Download Podcast

Duration: 1:11:33

While there is no video of this event, please enjoy the audio recording.

ABOUT THE BOOK

An epic story of modern China that weaves a riveting family memoir with vital reporting by the New York Times diplomatic correspondent, Edward Wong.

The son of Chinese immigrants in Washington, DC, Edward Wong grew up among family secrets. His father toiled in Chinese restaurants and rarely spoke of his native land or his years in the People’s Liberation Army under Mao. Yook Kearn Wong came of age during the Japanese occupation in World War II and the Communist revolution, when he fell under the spell of Mao’s promise of a powerful China. His astonishing journey as a soldier took him from Manchuria during the Korean War to Xinjiang on the Central Asian frontier. In 1962, disillusioned with the Communist Party, he made plans for a desperate escape to Hong Kong.

When Edward Wong became the Beijing bureau chief for The New York Times, he investigated his father’s mysterious past while assessing for himself the dream of a resurgent China. He met the citizens driving the nation’s astounding economic boom and global expansion—and grappling with the vortex of nationalistic rule under Xi Jinping, the most powerful leader since Mao. Following in his father’s footsteps, he witnessed ethnic struggles in Xinjiang and Tibet and pro-democracy protests in Hong Kong. And he had an insider’s view of the world’s two superpowers meeting at a perilous crossroads.

Wong tells a moving chronicle of a family and a nation that spans decades of momentous change and gives profound insight into a new authoritarian age transforming the world. A groundbreaking book, At the Edge of Empire is the essential work for understanding China today. 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Edward Wong is a diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times who reports on global affairs, U.S. foreign policy and the State Department.

Edward has reported for The Times for more than 25 years. He has been based in New York, Baghdad, Beijing and Washington. As Beijing bureau chief, he ran the Times’ largest overseas operation. He believes believe a journalist’s greatest contribution is to be out there in the world.

He has spent 13 years abroad and filed dispatches from dozens of countries, including North Korea, Afghanistan, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Mongolia, Myanmar, Vietnam and Indonesia.

He began his journalism career at The Potomac Gazette, where he covered a Maryland suburb. Edward began reporting for The Times in 1999 after graduate school and reported for the metro, business and sports sections before going to Iraq. He covered the Iraq War from 2003 to 2007, at the height of the conflict. He received a Livingston Award and was on a team of Pulitzer Prize finalists for war coverage. Following, Edward spent nearly a decade as a China correspondent and Beijing bureau chief.

He has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and done fellowships at the Belfer Center of Harvard Kennedy School and at the Wilson Center in Washington. He has taught international reporting as a visiting professor at Princeton University and U.C. Berkeley.

Edward received a Livingston Award for his coverage of the Iraq War and was on a team from the Times’ Baghdad Bureau that was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in international reporting. He has two awards from the Society of Publishers in Asia for coverage of China. He was on the New York Times team that received an award for best documentary project from Pictures of the Year International for a series on global climate change migrants. He has a prize from the Associated Press Sports Editors.

Edward graduated from the University of Virginia with a bachelor’s degree in English literature. He has joint master’s degrees in journalism and international studies from U.C. Berkeley. Edward studied Mandarin at Beijing Language and Culture University, Taiwan University and Middlebury College. He was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Alexandria, Va.

ABOUT THE MODERATOR

Alex Wang is a Professor of Law at UCLA School of Law and a Faculty Co-Director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment. His research focuses on the law and politics of Chinese environmental governance.

His work has examined Chinese climate policy, US-China environmental cooperation and competition, environmental bureaucracy, information disclosure, public interest litigation, the role of state-owned enterprises in environmental governance, and symbolic uses of governance reform.

Prior to joining UCLA Law, Dr. Wang was a senior attorney for the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) based in Beijing and the founding director of NRDC’s China Environmental Law & Governance Project. In that capacity, he worked with China’s government agencies, legal community, and environmental groups to improve environmental laws and strengthen the role of the public in environmental protection.

Dr. Wang is a member of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and the Council on Foreign Relations, a board member of the Environmental Law Institute, and a Co-Chair of the Faculty Advisory Committee of the California-China Climate Institute.

ORDER THE BOOK

Order At the Edge of Empire by Edward Wong at Penguin Random House.