation: all of his novels are made - or are being made - into major films or TV series, the screenplays of which are often written by Mai Jia himself. He is hailed as the forerunner of Chinese espionage fiction, and has created a unique genre that combines spycraft, code-breaking, crime, human drama, historical fiction, and metafiction. He has won almost every major award in China, including the highest literary honor - the Mao Dun Award.

Download or read book Zhou Enlai written by Michael Dillon and published by I.B. Tauris. This book was released on 2020-03-05 with total page 337 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Enigmatic, Eminence grise, the 'power behind the throne' – these phrases sum up Zhou Enlai's long and varied, but always pivotal, political career in the Chinese Communist Party from the 1920s to 1970s. Born in 1898, Zhou witnessed several of the most important events in China's modern history and was a close associate of both the nationalist leader Chiang Kai-Shek and communist leader Mao Zedong, whom he served under as China's first premier from 1949 until 1976. Zhou was also a major ally of Deng Xiaoping – a source, for example, of major influence on his 'Four Modernizations' in agriculture, industry, science and technology, and the military. He was thus the prime architect of China's drive towards superpower status and one of the key determinants of China's central role in the modern world. Zhou does not conform readily to any of the stereotypes of communist leaders, Chinese or otherwise. Cultivated and urbane, he was a sympathetic and intellectual character, who was well-liked by non-communists, foreigners and his staff. He was one of the most complex figures in the politics of contemporary China, and certainly one of the most interesting, although his influence was never all that obvious. In this book, Michael Dillon restores him to his rightful place in history and analyses the role of a man who was 'a genuine statesman rather than just a political operator'.

Download or read book Shanghai Redemption written by Qiu Xiaolong and published by Minotaur Books. This book was released on 2015-09-15 with total page 319 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "The system has no place for a cop who puts justice above the interests of the Party. It's a miracle that I survived as long as I did." For years, Chen Cao managed to balance the interests of the Communist Party and the promises made by his job. He was both a Chief Inspector of Special Investigations of the Shanghai Police Department and the deputy party secretary of the bureau. He was considered a potential rising star in the Party until, after one too many controversial cases that embarrassed powerful elements in the Party, Chen Cao found himself neutralized. Under the guise of a major promotion, a new position with a substantial title but no power, he's stripped of his job duties and isolated. But that's still not enough, as it becomes increasingly clear that someone is attempting to set him up, for public disgrace and possibly worse. Chen Cao is technically in charge of the corruption case of a "Red Prince"---a powerful, high Party figure who embodies the ruthless ambition, greed, and corruption that is increasingly evident in the new China. This "Red Prince" has the kind of connections and power to deflect any attempts to bring him to justice. Now with no power, few allies, and with his own reputation on the line, the former Inspector Chen is facing the most dangerous investigation of his career, and his life.

Download or read book The Destruction of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy written by Nicolas Tackett and published by BRILL. This book was released on 2020-10-26 with total page 301 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Historians have long been perplexed by the complete disappearance of the medieval Chinese aristocracy by the tenth century—the “great clans” that had dominated China for centuries. In this book, Nicolas Tackett resolves the enigma of their disappearance, using new, digital methodologies to analyze a dazzling array of sources. Tackett systematically mines thousands of funerary biographies excavated in recent decades—most of them never before examined by scholars—while taking full advantage of the explanatory power of Geographic Information System (GIS) methods and social network analysis. Tackett supplements these analyses with extensive anecdotes culled from epitaphs, prose literature, and poetry, bringing to life women and men who lived a millennium in the past. The Destruction of the Medieval Chinese Aristocracy demonstrates that the great Tang aristocratic families adapted to the social, economic, and institutional transformations of the seventh and eighth centuries far more successfully than previously believed. Their political influence collapsed only after a large number were killed during three decades of extreme violence following Huang Chao’s sack of the capital cities in 880 CE. 2015 James Breasted Prize, American Historical Association

Download or read book The Columbia Guide to Modern Chinese History written by R. Keith Schoppa and published by Columbia University Press. This book was released on 2000-08-05 with total page 384 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: China, the world's oldest and most populous state, remains an enigma to most people in the West, even at a time when that country is playing an increasingly prominent role on the international stage. At the heart of modern Chinese history have been the efforts of the Chinese people to transform their polity into a modern nation state, the Confucian orthodoxy into an ideology that can help direct that process, and an agrarian economy into an industrial one. These efforts are ongoing and of great importance. This book is both an introduction to the major features of modern Chinese history and a resource for researchers interested in virtually any topic relating to the Chinese experience of the last 220 years. This valuable reference contains: a historical narrative providing a comprehensive overview of five core aspects of Chinese history: domestic politics, society, the economy, the world of culture and thought, and relations with the outside world; a compendium of 250 short, descriptive articles on key figures, events, and terms; a resource guide containing approximately 500 annotated entries for the most authoritative sources for further research in English, as well as descriptions of important films depicting modern China and a guide to electronic resources; and appendices, including a chronology, excerpts from key primary source documents, and a wealth of tables and graphs on demographic, social, and economic trends.

Download or read book China in Ten Words written by Yu Hua and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2012-08-21 with total page 242 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From one of China’s most acclaimed writers: a unique, intimate look at the Chinese experience over the last several decades. Framed by ten phrases common in the Chinese vernacular, China in Ten Words uses personal stories and astute analysis to reveal as never before the world’s most populous yet oft-misunderstood nation. In "Disparity," for example, Yu Hua illustrates the expanding gaps that separate citizens of the country. In "Copycat," he depicts the escalating trend of piracy and imitation as a creative new form of revolutionary action. And in "Bamboozle," he describes the increasingly brazen practices of trickery, fraud, and chicanery that are, he suggests, becoming a way of life at every level of society. Witty, insightful, and courageous, this is a refreshingly candid vision of the "Chinese miracle" and all of its consequences.

Download or read book Becoming Inspector Chen written by Qiu Xiaolong and published by Severn House Publishers Ltd. This book was released on 2021-02-01 with total page 217 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Inspector Chen is excluded from a poetry case as he awaits possible disciplinary action, leaving him to reflect on his career . . . but does his past hold a clue to the poetry case? After a number of grueling cases Chief Inspector Chen is facing mounting pressure from his superiors, many of whom are concerned with where his loyalties lie. What's more, he is excluded from an investigation into an incendiary poem posted on an online forum. Wracked with self-doubt and facing an anxious wait to discover the fate of his career, Chen is left to reflect on the events that have led to where he is now - from his amateur investigations as a child during the Cultural Revolution, to his very first case on the Shanghai Police Force. Has fighting for the Chinese people and the morals he believes in put him in conflict with the Party? Why is he being kept away from the new case? As well as his career, is his life now also at risk?

Download or read book China Coup written by Roger Garside and published by Univ of California Press. This book was released on 2022-08-16 with total page 256 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "Before the next National Congress of the Communist Party of China, due in November 2022, President Xi Jinping will be removed from office by a coup d'état mounted by rivals in the top leadership who will end the tyranny of the one-party dictatorship and launch a transition to democracy and the rule of law. The main body of this book, Part 2, explains why it will happen. Parts 1 and 3 tell how it may happen"--