Book Review: Red Roulette by Desmond Shum

As a detail of the typical corruption occurring within China over the past 25 years as it became a foremost geopolitical power Red Roulette is a solid education. Making clear that the entire system is grossly broken with the red elite trading influence and favors for wealth, Shum reveals his position in it all. He and his now ex-wife were at the center of influence peddling being close partners with the wife of China Premier Wen Jiabao for nearly two decades.

Parlaying such a personal relationship into sweetheart investment and development projects made Shum a millionaire hundreds of times over but did not protect him or his ex-wife from Communist inquisitions and eventually kidnapping and imprisonment for his former spouse (who was allowed to make a single phone call just prior to this book’s publishing in the middle of the night to Desmond asking him to stop its publishing…and then back into the gulag she went).

As political fortunes changed within China and Xi Jinping rose to power and now General Secretary for life and the hard(er) line Communists/Nationalists have risen in prominence, “reformers” like Jiabao and the Shum’s have been arrested, “disappeared” or kept to house arrest and silence. Once these useful idiots played their part in recovering China from the disasters that were the Great Leap Forward and Cultural Revolutions and the Red Second Generation (the Princelings or Crown Princes of the Communist Party) was firmly back in power (largely the offspring of original Communist revolutionaries) there was no need for soft players like Jiabao nor those with a capitalist or non-bloodline bent such as Shum…so off to the glue factory these people went.

Red Roulette is not a great piece of literature. It is stilted, sometimes boring, often self aggrandizing in its nature. It does however detail the inner workings of the relationships that make (made?) China work at its peak of uninhibited growth. Looking back now after the “disappearance” of Jack and Pony Ma as well as the breathtaking confiscation of their (and their shareholders) wealth by the Red Chinese, one only wishes that such a slap in the face to Western feelings about how much had not changed within China in recent periods had come earlier. Not that it wasn’t recognized—JP Morgan Chase had a policy for years of giving cushy positions and benefits to the “princelings” in order to gain access and favor in the Chinese market…they had just done so thinking that China had changed….corrupt, yes…but still playing by Western rules of similar glad handing corruption—local politicians giving concrete contracts to their cousin Bob for a new bridge style of unethical behavior. What is revealed here is something different. A truly Chinese “long game” of corruption and acquisition of unfathomable, global power to be concentrated in the hands of the Communist elite. Shum was played like a fiddle…as was his wife…and Jiabao…and the rest of the “reformers” that were the Chinese face to the West throughout the early ‘00s. Shum’s work comes 20 years too late and and may assuage his guilt over having made his bones because of the system but it comes across as far too little, too late.

Film Review: The Way Back

Well…if I’m being political…there certainly is a reason this film has gone unnoticed.

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You couldn’t find a more anti-communist film in today’s Hollywood. From beginning to end the Communist system and officials are endlessly demonized—and appropriately so. While part of Russia was busy trying to beat back Hitler, Stalin was also busy rounding up hundreds of thousands and shipping them off to Siberia where many would die simply for being an intellectual or merely suspected of having an opinion outside the Communist party line.

Over and over the film hammers home the removal of individual freedom in the Russian system. Over and over you are struck with the cruelty of the Communist system and its supporters.

The film itself was directed by a top notch filmmaker in Peter Weir (Gallipoli, Year of Living Dangerously, Dead Poets Society, Witness, Truman Show, Master and Commander: Far Side of the World, etc.) and it has A-list actors in Ed Harris, Colin Farrell and Jim Sturgess. All do solid work in their roles as Polish and Russian escapees from a Siberian gulag. Their foot based journey over 4000 km from Siberia to India is covered in detail taking them from snowy forests in Russia to caves and deserts of Mongolia. Never leaving their side though is the horror of being returned to the Communist system…and its that fear, less than that of the harsh prison that hangs over everyone. A system that turns wife against husband, brother against brother…one that strips individuals of all free will that is the bigger horror than any environmental danger.

This one likely goes on all “young conservatives” list of films to watch from the past 10 years. Its faults, and it has a few, is its length (at over two hours you FEEL the length of their journey) and externalization of danger as almost all conflict is vs. nature itself or vs. the Communist system. There is no person or object against which the characters really struggle…they just move from one poor environmental condition to the next, which makes for some pretty scenes on film but not overly thrilling.

Worth a watch. Might want to sit Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez down for a watch as well…