Unearthing previously unseen papers and interviewing countless insiders, Roger Faligot’s astonishing account reveals nothing less than a century of world events shaped by Chinese spies. Working as scientists, journalists, diplomats, foreign students, and businessmen, they’ve been everywhere - from Stalin’s purges to 9/11. This murky world has swept up Ho Chi Minh, the Clintons, and everyone in between, with the action moving from Cambodia to Cambridge, and from the Australian outback to the centres of Western power.

This fascinating narrative exposes the sprawling tentacles of the world’s largest intelligence service, from the very birth of communist China to Xi Jinping’s absolute rule today.