Red Roulette: An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China
AuthorDesmond Shum
CountryUnited Kingdom
LanguageEnglish
SubjectBiography
Set inChina
PublisherSimon & Schuster UK
Publication date
2021
Pages320
ISBN1398509906
OCLC1236258870
920.051
LC ClassDS774.C3718
Website[1]

Red Roulette: An Insider’s Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today’s China is a 2021 memoir by Desmond Shum (ghost-written by John Pomfret).

James Palmer of Foreign Policy wrote that the work serves as "one of the very few insider accounts we have of how things get done at the top in China".[1]

Background

Shum's former wife Whitney Duan Weihong, under arrest and incommunicado since 2017, placed a telephone call to Shum telling him to cancel the publication.[1][2] Jude Blanchette of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) wrote in The Washington Post that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) attempted to use Duan and Shum's family as hostages to convince him to not go forward with publishing.[3]

Palmer explained that Shum, by writing the book and publishing it, went against the "omertà" of the CCP.[1]

Contents

The work discusses how doing favors for other people becomes the backbone of guanxi personal relationships in China, and Palmer stated the "tragedy of those ties" becomes an important thematic element.[1] The book states how Shum and Duan formed a corrupt relationship with Zhang Peili and became wealthy as a result. Blanchette stated that the Zhang Peili connection is in the "heart" of the work.[3]

Blanchette wrote that the CCP is depicted in the work as being "the epitome of capitalist excess".[3] Blanchette added that the work shows that actual decisions go through "informal interactions" between key power brokers, with official meetings being for show; he stated that this "highlight[s] the limitations of more formalistic analysis of China’s political system."[3]

In Red Roulette, Shum argues that CCP ideology only bent in the 1980s due to major economic pressures, and has since returned to Maoist principles.[4]: 248 

Reception

Palmer wrote in terms of the author's assessment of himself within the work, as Shum was someone previously pro-CCP who later turned against the party, "unusually honest—though not completely frank".[1]

Blanchette called the work "a remarkable indictment of the Chinese Communist Party" and "a rare bona fide insider account".[3]

Publishers Weekly gave the book a starred review and stated that the book has an "enthralling" critique of the CCP and "is imbued with an aura of inevitable tragedy".[5]

Kirkus Reviews described the book as "riveting".[6]

References

  1. ^ a b c d e Palmer, James (2021-10-02). "Inside the Seedy, Cutthroat Underbelly of China's Wealthy Elite". Foreign Policy. Retrieved 2021-11-26.
  2. ^ "'Red Roulette' Reveals The Inside Of China's Wealth-Making Machine". NPR. September 6, 2021. Retrieved 25 May 2023.
  3. ^ a b c d e Blanchette, Jude (2021-10-15). "An insider's view of China's Communist Party: Corruption and capitalist excess". The Washington Post. Retrieved 2021-11-26.
  4. ^ Marquis, Christopher; Qiao, Kunyuan (2022). Mao and Markets: The Communist Roots of Chinese Enterprise. New Haven: Yale University Press. doi:10.2307/j.ctv3006z6k. ISBN 978-0-300-26883-6. JSTOR j.ctv3006z6k. OCLC 1348572572. S2CID 253067190.
  5. ^ "Red Roulette: An Insider's Story of Wealth, Power, Corruption, and Vengeance in Today's China". Publishers Weekly. 2021-08-25. Retrieved 2021-11-26.
  6. ^ "Red Roulette". Kirkus Reviews. 2021-06-25. Retrieved 2021-11-26.
Categories