Who speaks for China? Is it the old men of the politbureau or an activist like Wei Jingshsheng, who spent eighteen years in prison for writing a democratic manifesto? Is China’s future to be found amid the boisterous sleaze of an electoral campaign in Taiwan or in the maneuvers by which ordinary residents of Beijing quietly resist the authority of the state?
These are among the questions that Ian Buruma poses in this enlightening and often moving tour of Chinese dissidence. Moving from the quarrelsome exile communities of the U. S. to Singapore and Hong Kong and from persecuted Christians to Internet “hacktivists,” Buruma captures an entire spectrum of opposition to the orthodoxies of the Communist Party. He explores its historical antecedents its conflicting notions of freedom and the paradoxical mix of courage and cussedness that inspires its members. Panoramic and intimate, disturbing and inspiring, Bad Elements is a profound meditation on the themes of national identity and political struggle.
- ISBN10 1588361322
- ISBN13 9781588361325
- Publish Date 11 December 2001 (first published 20 November 2001)
- Publish Status Out of Print
- Out of Print 31 March 2010
- Publish Country US
- Imprint Random House (NY)
- Format eBook
- Language English