Five-star dream

Award-winning author Tash Aw's latest book, Five Star Billionaire, paints a contrasting picture of China to the binary impression of the country that most people hold. Andrew Moody reports.

Tash Aw says that for many people, China is now replacing the United States as the "promised land" to go, live and pursue their dreams. The 41-year-old Whitbread prize-winning Chinese-Malaysian novelist argues the world's second-largest economy now offers that sense of opportunity that New York had at the beginning of the 20th century. "I would say that for many people now, particularly Southeast Asians, China is replacing America as the promised land," he says.

"For a lot of Malaysian-Chinese, the No 1 choice now would be China."