Buruma reports dramatically on exiles in California and religious dissidents in Beijing. He explores the tensions between cultural traditions and contemporary politics, illuminating Taiwan's transition from dictatorship to democracy and the handover of Hong Kong in 1997. Part travelogue, part analysis, Bad Elements illuminates the story of the Chinese opposition for Western readers who want to understand where China is headed.

"Bad Elements is a marvelous guided tour of the many worlds of Chinese free-thinking. We visit frustrated refugees in New Jersey, rebels turned evangelist in California, gadflies in the authoritarian duchy of Singapore, long-suffering campaigners for Taiwan independence, punctilious Hong Kong democrats, stubborn Tibetans, and many more. We meet mayors and cooks, professors and streetwalkers. We go from city to town to tiny village to cyberspace. Two common threads hold the resplendent variety together. One is the reliable presence of the tour guide, Mr. Buruma, whose sharp eye, arch irony, and underlying moral seriousness provide a consistent vantage point; the other is the character of the bad elements themselves, who, despite all the differences in their contexts and concerns, display a common ornerynes...