The extraordinary story of China's spectacular but ultimately short-lived attempt to transform its society through Western-style capitalism. Drawing on four decades of experience living and working in China - from the roaring '80s when it first opened to the world to the rise of Xi Jinping and the advent of Covid-19 when the Communist country shut down. Anne Stevenson-Yang tells a frank and timely account of the Chinese Communist Party's attempts to cling onto power first through market liberalisation, then total control at every level of society. Wild Ride is a sobering reminder of the reality of communist China, that under all the veneer of economic growth is a repressive system bent on authoritarian power.