China Triumph and Turmoil

Season 12012

Niall Ferguson examines China's ascendancy, and asks what the future holds for the world's most populous country and its relationship with the rest of the world

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3 Episodes

E01 Emperors

Niall Ferguson shows how the vast apparatus of the Chinese state has always been called on to subjugate individual freedom to the higher goal of unity. Ferguson also examines how, on the other hand, centralised control produces tensions that threaten to destroy the country.

March 12, 2012

E02 Maostalgia

Niall Ferguson asks how China manages to live under a Communist system of government but with a thriving capitalist economy. The succession of revolutions orchestrated by Mao Zedong killed more people than Hitler and Stalin combined. And yet this hard-line communist and murderer of businessmen is revered in China today as the founder of a modern-day capitalist superpower. Why? To answer this question Niall travels from Beijing to Mao's birthplace at Shaoshan to the new supercity of Chongqing and to the rural backwaters of Anhui to track down survivors of the madness of Chairman Mao, newly minted billionaires and the Mao worshippers who believe tomorrow belongs to them. He finds the way China is governed is eerily similar to the way it was under the First Emperor. All the power lies in the hands of nine men with expressionless faces and what looks like the same hair dye - as unelected and as powerful as Emperor Qin.

March 19, 2012

E03 Superpower

Niall Ferguson asks what China's growing global presence and aggressive nationalism mean to all of us. China's supercharged economic growth signals a seismic shift in political power from West to East. We are increasingly dependent on China's money to bail out our own fragile economies.

March 26, 2012

China Triumph and Turmoil

E01 Emperors

E02 Maostalgia

E03 Superpower

Cat Watch 2014: The New Horizon Experiment

The Best Man

Jungle Mystery: Lost Kingdoms Of The Amazon

Bolek i Lolek wyruszają w świat

Restoration Road With Clint Harp

Hvad fejler Fuhlendorff

Dead By Dawn

Jurassic C.S.I.

Nectar en el cielo

Wonders of the Monsoon

The Lawless Years

Wheel Squad

The Bodyguards

Four Sisters of Kanoh Family

Treme Treme

E01 Emperors

E02 Maostalgia

E03 Superpower