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An insider’s account of the CCP’s stranglehold on China

A high-ranking intelligence officer leaves a cache of letters revealing his increasing disenchantment with the party after being purged numerous times

27 January 2024

9:00 AM

27 January 2024

9:00 AM

The Book of Secrets: A Personal History of Betrayal in Red China Xinran, translated by Will Spence

Bloomsbury, pp.320, 25

All families have secrets, but few family histories are classified by the state. After the death of Snow’s father, his study is cleared out by officials from the Chinese Communist party; but Snow discovers letters and unmarked hard drives hidden in hollowed-out dictionaries that they’d missed. The material reveals that her father was a high-ranking intelligence officer in the party, handpicked to build China’s intelligence service after the founding of the new People’s Republic.

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