Neel Mukherjee, Images of China

Available for over a year

Matthew Sweet examines our contradictory attitudes to China and its culture with the film historian Sir Christopher Frayling and the Chinese ceramics expert Stacey Pierson, who has been to see the British Museum's new exhibition about Ming. Last weekend, Tim Berners Lee - a man who helped invent the world wide web - argued that we need a Magna Carta for the web - a bill of rights to preserve the internet's independence from governments and corporations, a call that has a special resonance at the moment given the way protesters in Hong Kong have taken to the web as well as to the streets. Matthew is joined by Padraig Reidy who writes for Index on Censorship and Rob Gifford of the Economist to discuss the merits of his proposal. Novelist Neel Mukherjee talks about his book The Lives of Others, which explores the way an Indian family's history is disrupted when one member becomes involved in extremist political activism. You can hear conversations with all the authors shortlisted for this year's Man Booker prize on the website. Christopher Frayling's new book is called The Yellow Peril: Dr Fu Manchu and the Rise of Chinaphobia. Ming: 50 Years that Changed China is on show at the British Museum until January 5th 2015. The National Museum of Scotland exhibition Ming: The Golden Empire is on until October 19th. Producer: Zahid Warley.