China Live: Two Decades in the Heart of the Dragon

by Mike Chinoy

Book Overview

In China Live, Mike Chinoy provides an insider's view of two of the most important forces shaping our era--the rise of global satellite news and the rise of China. Exploring not only how events shape... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1570363609
• ISBN13: 9781570363603
• Release Date: January 1997
• Publisher: Turner Publications Inc
• Length: 397 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.5" x 9.6"

Customer Reviews

China Live, well worth reading!

Mike Chinoy presents a very unique and balanced view on China in this book published in 1997. He started out as a 1970's college student at Yale who was invited to visit China with other students as a result of his pro-Mao views. Mike was politically on the radical fringe, believing that Chairman Mao was doing it right and the US (then fighting a war in Vietnam) had it all wrong. Mike described his initial visit to China and his subsequent dedication to becoming a student of China and its language. He eventually landed the job he wanted, Beijing bureau chief for CNN. This was after working for other networks where he was not getting the freedom and positions he wanted. Mike was in China during the amazing years of ferment when China began to open up to the world and grant its people incremental improvements in freedom. This book documents the turmoil in China from the early '70's through 1995, including the Tiananmen Square protest of 1989. It aslo documents Chinoy's maturing and his enlightened world view. You get a real feel for living in China when you read this book.... all the repression, fear, and desire for freedom is evident. The book also covers several other hotspots such as Ireland and North Korea. Read this and you will have a better understanding of current world events and you will have increased respect for CNN, the new kid on the block.

An Insightful Book

Personally, I thought this book had some great information covering the decade of turmoil that has enveloped China. I am a professor at Cambridge and I was glad that this book was made easily accesible for anyone, since I didn't have a good grounding of Chinese history. However, this must not be confused with a history textbook, for the writing in there is not to inform, but to show Mr. Chinoy's point of view. I think that some of these reviews are not justified as they pick up the book expecting to read a text on the Tianamen Square massacre. I appreciate the fact that this book is not a text but an insightful and compelling look from an insider's point of view.

Very Interesting

Before making any comment on the book, I will first confess to being an ignorant westerner with no understanding whatsoever regarding China. That said, I found Chinoy's book to be very entertaining. I didn't begin reading it in the hopes of gaining some marvelous intellectual insight about the People's Republic, so I didn't judge the biography on that criteria. Rather, I found the story of Chinoy's career to be quite fascinating, due in part to my own journalist aspirations. His firsthand accounts, regardless of the conclusions drawn from them, are quite dramatic, especially his experiences at Tiananmen. If you're looking for a history of China, then take the advice of another reviewer and buy a "real" book. However, if you're looking for an entertaining narrative about life as a foreign correspondent, then this read is for you.

terrific - Mike Chinoy has another fan

This is an absolutely delightful book. It makes the perfect gift for anyone interested in Chinese affairs providing remarkable insight. I was devastated to read the irresponsible inaccuracies in China Wakes by Nicholas D. Kristof and Sheryl Wudunn. Theirs was a China written in the tradition of Ugly Americans who stay at the Palace Hotel for one week complaining about the lack of ice for their Coke. I vowed that I would never ever read another book on China written by American journalists. Luckily, I was given Mike Chinoy's book by a friend. Absolutely brilliant!

Excellent

This is one of the better books on China that I've read. I lived in Beijing for two years, and feel that, unlike Kristoff and Dunn in China Wakes, Mike Chinoy really understands China and what makes this most mysterious country tick. And like Jan Wong in Red China Blues, he goes through a transition of being gung-ho on Maoism to seeing the reality of the situation in China. This is one of the things that makes both books so believable. As I am a journalist, I also can appreciate the red tape he went through to get the story out. Chinoy also does an excellent job of describing the Tian'anmen massacre -- one of the better descriptions I've read. I really recommend this book. It's excellent!