China Hands: Nine Decades of Adventure, Espionage, and Diplomacy in Asia - Softcover

Lilley, James R. R.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1586483439 ISBN 13: 9781586483432

Publisher: PublicAffairs, 2005

Synopsis

James Lilley's life and family have been entwined with China's fate since his father moved to the country to work for Standard Oil in 1916. Lilley spent much of his childhood in China and after a Yale professor took him aside and suggested a career in intelligence, it became clear that he would spend his adult life returning to China again and again. Lilley served for twenty-five years in the CIA in Laos, Tokyo, Hong Kong, and Taiwan before moving to the State Department in the early 1980s to begin a distinguished career as the U.S.'s top-ranking diplomat in Taiwan, ambassador to South Korea, and finally, ambassador to China. From helping Laotian insurgent forces assist the American efforts in Vietnam to his posting in Beijing during the Tiananmen Square crackdown, he was in a remarkable number of crucial places during challenging times as he spent his life tending to America's interests in Asia. In China Hands, he includes three generations of stories from an American family in the Far East, all of them absorbing, some of them exciting, and one, the loss of Lilley's much loved and admired brother, Frank, unremittingly tragic. China Hands is a fascinating memoir of America in Asia, Asia itself, and one especially capable American's personal history.

About this title

Synopsis:

This "gripping", multigenerational memoir of a life spent serving America's interests in the Far East is "an adventure story worthy of John Le Carre" James Lilley spent his childhood in China and later served for three decades in Tokyo, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Laeo, Bangkok, Cambodia and Peking before moving to the State Department in the early 1980s to begin a distinguished diplomatic career. From covert operations during the wars in Korea and Vietnam, to participating in Richard Nixon's opening to China as the CIA's first station chief in Peking, Lilley rose up through the ranks to become the country's leading intelligence officer in China. As America's top diplomat in Taiwan and South Korea while these countries became "true" democracies in the 1980's he participated in extraordinary changes while advancing America's interests in Asia. China Hands, written in Lilley's voice with the assistance of his son Jeffrey, recounts his adventures as well as those of three generations of his remarkable family. It is an absorbing, thrilling look at America in Asia.

About the Author:

During a government career spanning four decades, James Lilley served in the CIA, White House, State Department, and defence Department. He is the only American to have served as the head of the American missions in Beijing, where he was ambassador from 1989-1991, and Taiwan, where he was Director of the American Institute in Taiwan from 1982-1984. He also served as the U.S. ambassador to South Korea from 1986-1989. He is currently a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC. Jeffrey Lilley is a journalist. He lives in Silver Springs, Maryland, with his wife and two sons.

About this edition

• Publisher: PublicAffairs
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 1586483439
• ISBN 13: 9781586483432
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 442