BEIJING — American businessman Robert Lawrence Kuhn said he wrote a biography of former Chinese President Jiang Zemin to shed light on this Asian nation. Instead, "The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin" has mostly been mocked by U.S. critics, who call it an artful piece of propaganda.
Here in China, however, the book is a hit.
Biographies of living leaders are basically taboo. Any peek behind the country's great wall of political secrecy has bestseller potential. One penned by a foreigner tends to have special cachet.
The Chinese edition of Kuhn's book, published by a division of Shanghai Century Publishing Group, reportedly has sold about 600,000 copies since hitting the stores last month. At just about every stop on his multi-city book tour in China, Kuhn has been feted by provincial leaders who come out of the woodwork to shake his hand and sing his praises. State media in some areas have given him front-page treatment and printed long excerpts.
Kuhn has even been trumpeted as the new Edgar Snow, a reference to the American journalist who interviewed Chairman Mao during the latter's guerrilla days and wrote the classic book "Red Star Over China."
Kuhn said he was surprised by the Chinese reception of the book, which was released in the West by Crown Publishers.
However, his critics note that it is difficult to get published in China unless the writer is willing to submit to heavy political censorship. (Censors cut 10% of the material from Kuhn's book for the Chinese edition.)
"This is more an exercise in public relations than any real journalism or history," said Orville Schell, dean of UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Journalism, who has written many books on China. "The fact that it got published at all and is doing well tells you what kind of a book it is."
Kuhn denies that the Chinese government's views had any role in the book, and says that officials who helped him did so in a personal capacity.
"The idea was wholly mine," Kuhn said in a telephone interview recently from his home in New York during a break in his China tour. "No government agency, I can say categorically, authorized it. No one ever told me what to or what not to write."
Guo Weimin, director general of the State Council Information Office, concurred that the book was Kuhn's personal project.
