A U.S. Flop, American's Book On Jiang Zemin Wows China
His new book is a blockbuster in China, selling more copies here in a single month than any book since the last installment of "Harry Potter." Readers have lined up by the thousands to get his autograph. His name is splashed in newspapers across the country: Robert Lawrence Kuhn .
Robert Lawrence who?
Mr. Kuhn, a 60-year-old American investment banker and managing director at Citigroup Inc.'s Smith Barney unit, is the author of "The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin," a biography of the former Chinese leader, who stepped down last year after 15 years in power. "I think I have something important to say to the West, or to Western thinking, about China," says Mr. Kuhn.
Readers in the West don't seem convinced. While the Chinese publisher, a division of Shanghai Century Publishing Group, says it is printing a million copies, Crown Publishers has printed just 15,000 of the English-language version. U.S. sales have been poor since the title hit the market in January, and some reviewers have panned the 709-page book as a fawning work of hagiography.
The book "quickly departs from the realm of analysis and ends up somewhere close to cheerleading," wrote University of Iowa political scientist Benjamin L. Read in the Far Eastern Economic Review.
But for most readers in China, the book offers their first glimpse into the life of a man who ran their country for a period spanning three U.S. presidencies. Even with 10% of the content censored from the Chinese-language version, the book treats many sensitive events, such as the 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and Mr. Jiang's political promotion, in terms that are unusually candid for China.
Mr. Kuhn didn't interview Mr. Jiang for the book, but tidbits from people close to Mr. Jiang, while typically casting him in a positive light, round out a man whose most salient feature for many has been his enormous glasses.
The frenzy around the Chinese edition reflects a strong undercurrent of public curiosity about the secretive men who run the emerging global power. In a country where publishing details about the lives of high officials or their families can land Chinese writers in jail, a biography of a living leader is nonfiction at its most novel.
"We've never seen a biography about a leader who isn't already dead," says Xie Yihong, 70, one of more than 1,000 customers waiting in line to get his copy signed by Mr. Kuhn in the eastern city of Yangzhou. That the book was written by an American is a plus, Mr. Xie reasons: Americans "are more impartial."
An investment banker who co-owned and managed a mergers-and-acquisitions firm called The Geneva Companies before it was sold to Citigroup in 2001, Mr. Kuhn, who divides his time between New York and Pasadena, Calif., says he has made frequent trips to China since the end of the 1980s, often serving as an unpaid adviser to officials trying to overhaul the economy.
Interested in showing Americans a more nuanced portrait of China than he felt mainstream media were providing, he produced a 90-minute documentary with China's state-run television broadcaster that was shown on PBS in 2000.
The documentary, "In Search of China," balanced narratives about upwardly mobile Chinese with stories of secret churchgoers and unemployed workers. It was well-received in the U.S. by viewers and earned Mr. Kuhn the trust of Chinese officials.
Robert Lawrence Kuhn in Shanghai autographing a copy of the Chinese edition of his book about former Chinese leader Jiang Zemin.
In 2000, after seeing a televised interview of President Jiang on the CBS news program "60 Minutes," Mr. Kuhn says he resolved to write the man's biography. Mr. Jiang was widely viewed at home and abroad as a somewhat colorless figure whose main achievement had been to keep China on the path of economic changes mapped out by the late patriarch Deng Xiaoping beginning in 1979.
There were a few obstacles to surmount: Mr. Kuhn doesn't speak or read Chinese; few people -- much less foreigners -- are given access to Mr. Jiang's friends and family; and though he had written books before, Mr. Kuhn had never attempted a biography.
Ye Yonglie, a respected Chinese biographer, says that in 2001, he was invited by a senior propaganda official in Beijing to help Mr. Kuhn with the book. He says he held lengthy discussions with Mr. Kuhn and the official but backed out when Mr. Kuhn informed him he would be cited as a researcher, not a co-author.
In Chinese media accounts, "The implication is that this book is a civilian effort by a foreigner," Mr. Ye said in a telephone interview. "But it has Chinese official engineering."
Mr. Kuhn confirms that he offered to employ Mr. Ye as a researcher and that he was introduced to him by an official with the State Council Information Office, which handles China's overseas propaganda. But Mr. Kuhn dismisses the suggestion that the government had any say over the content of the English-language version of his book. "It's my voice and my project," Mr. Kuhn says.
Mr. Kuhn also discloses in his book and in interviews that he has done business in China and aspires to do more. He says he has been in discussions since last summer with Citigroup about a potential role with the company's arm that does investment banking in China. Between book signings, he has met with officials to discuss investment-banking opportunities, he says. He acknowledges that public acclaim for the book may help him in business, but he says that was never his goal.
"When I decided to write it, it was a real desire to understand China," Mr. Kuhn says. "I'm independent enough financially, I'm independent enough mentally to do what I think is right." He says he licensed the Chinese publisher to "translate, print, publish and sell" the Chinese edition of the book for a seven-year period.
The softcover book, which accounts for the bulk of sales, is priced at the equivalent of $4.60 in China. Mr. Kuhn estimates he will make around 50 cents a book and says he plans to give half of his proceeds to Chinese charities and foundations. He says he spent roughly $200,000 of his own money on writing the book, most of it on travel to China, translations and research assistants. When asked, Chinese readers express surprise that the domestic version, translated by the publisher, was stripped of politically sensitive material.
At a bookstore in Yangzhou last week, Mr. Jiang's hometown, reporters recorded Mr. Kuhn's remarks and applauded him when he finished. Downstairs, some people waited seven hours to get their books autographed. Mr. Kuhn says his tennis elbow has flared up from signing books, but he is considering writing another: an account of Mr. Jiang's successors.
