Ben Chu
Journalist
Economics Editor of The Independent and freelance writer and broadcaster
Ben Chu is Economics Editor of The Independent, the UK's largest quality digital news brand, and a freelance current affairs broadcaster. In 2019 he spent a year as economics editor of BBC Newsnight, a period for which the programme was named Daily News Progamme of the Year by the Royal Television Society TV journalism awards. He is also the author of Chinese Whispers: Why Everything You’ve Heard About China is Wrong
Writing.
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Television.
Selected films and reports for BBC Newsnight - RTS Daily News Programme Of The Year 2019
Radio.
Listen to Ben's recent documentary for the BBC World Service
Listen to Ben's Indepenent podcast on the economics of the Covid-19 emergency
Books.
'Chu's smart, iconoclastic portrait dismantles seven misconceptions about modern China and offers a corrective to Western assumptions.' New Statesman
THE CHINESE ARE THE MOST HARDWORKING PEOPLE ON EARTH...
So why are the younger generation derided as spoiled and lazy?
CHINESE PEOPLE DON'T CARE ABOUT POLITICAL FREEDOM...
So why is the country's internet exploding with anti-regime dissent?
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.
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.
