These two books will help you understand China

Düsseldorf Anyone who wants to understand present-day China cannot ignore this book. It provides a glimpse into the mechanisms of strength. It is also interesting to read. It is a book on the inside. Desmond Shum tells of his career, which reads like a novel in itself: From Nowhere to Millionaire.

Shum works his way up tirelessly, first as a swimmer who nearly made it to the Hong Kong Olympic team. Later as an analyst for an American private equity firm expanding into capitalist China.

His breakthrough came in Beijing with Whitney Duan. He married an ambitious businesswoman who was closely related to the top of the Communist Party of China. They were so good friends with Premier Wen Jiabao’s wife that they called her “Aunt Zhang”.

They are expanding Beijing Airport with an international cargo terminal and building a Bulgari hotel in the city with a shopping center and offices. Shum is the businessman while his wife takes care of the finances.

Around the same time, Shum talks about the intertwining of politics and business. You even met Xi Jinping. Shum paints a picture of a “red aristocracy” unabashedly enriching herself in the boom. The businessman shows a feudal China in which the families of the political elite want to secure their position in power for generations at any cost.