Short Synopsis
In The Myth of Chinese Capitalism, Dexter Roberts brings to life the problems that China and its people face today as they attempt to overcome a divisive system that poses a serious challenge to the country's future development.

Full Synopsis
The untold story of how restrictive policies are preventing China from becoming the world's largest economy

Dexter Roberts lived in Beijing for two decades working as a reporter on economics, business and politics for Bloomberg Businessweek. In The Myth of Chinese Capitalism, Roberts explores the reality behind today's financially-ascendant China and pulls the curtain back on how the Chinese manufacturing machine is actually powered.

He focuses on two places: the village of Binghuacun in the province of Guizhou, one of China's poorest regions that sends the highest proportion of its youth away to become migrants; and Dongguan, China's most infamous factory town located in Guangdong, home to both the largest number of migrant workers and the country's biggest manufacturing base.

Within these two towns and the people that move between them, Roberts focuses on the story of the Mo family, former farmers-turned-migrant-workers who are struggling to make a living in a fast-changing country that relegates one-half of its people to second-class status via household registration, land tenure policies and inequality in education and health care systems.

"Tenacious reporting that seeks to expose the murky underside of the Chinese miracle . . . [Roberts] has been following the main characters who people this book for nearly 20 years, which is a sort of perseverance that few other writers can match." -Financial Times

"A gimlet-eyed look at an economic miracle that may not be so miraculous after all." -Kirkus

"Roberts blends economic analysis with human-interest reporting in this probing and accessible examination of the current state of the Chinese economy . . . a clearheaded and persuasive counter-narrative to the notion that the Chinese economic model is set to take over the world." -Publishers Weekly

"In this skilfully wrought book . . . [Roberts] grounds his material in the stories of a single family of farmers turned factory workers, giving this big picture a close-angle lens. A splash of cold water for all the China bulls out there." -The Wire China, top choice for new China books