For 16 years-years when China was largely forbidden territory to Westerners - Anthony Lawrence was forced to watch the People's Republic solely from the outside. Now Lawrence, the BBC's chief China-watcher and doyen of all Far Eastern correspondents, has at last got into the country he has studied for so long.
Major operations performed with only acupuncture for anaesthetic; exchanging compliments in Mandarin over tea with Chinese peasants; a school where the children learn to pour steel; a dam being built by human hands alone: all these are part of this personal account of the people behind the People's Republic - an account that Anthony Lawrence's long study of China makes unique in television.