Death by China: Confronting the Dragon – A Global Call to Action is a 2011 non-fiction book by economics professor Peter Navarro and Greg Autry that chronicles the alleged threats to America's economic dominance in the 21st century posed by China's Communist Party. A feature-length documentary film based on the book, narrated by Martin Sheen and also titled Death by China, was released in 2012.
In a 2011 review, Chriss Street of The Huffington Post described the book as "a muckraker's call to confront the dangers of America's dance with the Chinese dragon in the 21st century." talks about his book Death by China at the University of Michigan in 2012 In a 2012 article, Andrew O'Hehir of Salon commented that Navarro's "dramatic overkill is both unfortunate and unnecessary, because the questions Navarro asks about our deformed and dependent relationship with China are legitimate and troubling" and "uch of the argument Navarro assembles in 'Death by China' is unassailable as to its basic facts, even if the tone and manner of presentation leave much to be desired." Similarly, Neil Genzlinger of The New York Times found that the "alarming and alarmist" film "undercuts its argument with an abundance of inflammatory language and cheesy graphics" and "is also unabashedly one-sided and is short on solutions" but added that "its message, despite the hyperbole, certainly warrants examination and discussion." Reviewing the documentary in 2012, Sam Adams of the Los Angeles Times found that the "important political argument at the core of Peter Navarro's agitprop documentary" was "drowned out by xenophobic hysteria and exaggerations so rampant it becomes impossible to tell light from heat." He concluded by saying "Substituting rhetoric for argument, 'Death by China' doesn't preach to the choir so much as it holds a revival meeting in an empty tent." Ronnie Scheib, from Variety, says "One need not fully subscribe to Peter Navarro's demonization to appreciate his lucid wake-up call to the imminent dangers of the huge U.S.-China trade imbalance and its disastrous impact on the American economy." Rotten Tomatoes gives the documentary a score of 33% based on reviews from 12 critics, with an average rating of 5/10. Comments include "It is... unabashedly one-sided and is short on solutions", " rabid piece of agitprop, which swamps a number of legitimate arguments against the current trade arrangement between the U.S. and China with the strident brushstrokes of a bad editorial cartoon", and "Angry, fatally biased but watchable documentary ranting at China for its transgressions and damage done to the U.S. economy cries out for second opinions from other corners besides those damning".
