Ian Williams has attracted a lot of attention with his critical commentaries on China in publications such as The Spectator in London and a lengthening list of books. His latest, &lsquo;Vampire state &ndash; The rise and fall of the Chinese economy&rsquo; was published last year and described as a &ldquo;hard-hitting expos&eacute;&rdquo; by Nigel Inkster, a former MI6 director of operations and intelligence in London. &ldquo;Williams demonstrates how the Chinese Communist Party&rsquo;s obsession with exercising uncontested power has led to pervasive corruption and unintended consequences for China&rsquo;s own population and the world at large,&rdquo; Inkster observed. Ian bills his latest work as &ldquo;the terrifying story of China&rsquo;s vampire economy&rdquo;. &ldquo;There have been numerous descriptions of the Chinese economy,&rdquo; he writes. &ldquo;However, none seems to capture the predatory, at times surreal, nature of the economy of the world&rsquo;s most populous nation &ndash; nor the often bruising and mind-bending experience of doing business with the Middle Kingdom. &ldquo;Rules and agreements mean little. Markets are distorted, statistics fabricated, foreign industrial secrets and technology systematically stolen. Companies and entrepreneurs, at home and abroad, are bullied &ndash; often with the collusion of the victims themselves. The [Chinese Communist] Party is in every boardroom and lab, with businesses thriving or dying at its will. &ldquo;All this is part of realising President Xi Jinping&rsquo;s ambition of China becoming the world&rsquo;s pre-eminent economic, technological and military power.&rdquo; &ldquo;This is a timely and important read,&rdquo; Tej Parikh wrote in the Financial Times &ndash; before President Donald Trump upset the applecart of international trade in a tariff war nobody wanted. &ldquo;Williams&rsquo;s sceptical prognostications about China&rsquo;s economic future are hard to argue against, particularly as the state is right now struggling to revive &lsquo;animal spirits&rsquo; that have weakened, in part, because of President Xi Jinping&rsquo;s recent clampdown on wealth-creators and tech firms. Still, with China&rsquo;s dominance in emerging technologies, critical minerals and green industries, it is also difficult to write it off,&rdquo; said Parikh.A former FCCT president, Williams covered business and technology for the Sunday Times before becoming a long-time foreign correspondent in Russia and then Asia. During a 25-year career overseas, he was based in bureaus in Moscow, Hong Kong, Beijing and Bangkok for Channel 4 News and then NBC, the American network. He has also covered conflicts in the Middle East, Balkans and Ukraine. His previous book, &lsquo;The fire of the dragon&rsquo;, was shortlisted for the UK&rsquo;s annual Orwell Prize and reissued in a second edition in early 2024.Ian will be in discussion at the FCCT with&nbsp;Keith Richburg, a member of the Washington Post&rsquo;s editorial board since 2023, and a veteran observer of Xi Jinping and China. Keith&rsquo;s storied career as a foreign correspondent includes postings as the Post&rsquo;s bureau chief in Beijing and Hong Kong. He was president of the Foreign Correspondents&rsquo; Club of Hong Kong from 2021 to 2023.