China live : two decades in the heart of the dragon / Mike Chinoy.

Includes index.

China has been feared, shunned, and found endlessly fascinating by the people of the West. It is now an economic force of vast proportions, become even greater by the acquisition of Hong Kong. Nevertheless, today's China continues to loom as an international question mark, its politics uncertain, its intentions unclear, its people and its leaders always offering surprise.

Mike Chinoy has been reporting the China story since the mid-1970s. As founder and head of CNN's Beijing Bureau, he was at Tiananmen Square in May 1989, bringing to the world the unfolding saga of revolution and reaction, live, up close, and as it happened.

Now Chinoy has written China Live, a story of Asia in our times, from the 1970s to the 1990s, from the death of Mao, to the reforms of Deng Xiaoping, through the crackdown following Tiananmen, to the disturbing present. It is both a living history and an intensely personal story about an evolving love affair with China - from initial infatuation, to growing disenchantment, to maturity of understanding.

This uniquely penetrating and poignant portrait of a nation and its people is also the story of Chinoy's personal quest and quiet courage. It is also a memoir of raising a family in turbulent Beijing, through periods of enlightenment, tension, and violence.