Jasper Becker is a British journalist who has written for the Guardian, The Spectator and The South China Morning Post. He has written about China and Asia for more than 30 years. He is the author, most recently, of Made in China: Wuhan, Covid and the Quest for Biotech Supremacy. His previous books include Hungry Ghosts: Mao’s Secret Famine, and City of Heavenly Tranquility: Beijing in the History of China. What follows in a lightly edited Q&A with the author.
Jasper Becker.Illustration by Lauren Crow
Q: In your book, Made in China: Wuhan, Covid and the Quest for Biotech Supremacy, you went beyond Wuhan and Covid to explore biowarfare, SARS, and the World Health Organization. Can you tell me a little about the origins of this book?
A: It started off with a Cambridge University think tank, which brought together a number of people who had been looking at the history of disease and disease control in China. They asked the question, “Why did this happen in Wuhan?”