Ben Chu is Policy and Analysis correspondent at BBC Verify. Previously he was Economics Editor of Newsnight, the BBC's flagship news and current affairs programme. He is also the author of Chinese Whispers: Why Everything You’ve Heard About China is Wrong
Books.
Coming on 5 June 2025
Exile Economics
The dangerous race for self-sufficiency has begun. Be warned.
Nations are turning away from each other. Faith in globalisaton has been fatally undermined by the pandemic, the energy crisis, surging trade frictions and swelling great power rivalry. A new vision is vying to replace what we’ve known for many decades. This vision - Exile Economics - entails a rejection of interdependence, a downgrading of multilateral collaboration and a striving for greater national self-sufficiency.
The supporters of this new order argue it will establish genuine security, prosperity and peace. But is this promise achievable? Or a seductive delusion?
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Through the stories of globally traded commodities – from silicon to steel and from soybeans to solar panels - economics journalist Ben Chu illustrates the intricate web of interdependence that has come to bind nations together - and underlines the dangers of this new push to isolationism. Exile Economics is an essential guide to this new world in all its promise and peril.
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Available in all good book stores and online
'Chu's smart, iconoclastic portrait dismantles seven misconceptions about modern China and offers a corrective to Western assumptions.' New Statesman
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THE CHINESE ARE THE MOST HARDWORKING PEOPLE ON EARTH...
So why are the younger generation derided as spoiled and lazy?
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CHINESE PEOPLE DON'T CARE ABOUT POLITICAL FREEDOM...
So why is the country's internet exploding with anti-regime dissent?
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CHINA WILL ONE DAY RULE THE WORLD...
So why do the country's political leaders feel so insecure?
Perhaps it is time to stop engaging in a centuries-old game of Chinese whispers in which the facts have become more and more distorted in the telling.
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Ben Chu examines the myths that have come to dominate our view of the world's most populous nation, forcing us to question everything we thought we knew about it. The result is a penetrating, surprising and provocative insight into China today.
Radio.
Listen to Ben's documentary on the strange death of cultural originality from January 2025
Listen to Ben's documentary on private equity from June 2023
Listen to Ben's documentary on Chinese students in the UK from February 2022
Listen to Ben's programme on where money gets its value from from October 2021
Listen to Ben's documentary on the welfare state from November 2020
