Ross Terrill, Ph.D., made his first trip to Beijing in 1964 when few Westerners set foot in the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and has since visited China nearly every year. In fact, he is the only Western specialist in China to spend the entire night of June 3-4, 1989—the Tiananmen Square Massacre—and to stay on for weeks as Beijing became a ghost town.
In his new memoir, Australian Bush to Tiananmen Square (Hamilton, an imprint of Rowman & Littlefield; June 2021; ISBN 978-0761871965; Original Trade Paperback), Ross Terrill, Ph.D., spans the reign of Chairman Mao through his successor, President Deng Xiaoping, and traces how China gradually changed with the times, through the forces of modernization, education and globalization under President Xi Jinping. Moving beyond imperialism to an emphasis on economic development, China has severed its bond with Russia in favor of lucrative trade agreements with the United States. However, China maintains its limited access to foreign business and continues to say NO to democracy, Terrill explains.
Australian Bush to Tiananmen Square offers intimate details with Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, President George H.W. Bush, PRC Premier Zhou Enlai and more. Throughout, Terrill revisits momentous events, including President Richard Nixon’s groundbreaking visit to China in 1972, and others. First-time revealed anecdotes in the book include:
• An unheard-of breakfast meeting, arranged by Terrill, between Kissinger and Wilfred Burchett, Australian journalist and Communist, about the Vietnam War;
• A candid talk with Tang Na, Shanghai literary journalist turned restaurateur, about his first marriage to Jiang Qing, actress, ardent revolutionary and the future Madame Mao;
• Searingly honest reflections on the economic and personal toll of the Cultural Revolution from eminent writer, multi-purpose intellectual and “Mao’s poet,” Guo Moruo;
• Cheeky “Nixon-Kissinger” poems found on a factory wall in China;
• The truth about a famous photo of Mao and military chief Zhu De welcoming Zhou Enlai back from Moscow in 1964 (The original untouched photo is published in Australian Bush to Tiananmen Square.)
• When Mao died, Terrill went on record in The New Republic, predicting the fall of Madame Mao and her leftists; within days, they were arrested.
Terrill can also talk candidly about his take on who is responsible for the coronavirus, the hate crimes festering against Asians in the U.S., the complexities of selling meat, poultry and fish at wet markets, and more.
