Five of the best books to understand modern China

It is the world’s second-biggest economy, the next big threat to global security and a country ruled by an authoritarian regime that is increasingly making its power felt beyond its borders. But the most important part of China is the population of 1.4 billion diverse, tricky and resilient people whose choices are often very distant from the decision-makers in Beijing. These books are an introduction to the forces that have shaped China’s recent past and the people living in its present. ***

Red Memory by Tania Branigan

What was the Cultural Revolution? The decade of mass killings, political purges and the ruthless assertion of power “is impossible to understand”, writes Branigan, the Guardian leader writer and former China correspondent. Nevertheless, it is central to understanding China today. Rather than focusing on a historical analysis of how such fervour and hatred tore across the country, Branigan focuses on the people whose lives were upended by that period of social remoulding. Crucially, she argues convincingly, the Cultural Revolution is not just a historical curiosity: its terror, and efforts to forget the depravity wreaked by campaign, continue to be felt.

***

Leftover Women by Leta Hong Fincher

When Hong Fincher first published her landmark book about gender inequality in China in 2014, China’s birthrate was 14 per 1,000 people. By January 2024, just after the updated 10th anniversary edition of Leftover

Women was published, that number had halved. Understanding why more and more women are rejecting the social and political pressure to become mothers also requires understanding why Chinese women are so disenchanted with marriage. In accessible, entertaining prose, Leftover Women guides the reader through the economic and social inequalities embedded in marriages in China that are so off-putting for increasingly educated young women.

***

The Souls of China by Ian Johnson

In this lively and fascinating book by a veteran chronicler of grassroots China, Johnson explores the inner and outer lives of the hundreds of millions of people who claim adherence to some form of spirituality under the shadow of the officially atheist Chinese Communist party. As well as the Christians and Muslims who have a particularly hard time expressing their religious beliefs – especially the latter group who have seen their mosques razed and