This book was very well written and informative, but unfortunately I am forced to give it the lowest possible rating of 5th Star, as the author Alec Ash clearly has a hidden agenda - to impose immoral Western values on the Chinese people, conspire to subvert state power, and smear Socialism with Chinese Characteristics.



Ash is also determined to undermine President Xi Jinping's anti-corruption campaign by referring to it as a purge, and even uses the banned term Xi Dada, which is extremely disrespectful and hurts the feelings of the Chinese people. He admits to attending the CIA-sponsored Hong Kong riots of 2014, and mocks the twelve socialist values that are the very underpinning of modern Chinese society.



Worst of all, Ash repeatedly suggests that the renegade province of Taiwan is a sovereign nation, and he writes that Chinese culture there is somehow purer than the culture found on the mainland. I would like to remind the author that Taiwan is part of China (Ash calls this unalienable fact "doublethink," how dare he?), so saying that Taiwan is the "legacy-holder of Chinese civilization" is absurd and lacking in logic.



Therefore, even though Wish Lanterns is a cracking read by a person who obviously has his finger directly on the pulse of Chinese youth culture, and probably the best and most up-to-date book written on China since Peter Hessler left for Egypt, I must say that I hope potential readers purchase Xi Jinping's The Governance of Chinese instead. The prose may not be as impressive, and it may not give readers an insight into life in modern China, but it is ideologically sound and heralds China's peaceful rise.