B6 COVER STORY Sunday 25 November 2012 Shanghai Daily fei Die eh Pa) ee ae aa aN a ee be inh} Ne gs iy Sf See | a | iW eae e ® Oy i Un a mission to es BS pe —— ee explain ‘real’ China << i Oo) Eee a p eee 1 @ ae) Lu Feiran Kuhn’s experience with China started in 1989, when he was invited by former State Councilor Song hina expert and American public intellec- Jian, director of the State Science and Technology ( tual, Robert Lawrence Kuhn is best known in Commission. China for two books about Chinese leaders The two became friends and Kuhn began traveling and their views, including a biography of between the US and China, getting to know govern- former President Jiang Zemin in 2005 and one about _ment officials and ordinary people. other leaders and their thinking in 2009. Kuhn said he felt frustrated because his experience Kuhn, also an investment banker, business con- in China differed from the description in much of sultant, brain scientist and philosopher, has been the Western media. “Then they only focused on the granted unprecedented access to Chinese leaders, negative side and ignored the rest,” he said. though he does not speak Chinese. That disparity inspired him to write Jiang’s biog- His biography “The Man Who Changed China: raphy, he said. Jiang himself said that Kuhn didn’t The Life and Legacy of Jiang Zemin” published in “beautify” him and got his wedding date wrong. both Chinese and English, was a best-seller in China Kuhn spent four years writing “The Man Who where readers are not accustomed to humanized Changed China.” Though he had only met Jiang three biographies of leaders. times and did not interview him for the book, he aan a It was probably the first biography written by a talked to many people close to Jiang, including rela- : : foreigner about a living Chinese leader that was tives, friends and colleagues, gathering stories and published in China. perceptions. He became close to many of them. Kuhn has also produced documentaries on Chin