After twenty-two years of antagonism, China and the United States suddenly moved toward a détente—achieved not by politicians but by Ping-Pong players. The Western press delighted in the absurdity of the moment and branded it “Ping-Pong Diplomacy.” But for the Chinese, Ping-Pong was always political, a strategic cog in Mao Zedong’s foreign policy. Nicholas Griffin proves that the organized game, from its first breath, was tied to Communism thanks to its founder, Ivor Montagu, son of a wealthy English baron and spy for the Soviet Union. Ping-Pong Diplomacy traces a crucial inter­section of sports and society. Griffin tells the strange and tragic story of how the game was manipulated at the highest levels; how the Chinese government helped cover up the death of 36 million peasants by holding the World Table Tennis Championships during the Great Famine; how championship players were driven to their deaths during the Cultural Revolution; and, finally, how the survivors were reconvened in 1971 and ordered to reach out to their American counterparts. Through a cast of eccentric characters, from spies to hippies and Ping-Pong-obsessed generals to atom-bomb survivors, Griffin explores how a neglected sport was used to help realign the balance of worldwide power.

    It had been forged under the banner of one of the greatest generals in history, Genghis Khan, and ruled by men who, a generation before, had been simple nomadic tribesmen. Accompanying a BBC2 series, this book traces the rise and fall of the Mongol Empire, describing the great storm that revolutionized the trade of goods and ideas in the medieval world and shattered the Euro-centric view of science and culture. The Mongols introduced the first international currency, built and projected vast highways across the Asian grasslands, and carved out the major political groups of modern Asia. The book gives an essentially Eastern view of these first important contacts between the Orient and the Occident. The author's other books include "All the King's Men", "Shadow Makers" and "In the Sewers of Lvov".

    After the courtship, she took the money and left. When we meet again, he is a big business emperor, and she is a small manager at a five-star hotel. With a single command, she was forced to become his personal housekeeper, managing his meals, drinking, drinking, scattering, sleeping … "Butler Luo, the CEO's appetite is not good. Go and accompany him to eat something." "The assistant informed her." "Butler Luo, the CEO is not in a good mood. Go and play with him." Butler Luo, the CEO doesn't sleep well, go accompany him … " Luo Qingyun could not bear it any longer, "I am just a housekeeper, not a companion!" The assistant had an innocent look, "The CEO said that if Butler Luo is unwilling, then let her see a little bit more powerful. Does Butler Luo want to test the CEO's power?" I'll give it a try, who's afraid of who!

    What threw me, though, was the urgency of the diplomats in Beijing. They live it, they get it. And they wanted me out.'Bill Birtles was rushed out of China in September 2020, forced to seek refuge in the Australian Embassy in Beijing while diplomats delicately negotiated his departure in an unprecedented standoff with China's government. Five days later he was on a flight back to Sydney, leaving China without any Australian foreign correspondents on the ground for the first time in decades.A journalist's perspective on this rising global power has never been more important, as Australia's relationship with China undergoes an extraordinary change that's seen the detention of a journalist Cheng Lei, Canberra's criticism of Beijing's efforts to crush Hong Kong's freedoms, as well as China's military activity in the South China Sea and its human rights violations targeting the mostly Muslim Uighur minority in Xinjiang province. Chronicling his five-year stint in China as he criss-crossed the country, Birtles reveals why the historic unravelling of China's relations with the West is perceived very differently inside the country.The Truth About China is a compelling and candid examination of China, one that takes a magnifying glass to recent events, and looks through a telescope at what is yet to come.

    Mao Zedong's Cultural Revolution engulfed millions of Chinese citizens, and the Red Guard enforced Mao's brutal communist regime. Chen's family belonged to the despised landlord class, and his father and grandfather were routinely beaten and sent to labor camps, the family of eight left without a breadwinner. Despite this background of poverty and danger, and Da Chen grows up to be resilient, tough, and funny, learning how to defend himself and how to work toward his future. By the final pages, when his says his last goodbyes to his father and boards the bus to Beijing to attend college, Da Chen has become a hopeful man astonishing in his resilience and cheerful strength.

