China

A column that I always look forward to reading in The Week magazine (published in the United Kingdom) is called “The List” which features an interviewee’s six favorite books on a given subject. A recent column featured the author of “Not Quite the Diplomat” which I found to be an interesting – slightly pompous - read that provides a European’s perspective on US foreign policy. The author/interviewee was --

Chris Patten – the last British Governor of Hong Kong who provided his six favorite books on China which included:

“The Analects” by Confucius
“Emperor of China” by Jonathan Spence
“Mao: The Unknown Story” by Jung Chang and Jon Halliday
“Mr. China” by Tim Cissold
“The Collision of Two Civilizations” by Alain Peyrefitte
“Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress” by Dai Siijie

Now Mr. Patten was the Governor of Hong Kong so he knows China better than I ever will but I do hope he considered including these books in his list --

• “One Billion Customers” by James McGregor, which provides solid Chinese business insights from a journalist’s perspective, and
• "The Art of War" by Sun Tzu which I hope every US military leader has read as we assess whether China is friend or foe in military terms. In fact I am surprised Mr. Patten omitted this book from his list.

Todd