China Live: People Power and the Television Revolution

by Mike Chinoy

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 television, but how TV can shape the news as it unfolds, Chinoy describes his personal and professional journey through key political dramas, from armed conflict in Northern Ireland, Lebanon, Indochina, and Afghanistan, to the “people power” revolution in the Philippines and the ongoing crisis in North Korea.

The core of the book is Chinoy's lifelong involvement with China. As CNN's first Beijing bureau chief, Chinoy recounts a riveting tale of covering the China beat, especially the momentous events in Tiananmen Square in 1989. CNN's unprecedented live broadcasts of the student uprising and army crackdown marked a turning point in modern journalism and played a critical role in shaping international perceptions of China. China Live remains a compelling account of the life of an award-winning foreign correspondent and a revealing glimpse inside the world of television news.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780847693184
Publisher:	Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc.
Publication date:	04/15/1999
Edition description:	Updated Edition
Pages:	420
Product dimensions:	5.92(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)

About the Author

Mike Chinoy is senior fellow at the U.S.-China Institute at the University of Southern California. Previously, he spent 24 years as a foreign correspondent for CNN. He founded the CNN Beijing bureau in 1987 and headed it for eight years. He also served as bureau chief in Hong Kong and as senior Asia correspondent. In the course of his career, he received Emmy, Dupont, and Peabody awards for his coverage of China and Asia. He is also the author of Meltdown: The Inside Story of the North Korean Nuclear Crisis.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1: The Whole World is Watching Chapter 2: We Have Friends All Over the World Chapter 3: Year of the Dragon Chapter 4: Good Guys and Bad Guys Chapter 5: Fireman Chapter 6: Beijing Bureau Chief Chapter 7: The Soul of China: Tiananmen Square Chapter 8: The Big Lie Chapter 9: A Tale of Two Chinas Chapter 10: Inside the Hermit Kingdom Chapter 11: End of the Dynasty Chapter 12: Conclusion

What People are Saying About This

Ted Koppel

Fascinating...A compelling story.

Editorial Reviews

In its dramatic narrative detail and descriptive power, particularly of the notorious Tiananmen Square massacre, Mike Chinoy’s 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 world’s most influential news gathering organizations—a status that Mike Chinoy’s live reports from China helped create.

Peter Arnett

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

For anyone interested in how foreign correspondents are born or in how to unravel the enigma of China’s crypto Maoist/capitalist revolution, Chinoy’s book is a fine place to start.

Orville Schell

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 Philippines—and to dozens of hot spots in between. Mostly, though, it is about the author’s complicated two-decade relationship with China, which he studied at Yale and quickly fell in love with.

USA Today

Mr. Chinoy recreates a rapid-fire, day-by-day account of Beijing’s spring of 1989.

The Washington Times

This fascinating odyssey of a moderately radical child of the '70s whose wide-eyed admiration for Mao’s 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 reporter’s account of 'famous people who have known me,' but rather a compelling story of how on different levels, Mike Chinoy, CNN, and the People’s Republic of China obliged thoughtful Americans to take them seriously.

Ted Koppel

This superb book is far more than a 'China volume.' While bringing China’s 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. Chinoy’s 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, Chinoy’s 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

The book is not just a definitive account of the 1989 pro-democracy movement, but a revealing tale of the education—and loss of innocence—of a foreign correspondent.

Time

CNN is arguably the most famous television network in the world, and Mike Chinoy was its justly famed Beijing bureau chief 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.

Times Literary Supplement - Jonathan Mirsky

The book is not just a definitive account of the 1989 pro-democracy movement, but a revealing tale of the education—and loss of innocence—of a foreign correspondent.

Time

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 Philippines—and to dozens of hot spots in between. Mostly, though, it is about the author’s complicated two-decade relationship with China, which he studied at Yale and quickly fell in love with.

USA Today

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

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 Philippines—and to dozens of hot spots in between. Mostly, though, it is about the author’s complicated two-decade relationship with China, which he studied at Yale and quickly fell in love with.

Usa Today