Edouard Prisse’s life journey—from a peaceful Dutch village to the inner workings of Beijing’s business world—has given him a rare vantage point. In We Are Funding China’s Growth That Must Stop!, this background becomes more than personal context—it becomes the foundation for a brave and deeply informed challenge to Western economic complacency.
Prisse writes not as an ivory tower economist or a partisan ideologue, but as someone who has lived through decades of global economic shifts. He recalls the joyful simplicity of raising a family in Baambrugge, a quiet village outside Amsterdam. From this place of calm, he watched with growing unease as Western economies opened their doors to China without hesitation or foresight. That unease turned to concern, and then into a mission.
In the 1990s, Prisse began warning about the consequences of allowing China’s low-cost, state-controlled production into free-market systems without safeguards. His early insights were dismissed. Yet, as he points out, his predictions came true. Western industry, especially in Germany and the U.S., began hollowing out. The jobs didn’t just disappear—they migrated to a system where workers were paid a fraction of Western wages under conditions no democratic government would accept.
While living and working in China, Prisse gained firsthand knowledge of the cultural brilliance of the Chinese people. But he also saw up close how the Communist Party exploited foreign capital and controlled enterprise with top-down brutality. Unlike Western policymakers, Prisse did not look at China through the lens of theory. He observed it through experience.
What frustrated him most was the West’s refusal to connect the dots. Even after China’s aggressive moves in the South China Sea, its debt diplomacy in Sri Lanka, and its growing influence over African infrastructure, Western leaders continued to act as though trade with China was merely a question of cheaper goods. Meanwhile, Beijing was using that trade surplus to expand global influence and entrench its authoritarian model.
His book is, in many ways, an act of service—a gift to a country he loves. Prisse describes himself as a friend of America. He respects its founding values and wants to see it remain strong and independent. But his loyalty also comes with a challenge: wake up before it’s too late.
One of the most powerful elements of the book is its refusal to retreat into cynicism. Prisse believes that this problem can be solved. He outlines a scenario for Equal Trade, a plan that would allow the U.S. to reduce its economic dependence on China without triggering economic chaos. It’s a demanding plan, but a realistic one.
What drives Prisse is a deep belief in clarity. Clarity in economics. Clarity in foreign policy. Clarity in purpose. That clarity, he argues, is what has been missing in the West for over two decades. His life, straddling East and West, has made it clear to him that unless the U.S. and its allies reclaim their own economic sovereignty, they will end up serving a global order designed in Beijing.
From Baambrugge to Beijing, Prisse’s voice is that of a global citizen with local loyalties. He speaks calmly, but firmly. He is not shouting. He is warning. The question is whether America will hear him in time.
