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
[Chinoy] has combined a moving chronicle of his experiences with a sense of what is meant to deal with a totalitarian regime’s uncertainty in coming to grips with both the movement ... Read moreand CNN. . . . A fine and unusually truthful revelation of the changes America’s technology is making throughout the world.
Kirkus
Mr. Chinoy recreates a rapid-fire, day-by-day account of Beijing’s 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
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
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.
Jonathan Mirsky
Times Literary Supplement
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, University of Michigan 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 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, ABC News 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, CNN 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, University of California, Berkeley Show Less