The China of the 1990s is not exactly the same country as the China of today. It is the same place, and to some extent, the same people, but you could say the China of the 1990s was an entirely different world.

Perhaps the same is true for the author, as the chapters in this book, boldly entitled The Chinese, seem to be very different from what the author suggests in the introduction. There, the author writes that statistics in China are unreliable, nonetheless, each chapter of the book is studded with statistical data. Scandals and social problems described are quite typical of the 1990s, such as the countryside outbreak of AIDS caused by blood plasma recycling, and the popularity of qigong. In the introduction the author also writes that the book is structured as a pyramid, with many chapters devoted to describing young people, while the final chapters would be dedicated to describing the "ruling class" of cadres, but this structure is not discernable.

The material for the book was collected during the first five years of the author's stay in China, from 1995 - 2000, and the book was first published in 2002. It is the typical kind of journalistic writing, that relies heavily on limited sources claiming universality, hence the pompous title of pretending to be a book describing "The Chinese", a country of 1.3 billion people a tremendous diversity. As many such books, the undertone is hostile and critical at best.

The book is very boring to read, and by now quite outdated. ( )

long time Chinese correspondent writes about the Chinese people--beginning with the peasants, and moving up the classes of people including the cadres at the top and the private businessmen. Becker lets the Chinese speak for themselves, has many contacts and esposes many myths about China as understood as truths by many Americans. I learned a lot.