Every year, millions of tourists visit China to admire the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and the numerous monuments left by a “5000-year-old civilization.” Sleeping in luxury hotels, shopping in modern malls, they stroll in the streets as if they were in New York or Hong Kong. Investors invest, sportsmen practise sports and professors give lectures – some even go to tea houses where beautiful hostesses introduce them to the subtleties of the various ways tea leaves can be enjoyed, helping them to penetrate the secrets of a centuries-old tradition. They are light years away from the tea drinking “ceremonies” described in Xu Youyu and Hua Ze's book about the encounters some ordinary citizens have with the Domsec (the creative translation of guo bao, domestic security). For some people in present day China, being invited for tea (some translate the expression by the neologism “to be “tea-ed”) has a very special connotation: it means “to have a conversation with the Domsec people” (who, like Italian carabinieri, always go by pairs). Those who are “invited” are part of a very small minority, and in most cases, they don't even know why they are being tea-ed. Many are not diehard activists who seize any opportunity to attack the post-totalitarian regime denounced by Liu Xiaobo. They don't take to the streets to request the end to the one-Party dictatorship. Most of the protagonists presented in Xu and Hua's book have only read a text they liked on the Internet, and had the ridiculous idea of putting their signature at the bottom of it. Signing Charter 08, the manifesto which asked for separation of powers, respect of the basic liberties and the establishment of a federation, wasn't, in their mind, a subversive action which endangered “Mr Wei Zhengguang” (an ironic name using official qualifications of the Great,” “Correct” and “Glorious” Communist Party), whose 83 million members rule the most populous country in the world. Some believed that Chinese citizens were allowed to express their thoughts, as long as they didn't use illegal methods to enforce them. They thought that the constitution protected their rights, and this is what they told those who questioned them. This showed a profound ignorance of the regime. Some were aware of the danger, but they decided to take their chance and face the consequences.

The stories told in this book are not anecdotes. They show that Domsec is an essential part of the system. The testimonies that Xu and Hua have gathered come from different parts of the countries and regard different persons. The Domsec agents’ attitudes vary according to times and places. The director Hua Ze was kidnapped violently, a black hood was put over her head, and she was detained and threatened by plainclothes officers who acted as thugs. Human Rights defender Teng Biao was also beaten by his kidnappers. But Ding Zilin's “minders” in Wuxi were afraid she might collapse and were careful to protect her health. Also, when journalist Wang Lihong was thrown into a cell, the guard asked her co-inmates to take good care of her because she was seriously near-sighted. Tang Xiaozhao, who was taken to tea because she had given an interview to the Washington Post after having signed Charter 08, said that “the atmosphere could be considered cordial and friendly.” Whatever the nature of their behaviour, the Domsec agents watch the activists whom they consider dangerous for the security of the State, and intimidate those ordinary citizens who dare sign “reactionary” manifestos.

With a wealth of detail and vivid accounts of these encounters with the Domsec, the book actually reveals much about the nature of the Chinese political system. Although many political scientists have praised its adaptability and its ability to provide sophisticated responses to social contradictions, and use the mild formula of “consultative authoritarianism” to qualify this system, In the Shadow of the Rising Dragon reveals another picture: as history has shown since the June Fourth (1989) massacre, the Party is not prepared to accept the existence of dissent, at least when it is expressed openly. Ordinary citizens who sign manifestos, petitioners who denounce abuses committed by local cadres, civil rights (weiquan) lawyers who defend the citizens accused of subverting State power are regarded as potential enemies. When they express their opinions on the internet, they are suspected of belonging to enemy organizations and are asked to denounce their accomplices. Wang Lihong was arrested during a dinner organized to celebrate Liu Xiaobo's Nobel Prize. When she was “tea-ed”, the agents asked her to name the people who had taken part in this event, although they had the whole list. As they had brought posters with pictures of Liu, they asked her how the event was financed: “How much did it cost to make the posters? – 3 or 400 –Where did the money come from?” And later, for another weiquan action, “It must have cost a lot of money for so many people to go there. Where did the money come from? ... Who donated? … How much?” (p. 164). Money, in the agents’ minds, means that there is an organization, and they try to know how the networks function, in order to be able to “nip them in the bud.”

Better than a long article which describes the role of the weiwen organs and explains that the Communist Party won't tolerate the existence of an organized political group, the book, through concrete testimonies, shows that, despite the official discourse on the rule of law, ordinary citizens do not enjoy any protection and are at the mercy of the police once they dare express their disagreement with the Party.