The Wire

Last week on The Wire, journalist John Pomfret spoke about his book, ‘Chinese Lessons’, in which he tells the stories of his Chinese friends and classmates, and how they were forced to watch family die, or betray them as part of China’s Cultural Revolution in the 1960s. Pomfret says that modern China is trying to pretend it all never happened and paints itself as a modern country – but in trying to cover up its past it has lost its soul. He told Annie Hastwell that as the Olympics approaches, the country is showing signs of feeing sensitive about criticism of its human rights abuses.