China Live: People Power and the Television Revolution

(Paperback)

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China Live offers a unique 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 television, but how TV can shape the news as it unfolds, CNN Hong Kong bureau chief Mike Chinoy recounts his experiences in key political conflicts around the world, from Northern Ireland, Lebanon, and Afghanistan to Indochina, the Philippines, and North Korea. Chinoy focuses especially on China, where he was instrumental in CNN's unprecedented live broadcasts of the student uprising and army crackdown in Tiananmen Square in 1989 - a turning point in modern journalism that played a critical role in shaping international perceptions of China.

Reviews

[Chinoy] has combined a moving chronicle of his experiences with a sense of what is meant to deal with a totalitarian regimes uncertainty in coming to grips with both the movement and CNN. . . . A fine and unusually truthful revelation of the changes Americas technology is making throughout the world. * Kirkus Reviews *
The book is not just a definitive account of the 1989 pro-democracy movement, but a revealing tale of the educationand loss of innocenceof a foreign correspondent. * Time *
I could not put the book down. It is an extraordinarily vivid account of what it was like covering China from the front lines. Chinoy has a wonderful capacity for capturing the sounds and sights of China, but he is unique in that he keeps looking for the broad perspective and has an intellectual honesty and openness that allow the reader to understand the lens as well as the scene itself. A wonderful book. -- Ezra F. Vogel, Harvard University
Mr. Chinoy re-creates a rapid-fire, day-by-day account of Beijings spring of 1989. * The Washington Times *
For any reader in search of a compelling account of the life of a first-rate television newsman, CNN correspondent Mike Chinoy has produced just the book. As an eyewitness account of the tumultuous weeks in Beijing eight years ago, it is lively and gripping.... * Asiaweek *
This superb book is far more than a 'China volume.' While bringing Chinas recent history alive, Chinoy also provides a fascinating, inside view of the development of CNN as a major force. In the process, he conveys the dynamic interplay between the medium and the message and makes the reader understand what is involved in covering the major events of the era. Chinoys coverage of Tiananmen shaped the way the world understood this complex event, and this book provides a detailed, compelling, honest behind-the-scenes account of this journalistic feat. Overall, Chinoys frank reflections reveal the maturing of an idealistic reporter in the crucible of Asian and Middle Eastern politics of the 1970s to the 1990s. Chinoy has become one of the best, and his fluid writing makes the journey portrayed in this book a pleasure to travel. I enthusiastically recommend China Live to anyone interested in China, in the role of television in global politics, or simply in a very good read about an individual and his times. -- Kenneth G. Lieberthal, University of Michigan

For any reader in search of a compelling account of the life of a first-rate television newsman, CNN correspondent Mike Chinoy has produced just the book.
As an eyewitness account of the tumultuous weeks in Beijing eight years ago, it is lively and gripping.

* Asiaweek *
China Live [is] a book worth reading. It is a dramatic, first-hand, and personal account that focuses solely on events in Beijing. * South China Morning Post *
China Live is the fast-paced tale of a career that has taken [Chinoy] from sectarian violence in Northern Ireland and the U.S. Marine barracks bombing in Lebanon to the war in Afghanistan and the fall of Marcos in the Philippinesand to dozens of hot spots in between. Mostly, though, it is about the authors complicated two-decade relationship with China, which he studied at Yale and quickly fell in love with. * USA Today *
This fascinating odyssey of a moderately radical child of the '70s whose wide-eyed admiration for Maos China evolves into a clear-eyed, perceptive and thoroughly engaging account of his own passage into personal and professional maturity. Largely autobiographical, this is not another reporters account of 'famous people who have known me,' but rather a compelling story of how on different levels, Mike Chinoy, CNN, and the Peoples Republic of China obliged thoughtful Americans to take them seriously. -- Ted Koppel, ABC News
In its dramatic narrative detail and descriptive power, particularly of the notorious Tiananmen Square massacre, Mike Chinoys China Live deserves a place alongside the great China watching books. But it is much more than that, this stirring personal testimony of an eyewitness reporter describes not only the tormented maturing of China in the past two decades, but also the rapid rise of CNN into one of the worlds most influential news gathering organizationsa status that Mike Chinoys live reports from China helped create. -- Peter Arnett, CNN
For anyone interested in how foreign correspondents are born or in how to unravel the enigma of Chinas crypto Maoist/capitalist revolution, Chinoys book is a fine place to start. -- Orville Schell, University of California, Berkeley
CNN is arguably the most famous television network in the world, and Mike Chinoy was its justly famed Beijing bureau cheif for eight years. He kept his cameras rolling throughout the Tiananmen uprising, filming live, until the Chinese forced CNN off the air, and millions of screens around the world went blank. The core of the book . . . is the excellent running account of Tiananmen from its first day in mid-April to weeks after the massacre. -- Jonathan Mirsky * Times Literary Supplement *

Author Bio

Mike Chinoy, who launched and headed CNNs Beijing Bureau, is now senior Asia corresondent in CNNs Hong Kong Bureau. He has received Emmy, Peabody, and Dupont awards.