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Commentary
Wall Street Journal

“Sparks” Review: A War in Chinese History, Today

China’s government imposes a sanitized version of the nation’s past. But many individuals are working to undo its control of the historical record.

An A4 paper was seen held by a protester during the demonstration outside the Chinese embassy in London on December 5, 2022. (Hesther Ng/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)
Caption
An A4 paper was seen held by a protester during the demonstration outside the Chinese embassy in London on December 5, 2022. (Hesther Ng/SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty Images)

“Even in the darkest of times,” Hannah Arendt once wrote, “we have the right to expect some illumination.” Ian Johnson presents Arendt’s comment as the epigraph to “Sparks,” and appropriately so: It sounds the great theme of his illuminating book.

For Mr. Johnson, the darkest of times for China is right now—the period since the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949 under a Communist Party ruled by Mao Zedong. Today, Xi Jinping’s China is an authoritarian state with an aggressive foreign policy fueled by aspirations of world dominance. The economy is flagging, the population is aging, anyone who questions the “truth” as proclaimed by the party is subject to punishment, and modern surveillance technology allows Beijing, with its giant state apparatus, to spy on its citizens more intrusively than ever. “It is easy to argue that the leviathan has won,” Mr. Johnson writes.

Read more in the Wall Street Journal.