Synopsis This book lays no claim to being an objective academic treatise. It is an advocacy piece, scrupulous regarding facts, but not too concerned about giving equal time or space to China's point of view, which, in any case, has become so unrelentingly pervasive as to be quite overwhelming. Regarding the question of objectivity itself, especially as it surfaces in most (especially academic) discussions on China, the book defers to the greater wisdom of Lu Xun, china's premier modern writer and supreme debunker of propagandists and poseurs. He said, Whoever thinks he is objective must already be half drunk.