Between 1996 and 2001 Ian Buruma travelled through the Chinese-speaking world and the US to meet China's dissidents and rebels, in order to see how they view contemporary China. The central question is to see how long China's Communist Party rule can feasibly last in the 21st century. Individual freedom diminishes the closer one gets to Beijing, but Buruma has succeeded brilliantly in bringing china alive as a society of individuals with their own (often suppressed) personal stories. The Chinese world is changing so fast that it's difficult to reach definitive conclusions as to its future, but what is certain is that China's future will play a vital role in the balance of world power.