The Last Correspondent: Dispatches from the frontline of Xi's new China

Written by Michael Smith

Narrated by Michael Smith

The ultimate insider's account: living and working in China in a period of unprecedented economic and social upheaval
It was just after midnight when China's notorious secret police came knocking.
A late-night visit to his Shanghai laneway house by China's notorious secret police triggered a diplomatic storm which abruptly ended Michael Smith's stint as one of Australia's last foreign correspondents in China. After five days under consular protection, Smith was evacuated from a very different China to the country he first visited 25 years earlier.
The late-night visit marked a new twist in Australia's 50-year diplomatic relationship with China which was now coming apart at the seams. But it also symbolised the authoritarianism creeping into every aspect of society under President Xi Jinping over the last three years.
From Xinjiang's re-education camps to the tear-gas filled streets of Hong Kong, Smith's account of Xi Jinping's China documents the country's spectacular economic rise in the years leading up to the coronavirus outbreak.
Through first-person accounts of life on the ground and interviews with friends as well as key players in Chinese society right up to the country's richest man, The Last Correspondent explores what China's rise to become the world's newest superpower means for Australia and the rest of the world.
‘Michael Smith's account of his time as a journalist in China makes for riveting reading. I learned so much about the texture of life as a foreign correspondent in this enormously complex, often mystifying and rapidly changing nation. For Australians who want to learn more about our giant neighbour but don't want to pick up an academic tome, you couldn't do better than let Michael Smith take you on his kaleidoscopic journey of discovery.' CLIVE HAMILTON, author of Silent Invasion
‘Smith's account of his three turbulent years in China is a compelling, entertaining, racy read. He has a laser-like eye for the apposite anecdote drawing on extensive conversations with eyewitnesses living through these momentous historic events. Importantly, he lays bare the fibres of the twisted knot of bilateral relations between Australia and China.' DR GEOFF RABY, Australian Ambassador to China 2007–2011
‘A lively, colourful and revealing book both about China and his own experience of the country, which is full both of excitement, admiration, adventure, horror, and, finally, an escape in the most frightening circumstances.' RICHARD McGREGOR, Lowy Institute



‘An important contribution to understanding China from a must-read China correspondent.' MELISSA ROBERTS and TREVOR WATSON, co-editors of The Beijing Bureau

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wavesound from W. F. Howes Ltd
• Release date: Aug 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9781004057870

Michael Smith

Michael D. Smith was raised in the Northeast and the Chicago area, then moved to Texas to attend Rice University, where he began developing as a writer and visual artist. The seven novels in his Jack Commer science fiction series, The Martian Marauders; Jack Commer, Supreme Commander; Nonprofit Chronowar; Collapse and Delusion; The Wounded Frontier; The SolGrid Rebellion; and Balloon Ship Armageddon, are published by Sortmind Press. In addition, Sortmind Press has published his literary novels Sortmind, The Soul Institute, Akard Drearstone, CommWealth, Jump Grenade, and Asylum and Mirage.Smith's web site, sortmind.com, contains further examples of his novels and visual art, and he muses about writing and art processes at blog.sortmind.com.

Reviews for The Last Correspondent

[Jigar Shah · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Interesting account from an on the ground inside the country experience of an outsider.