Disguised as an ordinary Chinese, Pan sat in the back of a courtroom where he observed lawyers score human-rights points before hostile judges so astounded by what they heard that they withheld judgment for years rather than hand down party-pleasing verdicts. ‘But the authorities continue to hire thugs and criminals for the dirty work of assaulting and intimidating lawyers’.

What is beyond sad is the number of Chinese, Pan states, ‘who have been willing accomplices in the act of forgetting’ as long as they get richer. These are the Chinese — one meets them even in London — who label as criminal, China-hating or simply lies any attempt to call Beijing to account for the actions Pan says resemble those of the Mafia. These Chinese, many of them under 40, know nothing of the Cultural Revolution and often state that the Tiananmen killings were the fault of the troublesome demonstrators. They remember the Cultural Revolution, Pan says, ‘only with the kitsch of a Mao watch or a Red Guard theme restaurant’.

Blackwell Bookshop

Purchase your copy here, 10% off RRP