Man on Mao's Right: From Harvard Yard to Tiananmen Square, My Life Inside China's Foreign Ministry
384
Man on Mao's Right: From Harvard Yard to Tiananmen Square, My Life Inside China's Foreign Ministry
384eBook
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Overview
The youngest son of a prosperous government official, nine-year-old Ji and his family fled Japanese invaders in the late 1930s, escaping to America. Warmly received by his new country, Ji returned its embrace as he came of age in New York’s East Village and then attended Harvard University. But in 1950, after years of enjoying a life of relative ease while his countrymen suffered through war and civil strife, Ji felt driven by patriotism to volunteer to serve China in its conflict with his adoptive country in the Korean War.
Ji’s mastery of the English language and American culture launched his improbable career, eventually winning him the role of English interpreter for China’s two top leaders: Premier Zhou Enlai and Party Chairman Mao Zedong. With a unique blend of Chinese insight and American candor, Ji paints insightful portraits of the architects of modern China: the urbane, practical, and avuncular Zhou, the conscience of the People’s Republic; and the messianic, charismatic Mao, student of China’s ancient past–his country’s stern father figure.
In Ji’s memoir, he is an eyewitness to modern Chinese history, including the Great Leap Forward, the Cultural Revolution, the Nixon summit, and numerous momentous events in Tiananmen Square. As he becomes caught up in political squabbles among radical factions, Ji’s past and charges against him of “incorrect” thinking subject him to scrutiny and suspicion. He is repeatedly sent to a collective farm to be “reeducated” by the peasants.
After the Mao years, Ji moves on to hold top diplomatic posts in the United States and the United Kingdom and then serves as under secretary-general of the United Nations. Today, he says, “The Chinese know America better than the Americans know China. The risk is that we misperceive each other.” This highly accessible insider’s chronicle of a struggling people within a developing powerhouse nation is also Ji Chaozhu’s dramatic personal story, certain to fascinate and enlighten Western readers.
A riveting biography and unique historical record, The Man on Mao’s Right recounts the heartfelt struggle of a man who loved two powerful nations that were at odds with each other. Ji Chaozhu played an important role in paving the way for what is destined to be known as the Chinese Century.
Praise for The Man on Mao’s Right
"Brave, beautifully written testimony . A true "fly-on-the-wall" account of the momentous changes in Chinese society and international relations over the last century."
--Kirkus Reviews
“It is a relief to read an account by an urbane and often witty insider who neither idolizes nor demonizes China's top leaders . . . . Highly recommended." —Library Journal, starred review
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781588367198 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | Random House Publishing Group |
| Publication date: | 07/15/2008 |
| Sold by: | Random House |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 384 |
| File size: | 9 MB |
About the Author
Read an Excerpt
Introduction
THE FOOLISH OLD MAN WHO REMOVED THE MOUNTAINS
One of my favorite anecdotes about the two decades I spent working alongside China’s Premier Zhou Enlai comes from the first formal words he exchanged with Henry Kissinger in 1971, at a top-secret meeting in Beijing. After more than two decades of war and threats of war, it was the first time that a senior representative of each of these great nations had sat at the same table.
The moment could be considered the birth of modern relations between my native land, China, and the land where I spent much of my childhood, America. The stakes couldn’t have been higher. It was my duty to interpret both for the premier and for Dr. Kissinger, who had been smuggled into the country on a delicate mission to negotiate the first-ever visit to the People’s Republic by an American president, Richard Nixon. Although the premier understood English quite well, he rarely spoke it, preferring to take advantage of the interpretation pauses to compose his thoughts.
Kissinger, looking a bit tense and anxious, shuffled his papers and, peering through his glasses, began to read from prepared remarks that he would later admit were “slightly pedantic.” At one point, he read, “Many visitors have come to this beautiful and, to us, mysterious land.”
The premier raised his hand. Startled, Kissinger stopped in midsentence. His aides shifted in their seats and exchanged glances. Smiling slightly, the premier said, “When you have become familiar with China, it will not be as mysterious as before.”
