China: Triumph and Turmoil

What does the super-state stand for? Professor Niall Ferguson puts this question to everyone from newly minted billionaires in China’s megacities to survivors of the madness of Chairman Mao. His film looks in depth at how the vast apparatus of the Chinese state has always been called upon to overpower individual freedom for the higher goal of unity.

More people were killed under the revolutions orchestrated by Chairman Mao Zedong than by Hitler and Stalin combined. And yet this hardline communist and murderer of businessmen is revered in China as founder of a modern-day superpower. Why? Professor Niall Ferguson asks how China manages to live under a Communist system of government with a capitalist economy, and examines Mao’s legacy.

Cybercrime has been called ‘the largest transfer of wealth in human history’ with US companies losing around $250 billion a year – and growing anger has fueled a trade war with China. This episode explores the growing tensions between China and the West over allegations that the state has engaged in industrial espionage and hacking to steal Western business secrets and technological know-how.