The Century of Xi: How China Shapes Our Future

How should we respond to China's growing influence? In The Century of Xi, Stefan Blommaert compellingly tells the stories we need to better understand what is happening to China. We in the West often look at China askew: communists who want to be capitalists and who are not so strict about human rights. The Chinese leaders turn up their noses at the criticism. China is determined to regain the grandeur it acquired over its long history. China's vision of the future goes much further than selling high-tech. The country wants to become a military superpower and a leader in space. It wants to assert its political and cultural influence worldwide. Last but not least, there is the New Silk Road, President Xi Jinping's hobbyhorse, with which he finances and implements major infrastructure projects in Asia, Europe and Africa. Stefan Blommaert (1958) has worked as a journalist for the news service of the VRT (then still BRT) since 1984. His interest in Eastern Europe and the Balkans led him to witness the dramatic upheavals and harrowing conflicts that took place there in the 1980s and 1990s. After the turn of the century, Stefan Blommaert shifted his focus to Asia. He was VRT correspondent in China from 2012 to 2014, and has continued to follow the region closely ever since.