Kissinger permitted himself a fleeting, abashed grin of relief, set aside his sheaf of papers, and they began to get to know each other as two men seeking common ground for their respective nations.
The Western world has certainly warmed to China in the thirty-six years since those first meetings, but there remains a great deal of befuddlement in the West about who we are as a nation and what we care about as ordinary people. China is too often portrayed in the Western press as a threat when, in fact, the Chinese worldview is traditionally inward-looking and defensive rather than imperialistic.
It is my goal in these pages to help demystify China and the Chinese people, through the narrative of my life as a son of China—including my youth growing up in the United States—and through the events that I was privileged to witness and participate in during my career.
Much about the Chinese character can be gleaned from the sayings with which we season our daily discourse—our favorite clichés. For example, someone who is in a hurry to pocket a profit—as is now happening more often in our burgeoning economy—is said to be killing chickens to get eggs. When embarking on a great undertaking, we remind ourselves that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Both sayings speak to a central element of a shared subconscious that has evolved over five thousand years of continuous history. We embrace time as seamless and ceaseless. This makes us persistent and patient.
One of our most revered ancient parables illustrating this idea was popularized by Mao Zedong a few years before the birth of the People’s Republic of China. It strikes me as a fitting metaphor for my people, my nation, and my career as an English translator, interpreter for Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou, ambassador to the Court of St. James’s, and an under secretary-general of the United Nations.
This parable, entitled “The Foolish Old Man Who Removed the Mountains,” was invoked by Chairman Mao in a speech designed to fire up the troops in 1945 as the People’s Army found itself fighting both the Japanese and a civil war against the American-backed forces of Chiang Kai-shek. Mao wanted to inspire his followers with the conviction that the liberation of the Chinese people was inevitable, no matter how long it took.
The fable tells of an old man who lived long ago in northern China. His farm lay in the shadows of two great mountains that blocked the life-giving sun from reaching his fields. One day he decided to remove the mountains. He summoned his sons and, with hoes in hands, they began to dig and carry away the earth.
A nosy, gray-bearded neighbor strolled by. When he was told the purpose of all the digging, he scoffed, “How foolish you are, old man! It is quite impossible for you to dig up those two huge mountains.”
The Foolish Old Man replied, “Yes, you are right. I will not live to see it done. But when I die my sons will carry on. When they die, there will be my grandsons, and then their sons and grandsons, and so on, to infinity. High as they are, the mountains cannot grow any higher. But with every shovelful we remove, they will be that much lower. Why can’t we clear them away?”
We Chinese may choose from time to time to withdraw from the field of battle, but we never give up. From childhood, this was the message I received at my father’s knee. The metaphor Father chose to make his point was the persistence of an ant trying to climb a flight of stairs. The ant may fall back again and again trying to ascend the risers, he told me, but it does not give up until it succeeds, or it dies trying. This, Father assured me, is the secret of a life honorably lived: Always do your best, and never give up.
Table of Contents
Preface ix
Author's Note xiii
Introduction xvii
Our Long March 3
To America 13
Poor Little Chinese Refugee 23
My Movie Star Dad 32
Me and Mrs. Roosevelt 41
My Short Harvard Education 53
Going Home 60
The East Is Red 64
Back in the Bosom 68
The Atomic Death-Belt Plan 79
Welcome to Kansas 88
Two Years of Perfidy and Fleas 100
Foreign Devils Face Off 116
The Premier and I Cheat Death 132
The Other China 142
Calm Between the Storms 153
Contradictions at the Top 169
Beating a Drowning Dog 184
The Man on Mao's Right 195
Death and Birth 206
Our Dark Ages Begin 218
Our Lord of the Flies 225
Nothing Public Without Purpose 238
The Two Young Ladies 253
A Circle Closes, Another Opens 266
An Empty Seat on the Stage 279
China's Second Liberation 290
The ReaganCrisis 302
From Cannibals to Caviar 316
Epilogue 331
Acknowledgments 335
Index 337
What People are Saying About This
"It is a relief to read an account by an urbane and often witty insider who neither idolizes nor demonizes China's top leaders.... Highly recommended." —-Library Journal Starred Review