美国银行家为江泽民立传走红中国
他的新书在中国火爆异常，单月销量超过自《哈里波特》(Harry Potter)以来的任何一本书。数千名读者排队等待他的签名。他的名字出现在中国大江南北的报纸上：罗伯特?劳伦斯?库恩(Robert Lawrence Kuhn)。
罗伯特?劳伦斯?库恩是何许人也？
现年60岁的罗伯特?劳伦斯?库恩是一位美国投资银行家、美邦(Smith Barney)的董事总经理，同时他还是《他改变了中国：江泽民传》(The Man Who Changed China: The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin)一书的作者。江泽民在担任中国国家领导人15年后于去年辞去了领导职务。
“我认为关于中国，我有一些重要的话要对西方或者西方式思维说。”库恩说。
西方的读者似乎并不买帐。尽管本书中文出版商上海世纪出版集团(Shanghai Century Publishing Group)称它已经印刷了100万册，但是Crown Publishers印刷的英文版数量只有15,000册。该书自1月份在美国上市以来销量平平，一些书评人抨击这本709页的书是一本阿谀奉承的圣徒传(hagiography)。
“库恩像一个忠心耿耿的速记员，忠实地记录了中国的宣传资料。”伦敦《泰晤士报》(The Times)前东亚编辑乔纳森?米尔斯基(Jonathan Mirsky)在香港的《苹果日报》(Apple Daily)上写道。
但是对中国的大多数读者来说，这本书首次让他们得以窥探一个在中国担任了15年领导人的人的生活。即使中文版删掉了10%的内容，但这本数仍然坦率地触及了许多敏感事件，比如1989年的天安门游行和江泽民平步青云的仕途生涯，这在中国是不同寻常的。江泽民身边的人提供的一些珍闻也让人们对这个以宽边眼镜给人留下最深刻印象的人有了进一步的认识，尽管这通常都是一些正面的描述。
该书中文版的畅销反映出公众非常渴望了解执掌中国这个全球新兴崛起国的领导者们的秘密生活。在中国，公布高层官员或其家庭的生活细节可能会带来牢狱之灾，而出版一本有关在世领导人的传记更是非同寻常的。
以前从未看到过关于一位尚未过世的领导人的传记，现年70岁的谢以宏（Xie Yihong，音译）说。在扬州，他排在1,000多名读者中间，等待库恩在他的书上签名。此外，这本书是由一名美国人所写，谢以宏表示，美国人更加“公正”。
身为投资银行家的库恩联合创建并管理了一家名为The Geneva Companies的并购公司，这家公司在2001年被花旗集团(Citigroup Inc.)收购。库恩现居住在南加利福尼亚，他表示自上个世纪80年代末期以来他频繁造访中国，常常为致力于经济改革的官员无偿提供建议。
库恩有意向美国人展示一个与当地主流媒体观点有著些许差别的中国，他与中国国有电视台合作制作了一个90分钟的纪录片，并于2000年在PBS播放。这个名为“In Search of China”的纪录片既记述了生活不断好转的中国人的故事，也有偷偷去教堂做礼拜的人和失业工人的故事。这部纪录片受得美国观众的欢迎，并且让他获得了中国官员的信任。
在2000年，库恩在观看了CBS新闻节目“60分钟”(60 Minutes)对江泽民的电视访问后，决定写一本这个人的传记。江泽民在国内外被普遍认为是一个没有什么出彩之处的人物，他的主要功绩是让中国不偏离已逝前领导人邓小平从1979年实施的经济改革的轨道。
库恩面临一些需要克服的障碍：他不会讲或读中文；很少人（更不用说外国人）能接近江泽民的朋友和家人；尽管库恩曾经写过几本书，但是他从未尝试写一部传记。
中国著名的传记作家叶永烈称，2001年，宣传部门的一位高级官员邀请他为库恩的这本书提供帮助。叶永烈说，他与库恩以及这位官员进行了长时间的讨论，但是当库恩告诉他他将被列为本书的研究员而不是合著者后，他选择了退出。
叶永烈在电话采访中称，按中国媒体的话说，这本书是一个外国人的个人行为。但他表示，其实还是有中国官员涉入其中。
库恩证实他曾经邀请叶永烈做研究员，中国国务院新闻办公室的一位官员介绍叶永烈与他认识，该机构负责中国的海外宣传工作。但是库恩否认中国政府干预英文版的内容。“这是我的声音和我的项目。”库恩说道。
库恩还在书中和采访中透露，他在中国做生意，并希望扩大规模。他说，自去年夏天以来，他一直与花旗集团讨论其在中国的投资银行分支机构的一个职位。他说，在签名售书间隙，他与官员会面讨论了投资银行业务机会。他承认这本书在中国受欢迎可能会对他的生意有所帮助，但是他说这不是他写书的初衷。
“当我决定写作此书时，我渴望了解中国，”他说，“我在经济上足够独立，在思想上也足够独立，我能够去做我认为正确的事。”他说，根据他与中方出版社的合同，他将获得该书10%的收入；他表示计划将一半的钱捐献给中国的基金会和慈善机构。
中国读者在接受采访时表示，他们不知道由出版社翻译的中文版本被删去了很多敏感的政治内容。当地媒体的报导著意强调库恩是一个美国人，由于中国人写作的政治类书籍常常被读者视为宣传材料，因此这在中国是一个很大的卖点。上周在江泽民的故乡－扬州的书店里，中国的记者用摄像机和笔记录下库恩关于此书的评论，并在他讲完时报以掌声。楼下，一些人已经等待了7个小时，希望获得库恩的亲笔签名。
库恩说，他的肘部因为签名太多而隐隐作痛。但是他表示将考虑再写一本书，这次是关于江泽民的继任者。
