America Against America

Known as the single most influential public intellectual, in China Wang Huning is credited as being the “ideas man” behind each of President Xi’s signature political concepts. Visiting the United States in 1988 as a scholar, he recorded his observations in this memoir in 1991. Wang’s America records deindustrialization, rural decay, over-financialization, out of control asset prices, and the emergence of a self-perpetuating rentier elite; powerful tech monopolies able to crush any upstart competitors operating effectively beyond the scope of government; immense economic inequality, chronic unemployment, addiction, homelessness, and crime; cultural chaos, historical nihilism, family breakdown, and plunging fertility rates; societal despair, spiritual malaise, social isolation, and skyrocketing rates of mental health issues; a loss of national unity and purpose in the face of decadence and barely concealed self-loathing; vast internal divisions, racial tensions, riots, political violence, and a country that increasingly seems close to coming apart. The book argues that China (and the East) has to resist global liberal influence and China has to blend Marxist socialism with traditional Chinese Confucian values.