China’s Foreign Press Corps – See, I Told You They Were Soft!

I must say I’ve been rather surprised at the generally kind and supportive reception from the current day China press corps of foreign correspondents to my new book Through the Looking Glass: China’s Foreign Correspondents from Opium War to Mao. Everywhere I’ve been to speak they’ve bought books, laughed at my jokes (most of them at least) and seemed to accept my thesis that today’s foreign press corps is a remarkably tame and timid bunch compared to their esteemed ancestors pre-1949.

Speaking at the Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing Foreign Correspondents’ Clubs there have been no outbursts of righteous indignation and no stout defences from the corps – and no punches thrown at me. In fact I can’t think of an incident of one of today’s press corp throwing a punch at another – something that was a rather predictable and common event in the old days when passions and tempers flared pretty regularly. It’s probably down to the fact that you’re more likely to encounter a group of foreign correspondents in China these days comparing notes and opinions over a smoothie and a macrobiotic wrap than a bottle of whisky and a full ashtray sadly.

Which is a roundabout way of pointing you in the direction of a rather amusing and self-deprecatory review of my book by one of the Beijing press corps, Reshma Patil of the Hindustan Times, who is refreshingly honest about how safe and conventional covering the China story is these days – click here. They really are a bunch of softies these days!