Table of Contents

Map

Chronology

Introduction

Shùzì / Numbers

1. The Manipulation of Chinese Crime Statistics

Chu ngsh ng / Trauma

2: The Historical Patterns of Crime, Violence, and Trauma

Páichì / Exclusion

3: Transition, Inequality, and Exclusion: Two Kinds of People

Ji nshì / Surveillance

4: Big Brother, Big Bucks, and Big Data: The Chinese Surveillance State

Yánlì / Harshness

5: ‘Hard Strikes’ and Moral Panics: The Craze of Anti-Crime Campaigns

Zhèngyì / Justice 

6: Legal Hierarchies, Punitive Practices, and Changing Norms

7: Concluding Remarks

References

About the Author

Børge Bakken is Visiting Emeritus Fellow at the Department of Anthropology, School of Culture, History & Language, College of Asia & the Pacific, Australian National University.

Reviews

"Børge Bakken’s incisive analysis reveals China as a far higher crime society than fraudulent statistics suggest. As we turn the pages of this sophisticated book, we grasp the evolution of a society where “the rich get richer and the poor get execution”. This is a monumental contribution to comprehending the devolution of despotism and dissent. What Bakken describes is a surveillance capitalist authoritarianism produced by a Chinese Communist Party that learned from Western tech corporations."
John Braithwaite, University of Maryland  "An engagingly written, evidence-based account that demolishes long-standing myths about the nature of crime and punishment in China, not least the regime's efforts to systematically hide the widespread violence and soaring crime rates that lurk behind one of the world’s most unequal societies."
Frank Dikötter, University of Hong Kong