China

China really is the biggest question of our time. In this new three-part series, Niall Ferguson travels through this vast country to ask how a fifth of humanity can live under a Communist system of government with a capitalist economy when according to all the laws of history it should fall apart.

He tracks down the people who can really explain what China stands for: from newly minted billionaires in China's megacities to the survivors of the madness of Chairman Mao; from aggressive young nationalists hacking in to our computers to the brave defenders of China's rural poor.

Ferguson looks at how this vast country has been held together for more than 2000 years firstly by imperial rule and now by an imperious Communist Party. He investigates the cult of Mao by asking whether this nostalgia is a form of mass delusion or if it really was Mao that built modern China.

And finally he answers the questions that should concern all of us: will this turn out to be the Chinese century? Should we be scared? Or will the Red Dragon crash and burn?

Production Company
Chimerica Media