China: Triumph and Turmoil

Synopsis

Three part documentary series in which Niall Ferguson explores China’s position as an emerging economic superpower, and its subsequent relationship with the rest of the world. He travels through China investigating how its vast population can live successfully under a Communist system of government with a capitalist economy. In the opening film, Niall shows how the apparatus of the state has been used to subjugate individual freedom in the name of unity. He also examines how centralised control has produced tensions that threaten to destroy this huge country. In part 2 Ferguson’s journey takes in Beijing, Mao Zedong’s birthplace at Shaoshan, the city of Chongqing and rural Anhui and hears from survivors of Chairman Mao’s regime, newly minted billionaires and Mao worshippers. Ferguson finds the way China is governed has some similarities to the way it was under the First Emperor. The third episode examines what China’s growing global presence and aggressive nationalism mean to all of us. China’s supercharged economic growth signals a shift in political power from west to east. We are increasingly dependent on China’s money to bail out our own fragile economies. But at what price? Ferguson looks at what it would be like to work in a Chinese-dominated world.

Language

English

Country

Great Britain

Year of release

2012

Year of production

2012

Notes

Broadcast on C4 in weekly parts beginnig 12/3/2012

Subjects

Economics; Geography; History; Politics & government

Keywords

China; economic geography; political geography

Credits

Contributor

Niall Ferguson

Distribution Formats

Type

DVD

Format

Region 2 PAL

Price

£19.99

Availability

Sale

Duration/Size

180 minutes

Year

2012

Sponsor

Name

Channel 4

Distributor

Name

4DVD

Web

http://www.channel4store.co.uk/ External site opens in new window

 

Available from retail outlets