No country has ever changed so fast as China. From the west, we see only the dazzling headline figures – 15% growth in some years. But it’s on the ground, in the huge shifts in the patterns of daily life, where the story comes alive.

Journalist Yuan Yang’s first book Private Revolutions provides just that insight, revealing the individual lives behind the increasing lines on the graphs. Born in China, Yang moved to the UK at the age of 4 but in 2016 returned to her home country to become deputy Beijing Bureau Chief for the Financial Times.

Now back in the UK, where she is running to become Labour’s MP for Earley and Woodley this year, she spoke to Richard Hames about how the disruptions of China’s recent history have set it on its present path and how the left’s love of China is misplaced.