Let only red flowers bloom Identity and belonging in Xi Jinping's China

NPR correspondent Feng reported in mainland China for several years before being forced out, first by COVID-19 and then by accusations of being a "race traitor." Her first book perceptively analyzes the chilling conditions in the country today, particularly for those who don't adhere to what the ruling party considers to be "Chinese"--ethnically Han, heterosexual speakers of Mandarin Chinese and members of the Communist Party. Feng focuses on 12 individuals who break this mold as case studies illustrating how the country is rapidly moving in the direction of stamping out diversity. Her subjects include a Christian human rights lawyer, a Muslim scholar, a businesswoman in Inner Mongolia, a TikTok star who flouts his lack of ambition, and a protester in Hong Kong. The portraits of individuals anchor what could be an otherwise overwhelming examination of rapid cultural and political change, and even those with little previous knowledge of contemporary China will come away with new insights into the country and a deep understanding of Feng's sympathy for its citizens and her frustration with its leaders.

An inside look at Xi Jinping's China through the eyes of its discontents and dissidents. American journalist Feng traveled widely through China until being expelled in 2022; she now works from Taiwan. As she writes at the opening, "This is a book about identity, how the state controls expressions of identity, and who gets to be considered Chinese." Whereas Mao Zedong sought a big-tent sort of nation, officially recognizing 55 ethnic groups, Feng writes that current leader Xi Jinping considers only Mandarin-speaking Han Chinese to be real Chinese--and heterosexual ones, too, and loyal to his version of the Communist Party. One pointed example from her travels is a member of the Hui minority, who, notes Feng, are "visually indistinguishable from Han Chinese" and speak Mandarin; the difference is that many Hui are Muslim, and Xi considers Muslims to be enemies of the state, a view reinforced by a loyalist social scientist who champions fighting against "religious fundamentalism eroding Chinese secular mainstream culture." Treated even worse are visibly non-Chinese minorities such as Tibetans, Uyghurs, and Kazakhs, who live under "grid policing," a system of intense law enforcement scrutiny backed by numerous neighborhood informants. In this closely observed book, Feng profiles a civil rights attorney who has braved imprisonment for "subverting state power," entrepreneurs once encouraged by the Chinese government to grow wealthy in a booming economy but now targeted as antithetical to the state's ideology, and members of the Chinese diaspora in communities around the world, including the U.S., where Chinese students, fearful of government reprisal, actively censor critics of Xi and his policies. Those policies, Feng fears, are intended to produce a monolithic authoritarian state, a direction, many fear, that the U.S. will also take. Essential reading for anyone interested in geopolitics--or the world of the near future. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.