Birnie’s went to China and wrote her book during a very important period of Chinese Communist history. Birnie arrived in China four years after the end of the Great Leap Forward. The Great Leap Forward was an economic development policy instituted by the Chinese Communist Party. Mao envisioned a Great Leap Forward where accelerated industrialization and mass collectivization would leapfrog China into socialism. Despite these goals, the industrial and agricultural policies did nothing to aid in China’s socialist development. Backyard furnaces resulted in the production of useless steel and poor state planning for collectivization and poor weather resulted in a mass famine. …show more content…
She does not enter China as a journalist for an American newspaper, but as an Australian tourist. The book chronicles her guided trip to major Chinese cities and the observations she makes about Chinese society and life under Mao and communism. Birnie encounters what she believes to be a thriving, well developed economy. She tours factories and observes the work that workers are doing, and make note an abundant food supply, where one bread shop had the capability to feed over 15,00 mouths. Birnie, along with these findings, does note the presence of state propaganda. At a school, Birnie does witness children damning American imperialists for their action in Vietnam. And a play leaves she speechless after is depicts American