Imagine that you live in a freedom-loving, liberal city, one of the important centres of the business world and then you find yourself in a repressive, totalitarian regime. This has, unfortunately, been what has happened to Hong Kong. China promised that Hong Kong and China would be’one country, two systems,’ maintaining important freedoms when the handover occurred in 1997. As Michael C. Davis writes, it has failed to keep these promises, becoming more and more repressive and hollowing out democratic institutions, such as the courts and the media. Finally, the National Security Law was introduced in the ultimate crackdown, making people scared to oppose the regime in the face of stiff penalties and seeing an unsurprising exodus of people fleeing the city for democratic countries. This is bad for business and tourism as well. The ‘glittering city’ has gone silent. I have visited Hong Kong in the past and liked it so I find this an incredibly sad story. In fact, I was there about eight years before the handover and many of the people were trying to leave. They knew what could happen!

This is an excellent forensic examination of how freedoms can be taken away, unless we guard them. ‘The price of freedom is eternal vigilence,’as Thomas Jefferson so wisely stated.

I received this free ebook from NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Unfortunately, I approach this text with a critical lens due to its apparent bias and potential toxicity.

Right from the start, the introduction of this book details its certainty, claiming that readers will easily learn "who are the heroes and who are the villains of this extraordinary story." Such a definitive stance raises red flags, suggesting a predetermined agenda rather than a balanced exploration of complex issues.

Look, I’m not an expert of Chinese relations or politics, but neither am I clueless. However, as an author, writing a book about these things, I find it baffling that you believe your book is so true and covers so many points of views and so much history that you’ve managed to come to the ultimate truth of who’s evil and who’s good. I understand being on one side, or even biased in real life (politically active), but this gives me the nervous impression from literally page one that this book solely exists to convince me, to tell me all about China being evil, and not to give me a detailed account of China and Hong Kong relations and allow me to decide for myself who’s evil. Maybe I started reading this book with the wrong idea of what to expect, because I genuinely wanted to learn about the history and politics of China and Hong Kong, and then make my own opinions along the way.

If your research is detailed and true enough, you won’t need to reiterate so many times in the introduction how bad I’m going to think China is. As readers, we can read, we can think for ourselves.

Throughout the text, the language used reveals a clear bias and preconceived judgment, painting China as the unequivocal antagonist and employing emotive language to depict its actions as inherently evil, with no particular cause. It is very black or white, which in this century is such a decision.

Professor Davis's impressive academic credentials do little to alleviate my concerns about the book's objectivity. While his expertise may lend credibility, the pervasive bias evident in the text calls into question the integrity of his analysis and the reliability of his conclusions.

As readers, it is essential to approach such works with caution and skepticism, recognizing the potential harm they can cause to informed and constructive dialogue. And this goes for all non-fiction, even when there’s a clear “bad guy” or whatever, its ok to keep your writing pretty factual and neutral- because if the evil is evil enough, the facts will allow the readers to find this out themselves. As I said, readers aren’t stupid, and we are able to think and have morals even if we don’t have several PhDs and a thriving academic career.