Join WorldOregon for a rare public event with award-winning journalist Edward Wong, diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times, who reports on global affairs, U.S. foreign policy and the State Department. Covering American foreign policy and its impact, Wong has been a reporter at the Times for more than 25 years, more recently focusing on our multipolar world, authoritarian states, and wars and superpower rivalries involving the United States. For this conversational evening, Wong discusses his groundbreaking book At the Edge of Empire: A Family's Reckoning with China and recent, dramatic developments in the landscape of foreign policy.  

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. At the Edge of Empire is an essential work for understanding China today.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Edward Wong is a diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times. In 25 years at the Times, he has reported from scores of countries and served as a war correspondent in Iraq and as the Beijing bureau chief. He is the winner of the Livingston Award for international reporting and was on a team of Pulitzer Prize finalists. He has been a Nieman Fellow at Harvard University and a visiting professor at Princeton University and U.C. Berkeley. He has done fellowships at the Wilson Center and the Belfer Center at Harvard Kennedy School. Wong speaks on global issues to television and radio outlets, including CBS, MSNBC, PBS, NPR, and BBC. He lives with his family in Washington, DC.

Copies of Wong's At the Edge of Empire will be available for purchase and a book-signing will take place following the program. Thank you to Broadway Books for their partnership on this event! 

Cosponsored with the Northwest China Council