Australian book publishers seem finally to have reached the same judgment on China which our companies made ages ago. They cannot afford not to be there - or, in the case of bookshops, not to have a current attempt to analyse China in stock on the shelves. Would that we devoted some of that mental attention to India, say, or Indonesia.
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Bill Birtles, the last ABC correspondent in China (2015-20) now adds his thoughts to that cluttered, uneven list, in which his title is distinctly peculiar. Imagine how prickly our reaction would be to any suggestion that there was one truth - inimitable, incontrovertible - about Australia, let alone to the notion that a foreigner on a relatively brief assignment was well-placed to explain us to the world.
Far more than Russia ever did, China deserves Churchill's back-handed compliment; the country still seems "a riddle wrapped in a mystery inside an enigma".
Readers will recall that Birtles was spirited out of China in September last year, after seeking refuge in the Australian Embassy in Beijing while diplomats negotiated his departure in an unprecedented standoff with China's government.
The book begins with his expulsion from China, including one especially dry remark from a State Security officer, who proposed "a nice slow chat".
Journalists are sometimes tempted to make themselves the story, but here Birtles offers his own sliver of insight into what might make the Chinese government worried or annoyed.
Birtles spent five years "rotating through a city of constant change, hoping to do justice to the slice of time I was lucky enough to experience".
This book certainly does justice to the demonstrations in Hong Kong, to which Birtles accords detailed, judicious commentary. He is also calm and considered in appraising "the great downward spiral" in Australia's relations with China.
The same thoughtful curiosity is applied to an excellent exegesis of why Xi Jinping never does not deliver any interesting speeches. A wry personal touch lifts the China analysis. Birtles describes one coffee as "a warm cup of potting mix". He laments the demise of Bookworm, "a little intellectual haven" in Beijing.
He supplies the surprising advice that Chinese cabbies can generally be relied on to tell you the people are not being heard. Readers will be particularly interested in China's handling of the pandemic.
Birtles left Wuhan "minutes before" the city locked down. He tracks deftly the way in which Xi has transformed covid from "a Chernobyl moment" into "something like a Sputnik moment".
No analyst knows the end of that story.
