Uwe Behrens: Feindbild China. Was wir alles nicht über die Volksrepublik wissenFelix Brender

ASIEN – Nr. 158/159 (2021) pp. 226–27

Berlin: edition ost, 2021. 221 pp., 15 EUR (paperback)

Not least since Xi Jinping’s ascendancy, analyses of the “real China” have been selling like hotcakes. Behrens — one of the more recent iterations — grounds his text in the premise that media in the ever-so-elusive West grossly misrepresent China, painting a negative image of the country and failing to capture the positive development China has undergone. The stage set, Behrens ventures out to provide a different narrative of China, if not a more nuanced one, over a mere 200 pages. A logistics expert by training and profession, his findings rely on his experience as an entrepreneur in China spanning three decades: This is about the “real China”, not an academic treatise.