书与作者介绍

中国大陆所有分析改革的书都称颂中国领导层如何英明，中国正在进行的改革如何获得了伟大成功，而绝大多数中国人民是如何成为这场改革的最大受益者。这本《中国的陷阱》以其独特的眼光解剖了中国改革的真相，从而将所有歌颂中国改革的书置于非常尴尬的境地。

这本书为作者带来了巨大的社会声誉， 人们称誉作者“代表了中国改革的良心”，美国《商业周刊》(1999年6月14日)将作者评为1999年度的“亚洲之星”(Honored by Business Week International Editions as one of the Stars of Asia as opinion shapers on June 14,1999.)；作者的赤诚让人们经常将她比之为安徒生童话中《皇帝的新衣》里那位说真话的小孩。New York Review of Books 于1998年10月8日为这本书发了长篇书评。

中国公众对这本书的欢迎是真心实意的。 中国社会科学院研究员吴国盛先生认为这本书对人类社会的影响足可以与Harriet Beecher Stowe的《Uncle Tom's Cabin》、现代环保运动的先驱Rachel Carson的《Silent Spring》鼎足而立。众所周知，《Uncle Tom's Cabin》激发了美国人民在黑奴问题上的良心，从而引发了南北战争，解放了黑奴；而《寂静的春天》则引起了当代世界对环境问题的关心，从而开了现代环保运动的先河。

这本书最终导致了中国政府对作者的政治迫害。就在作者学术声誉如日中天，公众越来越将作者作为社会良心代表的时候，作者却在经历了秘密警察长达500多个日日夜夜的全天候监控之后，在面临被逮捕危险的前夕，被迫逃离了她生于斯、长于斯的中国。

英国的Financial Times(July 17, 2000)曾生动地报导过作者受监控的状态。"It was the arrival of some unusual neighbours that gave He Qinglian, one of China's most outspoken and respected critics of government corruption and abuse of power, her first inkling that the secret police were closing in. The kindly old couple that used to live next door moved out quietly in January. Since then the neighbouring apartment has been occupied by several middle-aged men and women who do little but smoke and watch TV. Their front door is always left open, providing them with a view of when Ms He comes and goes, and who visits her. When she went away for two months recently, they also took their leave, only to return on the day she got back. 'From a demographic point of view at least, it must be said that this is an unusual household,' said Ms He, who returned from a two-month tour of the US last month that was funded by Washington. 'They are all in their 30s and 40s and there is no sign of any children,' she said. Her unease over the new neighbours' intentions ended late last month when she was removed from her post as an editor of the Shenzhen Legal Daily and assigned to a lowly position in the paper's research department......Editors throughout China had been warned against publishing her work, she added."

作者被迫辞国后，美国第一家发现她踪迹的报纸Philadelphia Inquire (June 28, 2001)以“Pupular Scholar Flees China”为标题报导了她的被迫出:"Fearing that she would be ensnared by the Chinese government's growing crackdown on scholars with Western ties, a popular social critic in China has fled to the United States. In her first interview since arriving in Princeton, N.J., on June 16, He Qinglian, 44, said she believed China's security agents were preparing to arrest her, most likely on spy charges. She said she had planned to leave China on June 26 to begin a previously arranged sabbatical for a year at the University of Chicago. But she abruptly fled the country after security agents broke into her office on June 13. A month and a half earlier, she said, they had taken documents, letters, her cell phone, even photographs of herself with American friends. He (pronounced huh) said she feared that if she had not taken off suddenly, she would have been arrested. 'If the regime simply wanted to eliminate my influence in China, they knew I was going to the United States in two weeks. It wasn't necessary to collect evidence against me," she said.......She gained notoriety in 1998 by publishing a book, China's Pitfalls, a denunciation of the endemic corruption among the vast Communist bureaucracy."

紧接着《纽约时报》、《华盛顿邮报》、路透社等几十家世界著名的媒体相继报导了她的被迫辞国。如同她的书出版成为国际媒体争相报导的新闻一样，作者的被迫去国再次成为一个大的国际新闻。

这本书为什么会那么受到社会公众的热烈欢迎，在短短不到一年的时间内，竟然会发行三百多万册？在中国从未有任何学术著作成为如此畅销的书，也从未有学者因为一本书而成为如此受欢迎的公众人物。而中国政府为什么对这样一位深受公众爱戴的学者，却是如此难以容忍？

这本书之所以抓住了千百万读者的心灵，是因为作者用大量无可辩驳的事实，分析在政策作用下中国的政治权力怎样进入市场成为可交换的“商品”，阐明了在政治权力市场化的作用下，寻租活动与“灰色分配”决定了社会财富的流向及资源分配，以及由此产生的对中国未来发展必然起制约作用的经济社会后果，如地下经济的泛滥、黑社会组织的兴起、社会贫富两极分化极为显著。作者最后指出，23年改革的结果表明，中国现有的社会结构是社会底层占大多数的金字塔结构，只有掌握权力者才是改革成果的真正受益者，而占总人口83%的广大中下层人民则在为改革付出巨大的代价。

这是一本揭穿了中国改革神话，让中国政府与众多贪官污吏恨之入骨，让社会公众真诚欢迎的书。有学者评价：要了解中国的改革，就必须要读这本书。

这是一本能在历史上留下来的书。

注：英文部分只是供参考，不需要全文照录。