The Man on Mao's Right by Ji Chaozhu Random House, HK$224 Ji Chaozhu was the ultimate 'fly on the wall' during some of the most extraordinary events in modern Chinese history. From the early 1950s to his retirement in 1996, he was interpreter for Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong and other top mainland politicians and eventually a fully accredited diplomat. Consequently he was privy to many extraordinary conversations but this is not a 'kiss-and-tell' book: there are no shocking revelations or untold gossip being revealed for the first time. He takes a veiled shot at Li Zhisui's The Private Life of Chairman Mao, published in 1994 and representing events Mao's private physician is supposed to have witnessed. This book, Ji assures us, does not contain any salacious stories about China's revolutionary leaders. And he is true to his word. He makes it clear that he is not writing history; all he is doing is telling his personal story but it is an interesting story indeed. What makes Ji special is his upbringing. At 10 he was whisked away from his war-ravaged home in China and taken to America. Not only did Ji spend his adolescence in America, he lost a great deal of his ability to speak Chinese. He was, however, very bright and entered Harvard, where he studied for two years before his family decided the Korean war was making life too difficult for them, so they returned to China. Back home, he was half-American, half-Chinese. Although this made it possible for him to become a brilliant interpreter - his spoken Chinese returned in time although writing took longer - it also made him somewhat 'impure' in the eyes of some of the dedicated revolutionaries then running China. He did eventually become the main interpreter for Zhou and held that position for nearly 20 years. As he tells his story one sees glimpses of the wider world, both in Chinese politics and from the world stage. Ji is quite careful, however, not to reveal too much. Sometimes he says he cannot remember the details - the authorities did not allow interpreters to take notes, so this could easily be true - and sometimes one has the feeling he may be skirting a delicate issue. It is impossible to know, but this does not mean he tells us nothing. There is much about the intrigues behind the scenes and he is able to tell us only because those who 'failed' are now in disgrace. For those not familiar with recent Chinese history the book may read like several series of a good old-fashioned television soap opera. It was not until Deng Xiaoping took over that the worst abuses finally faded. Ji's descriptions of the back-stabbing and 'politicking' are almost exactly the same as they would be for anyone writing about Enron or Worldcom or any large western company, except of course when American executives lose they are paid a few million dollars to go away; in revolutionary China their equivalents were sent to pig farms to shovel manure. One small but significant part of the book deals with the events of the summer of 1989 and the violent suppression of June 4. Ji had been in London as China's ambassador and was home for a short stay. He does not defend the actions of that day but does reveal something that many of us in the west may not have considered. Many of China's leaders of that time, especially Deng, had suffered greatly during the Cultural Revolution. That 10-year trauma was run for the most part by students; Ji says that after so many years of trying to rebuild confidence in China it looked as if another long-term upheaval was about to begin. It does not matter if this is true or not, but it does matter if people of his generation and older thought it could be. He spends only a few pages on the subject but after reading about all the intrigues and abuses that had gone before, one can certainly understand his and their fears. Nevertheless, the mainland was again shunned for a time by the rest of the world. Ji comes across as a sincere man devoted to two nations he can call home. He is not afraid to tell stories of his own blunders and confirms long-held views that Zhou was a true gentleman and Jiang Qing malevolent. This is not history; it is a memoir and like all memoirs must be treated as such. Most of what Ji says can be verified independently. The rest is left to the reader to believe or not.