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    An indispensable historical document.” —Kirkus Reviews (starred review) From the award-winning poet, dissident, and “one of the most original and remarkable Chinese writers of our time” (Philip Gourevitch) comes a raw, evocative, and unforgettable look at the Tiananmen Square massacre through the eyes of those who were there. For over seven years, Liao Yiwu—a master of contemporary Chinese literature, imprisoned and persecuted as a counter-revolutionary until he fled the country in 2011—secretly interviewed survivors of the devastating 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. Tortured, imprisoned, and forced into silence and the margins of Chinese society for thirty years, their harrowing stories are now finally revealed in this gripping and masterful work of investigative journalism.

    Presents a cultural history of the events that led to the controversial one-child policy in China and the subsequent generation-long abandonment of Chinese daughters to American families.

    The Chinese imperial system combined a highly centralized administration with a Confucian philosophy of moral-political beliefs. The emperor was the Son of Heaven and enjoyed semi-divine powers, but he was not infallible: should he fail his subjects, rebellion was justified. The emperors therefore weathered centuries of violent change and, despite brutal revolts and civil wars, remained at the center of the largest political unit in the world, the Middle Kingdom. The emperors were an extraordinary group of men--and one woman, Wu Zetian--whose virtues and faults were magnified by their exalted position. Many were literary scholars and painters (the Song emperor, Huizong, founded an imperial academy of painting). Some were mentally retarded; and some left the control of the empire to their eunuchs, concubines, or dowager empresses. Under able rulers, China's frontiers expanded, dominating Central and Southeast Asia; under weak rulers the frontiers shrank, and for centuries the country was occupied by alien Mongols. It took the arrival of a civilization from the West with superior firepower finally to shake the Middle Kingdom's foundations. The detailed coverage includes: data files for every emperor, listing important information such as name at birth and details of wives and concubines; special features ranging from the Great Wall of China to the Ming Tombs; portraits of the major emperors and maps detailing, for example, the arrival of Buddhism and the Silk Road routes; time lines with at-a-glance visual guides to the length and key events of each emperor's reign.

    In his latest entertaining and thought provoking narrative travelogue, Michael Booth sets out to discover how deep, really, is the enmity between these three “tiger” nations, and what prevents them from making peace. Currently China’s economic power continues to grow, Japan is becoming more militaristic, and Korea struggles to reconcile its westernized south with the dictatorial Communist north. Booth, long fascinated with the region, travels by car, ferry, train, and foot, experiencing the people and culture of these nations up close. No matter where he goes, the burden of history, and the memory of past atrocities, continues to overshadow present relationships. Ultimately, Booth seeks a way forward for these closely intertwined, neighboring nations.An enlightening, entertaining and sometimes sobering journey through China, Japan, and Korea, Three Tigers, One Mountain is an intimate and in-depth look at some of the world’s most powerful and important countries.

    Fleming spent seven months with the 'object of investigating the Communist situation in South China' at a time when, as far as he knew, 'no previous journey had been made to the anti-communist front by a foreigner', and on its publication in 1934, One's Company won widespread critical acclaim. Packed with classic incidents - brake-failure on the Trans-Siberian Express, the Eton Boating Song singing lesson in Manchuria - One's Company was among the forerunners of a whole new approach to travel writing.

