Eldest Son

This dramatic, admiring biography portrays Chinese Communist premier Zhou Enlai (1898-1976) as a coolheaded conciliator who tried to curb Mao Zedong's excesses and to introduce democratic reforms. Drawing on her 11 meetings with Zhou, untranslated Chinese sources, interviews and her many trips to China, Han Suyin, historian and novelist, maintains that Zhou, as early as 1948, devised a program for a mixed economy and, in the mid-1950s, attempted to introduce "something like perestroika , Chinese-style," with the Hundred Flowers Movement calling for free discussion and shared decision-making. According to the author, Zhou worked behind the scenes against Mao's Great Leap Forward (1958-1959) and returned countless peasants to their villages. While ostensibly supporting Mao's Cultural Revolution of the '60s, Zhou fought its excesses, saving the lives of many targeted victims, she shows. This vivid biography, filled with close-ups of Nixon, Kissinger, Chiang Kaishek, Stalin, Khrushchev and Deng Xiaoping, rewards with its insights into Beijing-Washington and Beijing-Moscow relations.