While the United States stumbles, an award-winning foreign correspondent chronicles China’s dramatic moves to become a dominant power.

As the world’s second-largest economy, China is extending its influence across the globe with the complicity of democratic nations. Joanna Chiu has spent a decade tracking China’s propulsive rise, from the political aspects of the multi-billion-dollar “New Silk Road” global investment project to a growing sway on foreign countries and multilateral institutions through “United Front” efforts. Chiu offers readers background on the protests in Hong Kong, underground churches in Beijing, and exile Uyghur communities in Turkey, and exposes Beijing’s high-tech surveillance and aggressive measures that result in human rights violations against those who challenge its power. The new world disorder documented in China Unbound lays out the disturbing implications for global stability, prosperity, and civil rights everywhere.

JOANNA CHIU is an internationally recognized authority on China, whose work has appeared in the Guardian, Foreign Policy, BBC World, The Atlantic, Newsweek, Quartz, Al Jazeera, GlobalPost, CBC, and NPR. For seven years she was based in China as a foreign correspondent, reporting for top news agencies such as Agence France Presse (AFP) and Deutsche Presse-Agentur (DPA), and in Hong Kong, she reported for the South China Morning Post, The Economist, and Associated Press (AP). In 2012 her story on refugees in Hong Kong won a Human Rights Press Award, and in 2018 her report on #MeToo cases in Asia was named one of the best Foreign Policy long-form stories. She is the founder and chair of the NüVoices editorial collective, which celebrates the creative and academic work of women working on the subject of China. She is currently a senior journalist covering China-related topics for the Toronto Star, Canada’s largest newspaper, and has previously served as bureau chief of the Star Vancouver. She speaks frequently at major events and conferences.

Joanna Chiu's profile page

• Winner, Shaughnessy Cohen Prize for Political Writing

Brilliantly researched and beautifully written.

The Globe and Mail

Chiu’s book is very well written and researched, with plenty of firsthand accounts from the author. I recommend the book for everyone interested in China.

Los Angeles Review of Books

China Unbound reveals Chiu to be an intrepid reporter and cogent analyst of Chinese politics and society … She has produced a valuable contribution to public debate, illuminating the enigmatic Chinese state which is characterized by repression at home and an ambitious agenda abroad.

Winnipeg Free Press

Joanna Chiu, a reporter for the Toronto Star, provides a powerful, heartfelt account of Chinese immigrants and their fraught encounters with Beijing’s United Front Work Department, a lavishly funded government agency that works with the Ministry of State Security. Chiu tells gripping stories of influence operations in such disparate places as Australia, Canada, the US, Italy, Greece, Turkey, and Russia … Chiu’s stories demonstrate in human terms just how formidable a task it will be to put the US and China on any kind of cooperative path.

New York Review of Books

Doggedly reported and fiercely argued, this cri de coeur offers essential insight into Beijing’s “aims and activities.”

Publishers Weekly