For thousands of years the Han people who settled China’s heartland around the Yangtze and Yellow Rivers have contended with people of other ethnicities on what is now the nation’s periphery. For extended periods, marauders from that region—Mongolians, Manchurians, and Muslim Turkic peoples from Central Asia—breached the imperial borders. Some ruled over the empire for centuries. But today’s resurgent nation incorporates the periphery, including Tibet, Xinjiang, Manchuria, and much of ancient Mongolia. China now is waging a decades-long effort to assimilate these lands, settling huge numbers of Han colonists there and imposing the Chinese language and culture on often unwilling subjects. Someone may write a brilliant book about the conflicts that campaign has brought about. And Edward Wong’s 2024 Chinese family memoir, At the Edge of Empire, seems to promise that. Unfortunately, it doesn’t deliver. I expected better from a 25-year veteran of the New York Times.
Two important stories woven together
Elements of that brilliant account are, in fact, buried in the pages of this book. It includes long chapters chronicling the author’s, and his father’s, face-to-face observations of China’s repression in Xinjiang and (in just the author’s case) Tibet. Unfortunately, Wong scatters these revealing chapters inside a chaotic account of his father’s life in China in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s and his own extended experiences there as a student and later as a Times reporter in the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s.
Instead of telling a story in chronological order, which might have lent the book some coherence, Wong chooses to jump around in time, leaping without any discernible logic from one era to another and back again. It’s very hard to follow. But it’s clear that this book encompasses two stories. One is an account of his father’s experience as an “unwitting passenger on the nation’s journey through hardship.” The other, incorporating his father’s observations as well as his own, relates the ugly tale of China’s harsh regime in Xinjiang and Tibet.
At the Edge of Empire: A Family’s Reckoning with China by Edward Wong (2024) 464 pages ★★★☆☆
A long history of repression in Xinjiang
If you actively follow foreign policy news, you’re well aware of China’s harsh repression in both Tibet and Xinjiang. The brutality began in Tibet in the 1950s under Mao, while the widespread human rights abuses against the Uighur people of Xinjiang became overt only in 2014 under Xi Jinping. Tibet has faded from the headlines. But Xinjiang has become a major sticking point in relations between China and the USA.
Although no doubt you know these facts, it’s less likely you know the history as well as Edward Wong. Wong’s late father served as an officer in the People’s Liberation Army in the 1950s and ’60s, much of that time assigned to duty “at the edge of empire” in Xinjiang. Wong’s account of his father’s experiences there is eye-opening. It reveals clearly that the Chinese central government’s discriminatory treatment of Xinjiang’s people predated the era of Xi Jinping by decades. It’s a sorry tale. And Wong himself has visited the region many times as a reporter for the New York Times. This enables him to bring the story up to date.
Though it’s slow going to reach the chapters that deal with Xinjiang (and, in much less detail, Tibet), they’re worth the price of the book.
Separately. the stories Wong’s father related to him before his death could themselves make for a compelling book—if only they’d been arranged in some logical order. Judge for yourself whether it’s worth your time to slog through the nearly 500 pages of this book and sort the pieces together into a coherent account.
About the author
Edward Wong writes about himself on the website of the New York Times, where he’s been a reporter for more than twenty-five years: “I’m a diplomatic correspondent for The New York Times, reporting on global affairs, U.S. foreign policy and the State Department. I write on American foreign policy and its impact, as well as on the foreign policies of other nations. I range widely under my beat, reporting on topics from espionage to economic competition to environmental crises.”
Wong was born in 1972 in Washington, DC, and grew up in suburban Arlington, Virginia. He holds a BA (summa cum laude) in English literature from the University of Virginia, joint MAs in journalism and international and area studies from the University of California, Berkeley. At the Edge of Empire is his first book. He is married and the father of two children.
For related reading
I’ve appended this book to 30 insightful books about China and Two dozen excellent memoirs under “related reading.”
For historical perspective on this book, check out China in World History by Paul S. Ropp (Chinese history in less than 200 pages).
You might also care to browse through 20 top nonfiction books about history or Top 20 popular books for understanding American history.
And you can always find my most popular reviews, and the most recent ones, on the Home Page.
