SOURCE: Tung, Timothy. “In Search of an Archetype.” New Leader 84, no. 6 (November-December 2001): 23-5.

In the following review, Tung offers a positive assessment of Bad Elements.

The title of Ian Buruma's new book [Bad Elements] is intriguing. Surely he is aware that “bad elements” (buliangfenzi) is a Chinese Communist term applied to all kinds of social malcontents, from political dissidents to common criminals. But his subtitle suggests a broad range of Chinese “rebels” both inside and outside China. Are we then to equate the politically disfranchised in Singapore and Taiwan with those silenced in China or exiled in the West who command the bulk of his attention?

A scholar and much-traveled journalist, Buruma has written extensively on Asia. In this analysis of the revolutionaries and democrats of greater China his facility in Chinese was invaluable, for it enabled him to engage almost every important political dissenter wherever he visited...