Abstract
As a result of the corrupt accumulation of wealth by the top few, China's society has regressed to a worse state than anything Mao fought against; the allure of the World Trade Organisation is a golden fantasy that will exacerbate the divisive trends of the drive to free markets; crimes committed by peasants and workers on the scrap heap of socialism have gone from random acts of opportunism to organised attacks on wealth; many of those in power have the cash and the will to leave this sinking ship and should do so before they're locked in the hold.
So says the author of the most controversial book to be published in China in recent years. The essay from which this excerpt is taken appeared in the March 2000 issue of the journal Shuwu (House of Books). It sold out within ten days, only to be denounced by the propaganda department of the Central Committee of the CCP as a 'liberal' document guilty of 'inciting antagonism between the different strata of Chinese society'. He Qinglian was demoted from her editorial position at the Shenzhen Legal Daily and placed under domestic surveillance . She is believed to have left the country since. Her article continues to provoke intense unofficial discussion and has been compared to Mao's 1920s Analysis of Classes in Chinese Society as a gripping class analysis of contemporary China.