Gordon Chang certainly knows how to go out on a limb. The Chinese-American commercial lawyer with 20 years' experience in Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing has just written his first book - The Coming Collapse of China.
He warns of a potentially violent end to Communist Party rule in five years as China's entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) puts an unbearable strain on mounting social, political and economic woes. He warns of WTO-inspired political division in Beijing, a further crippling of state-owned firms and banks, and increased unrest among peasants who he claims will be the big losers of globalisation.
Chang even warns in his final chapter of a failed invasion of Taiwan as a desperate last stand by a party with nothing left to lose.
'Accession will shake China to its foundations,' Chang writes. 'One day, the central Government will not be able to fight all those who challenge it; there simply will be too many . . . Virulent protests spin out of control and meet the full fury of the state. No government can withstand the will of all its people.'
Warnings of revolution may not be new, but Chang has packaged them around the WTO and given them a time-frame. He also has timing on his side - coming just as the new Republican administration of US President George W. Bush settles into a new relationship with a Beijing leadership that Mr Chang claims is doomed.
While some Republican conservatives may eagerly await the collapse of communist rule, others may want stability first - a view that seems to dominate the Bush administration as it maps out a more cautious engagement with Beijing.
The US President is expected to face further pressure to flesh out his China policy ahead of his summit meeting with President Jiang Zemin in October.
