At the Edge of Empire

"A New York Times diplomatic correspondent reflects on returning to his family's homeland and unraveling their complicated past. Wong, whose father immigrated from China in 1967, grew up in Washington, D.C., knowing little about his family's lives in China and how his father made the decision to come to America. Stationed in Beijing for the Times from 2008 to 2016, the author, an expert journalist, learned more about his father's convoluted life journey, which is the primary focus of this fascinating, ambitiously textured narrative. His father's parents were Cantonese merchants who "moved effortlessly between Hong Kong, with all its trappings of imperial Britain, and the subtropical countryside of neighboring Guangdong Province in China." The author's father endured Japanese occupation and saw his older brother, Sam, depart to America on the eve of the communist takeover. He ventured north to Beijing Agricultural University and embraced the ideals of the new communist leadership. Promised a career at the air force academy in Harbin as the Korean War broke out, he was rerouted to the remote region of Xinjiang, where he spent "six years in hard postings...in places most Chinese citizens feared going." With the Great Leap Forward, widespread famine emerged, and he began to question the party's leadership and to plot his journey to join Sam in America. First, he went to Hong Kong, "a significant step away from the bleak future that awaited...if he stayed under the Communist system." The author chronicles his other visits to China--e.g., his 2023 trip to Beijing accompanying Secretary of State Antony Blinken--and he closes with an account of his time in Hong Kong in 2019, as violent protests were breaking out just before the stringent antidemocratic National Security Law was passed. Throughout, Wong capably interweaves intimate details with broader truths. A well-written, multilayered work of poignant familial memories and personal reflection."--Provided by publisher.