    In August 2014 State Security agents grabbed them, accusing them of espionage. In shock, they were unaware of a Chinese spy arrest in Canada, giving the US “some leverage over China to bring a stop to more than a decade of rampant cybertheft” or that they’d become “bargaining chips in China’s desperate countermove”. (Graff, Garrett M. “How the US Forced China to Quit Stealing—Using a China Spy”. Wired Magazine. October 11, 2018) This compelling story of a Canadian Christian couple who spent 30 years working and raising their family in China, involved in aid, education and social enterprise is a unique parallel journey. From the early days teaching English in a decade of ration coupons and collective work units, Kevin and Julia watched with admiration as China catapulted into the modern age with unprecedented speed. Well-loved in China, the Garratt’s had always been thanked for their work in education, social welfare, social enterprises and community service. In 2007, along with two of their children, they moved to the China/North Korea border, opened a popular coffee shop and provided aid and assistance for marginalized communities in Dandong, China and North Korea. Their sudden disappearance plunged them into a journey where survival took every breath. Through their harrowing ordeal and intense suffering comes life-changing insight. They find themselves part of new community of those who’ve tasted yet overcome the pain of injustice. Courage and kindness, friendship and faith, resonates through the ordeal with the heartbeat of a love journey. Artfully written, Two Tears in the Window combines Kevin’s gifted story-telling and humour with Julia’s ability to let you see through their eyes and draw readers into deeply painful yet profoundly life-changing experiences. For more information or to contact the authors, visit www.twotearsonthewindow.com

    Inside the Forbidden City, she witnessed seductions, plots, murders, and brazen acts of treason. Propelled by a shrewd intelligence, an extraordinary persistence, and a friendship with the imperial heir, she rose through the ranks to become the first Empress of China. On the one hand, she was a political mastermind who quelled insurrections, eased famine, and opened wide the routes of international trade. On the other, she was a passionate patron of the arts who brought Chinese civilization to unsurpassed heights of knowledge, beauty, and sophistication.And yet, from the moment of her death to the present day, her name has been sullied, her story distorted, and her memoirs obliterated by men taking vengeance on a women who dared become Emperor. For the first time in thirteen centuries, Empress Wu flings open the gates of her Forbidden City and tells her own astonishing tale–revealing a fascinating, complex figure who in many ways remains modern to this day.

    Written by Amy Eldridge, founder and CEO of Love Without Boundaries, this poignant chronicle of LWB's life-changing work, told through the stories of individual children, offers personal insight into the complex issues surrounding orphan care, abandonment, international aid, and adoption. Both thought-provoking and inspirational, "The Heart of an Orphan" reminds us all that while the needs of vulnerable children around the world may seem overwhelming, the human heart triumphs in believing that every life has value and every child deserves love.

    Drawing on historical records as well as his conversations with Chinese leaders over the past forty years, Kissinger examines how China has approached diplomacy, strategy, and negotiation throughout its history, and reflects on the consequences for the global balance of power in the 21st century. Since no other country can claim a more powerful link to its ancient past and classical principles, any attempt to understand China's future world role must begin with an appreciation of its long history. For centuries, China rarely encountered other societies of comparable size and sophistication; it was the "Middle Kingdom," treating the peoples on its periphery as vassal states. At the same time, Chinese statesmen-facing threats of invasion from without, and the contests of competing factions within-developed a canon of strategic thought that prized the virtues of subtlety, patience, and indirection over feats of martial prowess. In On China, Kissinger examines key episodes in Chinese foreign policy from the classical era to the present day, with a particular emphasis on the decades since the rise of Mao Zedong. He illuminates the inner workings of Chinese diplomacy during such pivotal events as the initial encounters between China and modern European powers, the formation and breakdown of the Sino-Soviet alliance, the Korean War, Richard Nixon's historic trip to Beijing, and three crises in the Taiwan Straits. Drawing on his extensive personal experience with four generation of Chinese leaders, he brings to life towering figures such as Mao, Zhou Enlai, and Deng Xiaoping, revealing how their different visions have shaped China's modern destiny. With his singular vantage on U.S.-China relations, Kissinger traces the evolution of this fraught but crucial relationship over the past 60 years, following its dramatic course from estrangement to strategic partnership to economic interdependence, and toward an uncertain future. With a final chapter on the emerging superpower's 21st-century world role, On China provides an intimate historical perspective on Chinese foreign affairs from one of the premier statesmen of the 20th century.