Introduction After it all, “I thought that China wasn’t as bad as Americans tended to think.” (182) That’s the conclusion of billionaire Desmond Shum, author of Red Roulette* – his autobiographical account of how he and his wife, Whitney Duan, rose from rags to riches in the go-go years of China’s developmental miracle. Whitney and the Road to Wealth Born in the late 1960s, during the Cultural Revolution, both Whitney and Desmond received a normal education as children. She then enrolled in a military university in 1986. (73) As an outstanding student, she obtained employment as an executive’s assistant in “a real estate development company run by China’s military.” (74) At the time, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) had numerous business interests, and Whitney started making connections with the elite among them. Later, the PLA was ordered to divest itself of these businesses as an anti-corruption measure by CCP General Secretary, Jiang Zemin in 1997. (75) The year before that, pe
Introduction* American perceptions of China lean towards the negative. Taking a morally judgmental stance, “Half of Americans now say China’s policy on human rights is a very serious problem for the U.S. – up 7 percentage points since last year. … And nine-in-ten Americans say China does not respect the personal freedoms of its people.” 64% of conservative Republicans view China as an “enemy” – far more than any other US group. Currently, 55% of Americans as a whole see China as a “competitor.” 34% agree that China is “an enemy.” And, a measly 9% regard China as a “partner.” [1] Yet, there is nothing in the way of the US and China seeing themselves as partners in trade and cultural exchanges, like the US sees itself with European countries; that is, nothing but misunderstanding. How China is like us – that is, we Americans I think it is very unfortunate that the American people understand China in the wrong way. The public’s understanding of China has been grossly distorted by the US m