China Media Australia Exotic Seas

Résumé du livre

Memoir-History. Focuses on China since the fall of the Dynasties, but begins with growing up next door to a wealthy Chinese family in South Strathfield, in Sydney's inner west. Continues through roles on the Sydney Morning Herald, including the 1965 Freedom Ride by Sydney University students, the Push, the London Sunday Mirror when it sold six million copies an issue, Britain's knighted yachting circumnavigators and incursions such as the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia, to the Hong Kong-based Far Eastern Economic Review and the South China Morning Post. Author has been a prominent member of the Foreign Correspondents Club of Hong Kong and Royal Hong Kong Yacht Club, and has sailed across the South China Sea in various vessels 100 times, the subject of two chapters in the book with many current updates . New insights are provided on Gough Whitlam's dismissal, the My Lai massacres during the Vietnam War, and there is a reappraisal of the pivotal Tiananmen Square incident of 1989. The book stresses the individuality of Chinese, and argues that the country is capitalist "with socialist characteristics", not the other way around, and that the term Chinese Communist Party is valid in name only. Boating and lifestyle magazines followed the newspapers and eco-political magazines, and related events, including the advent of superyachts and philanthropy among the super wealthy, are discussed. America's steady decline from democracy is examined, and what this means for Australia, China and the Asia-Pacific region in final chapters assessing latest roles and future prospects for the media and Asia-Pacific detente. Cameo stories are presented in chronological order. They can be read at any time, in any order, when time and fancy may please, taking a leaf hopefully from Tom Wolfe's New Journalism and the tendency in recent years to concentrate on shorter texts and sound bites. Related stories include a dinner hosted by Prince Phillip aboard the Royal Yacht Britannia, and the spectacular five-day Coronation of the Sultan of Selangor in Malaysia. New insights on the dismissal of Gough Whitlam, and into the Nugan Hand Bank affair.