Fires of the Dragon

by David E. Kaplan

Henry Liu: journalist, U.S. citizen, father of three, spy. Murdered in October 1984 in the privacy of his California home by agents of an important American ally. Who, exactly, was Henry Liu, and why was he killed? Fires of the Dragon takes as its starting point the death of Henry Liu, but it is more than one man's story. Liu's life - and death - is the window through which renowned investigative reporter David E. Kaplan unveils, for the first time ever, a dramatic and disturbing tale of international intrigue. Since the end of the Chinese Civil War in 1949, when Mao Tse-tung's Communist forces swept to victory and Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang (KMT) fled to the island of Taiwan, the Communists and the KMT have waged a brutal battle for control of the world's most populous people. As Kaplan reveals, this war has been exported to more than a dozen countries - and nowhere has this struggle proved more intense than in the United States. In this remarkable expose, Kaplan unmasks forty years of espionage and dirty tricks directed against America by its Taiwanese ally. Among the book's many revelations are how KMT spies infiltrated the State Department and FBI, sabotaged the nation's foreign policy, and recruited the Mafia to steal America's nuclear bombs. While U.S. officials turned a blind eye, Taiwan's agents wreaked havoc in America, terrorizing its Chinese students and emigres and making a mockery of the U.S. Constitution. Henry Liu's life provides a compelling framework for the telling of this story. Born in a small Chinese village, Liu endured firsthand the devastation of the civil war. At seventeen, his father murdered and his family stripped of all its possessions, he joined the KMT Army in its humiliating flight to Taiwan. After eighteen years in exile, disillusioned with the KMT, he moved to the United States to create a new life. But like millions of other Overseas Chinese, Liu remained torn between his loyalties to China, Taiwan, and his new home abroad.

Genres: Nonfiction, China, Crime, History

448 pages, Hardcover

First published October 21, 1992

About the author

David E. Kaplan is an investigative reporter and former director of the Center for Public Integrity's International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. Before this post, he worked for the American newsweekly U.S. News & World Report. David E. Kaplan commonly writes about terrorism, organized crime, and intelligence.

Reviews

[Jeff Gillenkirk · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Kaplan wrote this book as a staff writer for the renowned Center for Investigative Reporting, which should be proud of this exhaustive, intriguing and informative book. In chronicling the 1984 murder of journalist Henry Liu in a San Francisco suburb, Kaplan exposes the shocking level of corruption of Taiwan's ruling Kuomintang party and its powerful impact on American politics. With American media focused for decades on the shortcomings of the People's Republic of China and its ruling Communist Party, the Kuomintang rolled along with much of the U.S. Congress, State Department and various presidential administrations firmly in its pocket. A valuable history lesson for its first two-thirds, the last third of Fires of the Dragon is a gripping tale of murder and political mayhem. This is an invaluable resource for anyone hoping to understand the complexities of U.S.- Chinese relations, past, present and future.

[Gregory John · Rating 5 out of 5]

p.52: “Taiwan’s fate was completely dark. Only a miracle of God could change its fate.”
The miracle came, fittingly, on a Sunday morning, in the early hours of June 25, 1950. In a foreign land a thousand miles away that Henry knew or cared little about, seventy-five thousand North Korean troops swarmed across the 38th Parallel in a surprise attack. The Communists had saved Taiwan.

p.96: When, in 1858, an American diplomat suggested to the viceroy of Chihli that Chinese consuls be dispatched to protect their subjects overseas, the official quickly dismissed the idea. “The emperor’s wealth is beyond computation,” explained the viceroy. “Why should he care for those of his subjects who have left their home, or for the sands they have scraped together?” But forty years later, as China’s last dynasty neared its chaotic end, the imperial court stripped away the law barring emigration and began actively soliciting the Chinese overseas. Events made clear that the Chinese abroad had scraped together far more than a few sands, and that they were using their newfound wealth to fund political movements back home.

p.113: Among those harassed and deported was Tsien Hsue-shen, a brilliant expert on aeronautics and rocketry who had spent seventeen years in America and, said friends at Cal Tech, hoped to become a U.S. citizen. During World War II, Tsien had created the designs for America’s first military missiles. Accused on hearsay of being a Communist, stripped of his security clearance, and imprisoned for a short time, Tsien turned bitterly against the U.S. government. Once back in China, he played an instrumental role in developing China’s first nuclear weapons.

p.241: In June 1977, unknown to the American public, federal officials formally placed Taiwan on the highly classified “criteria list” of nations considered a “hostile” treat to U.S. national security. No non-Communist, friendly nation ever had been put onto the top-secret list. America’s old ally, the Republic of China on Taiwan, joined such public enemies as Bulgaria, East Germany, and the Soviet Union.

p.442: Indeed, Ronald Reagan, who celled so ardently for a global war against terrorism, had failed to utter even a word about the Liu murder.

[Marina Lant · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at the US’s tortured relationship with Taiwan and China in the 20th Century with a special focus on spy craft. The author’s meticulous research and intriguing conclusions about the role of American civil liberties in international diplomacy make this an excellent read for 2022.

[Philip]

OKAY, NEW CATEGORY HERE - these are the books that have been on my shelf for a while, but which I will probably never read because for whatever reason they are now OBE - "overtaken by events;" i.e., either irrelevant due to the passage of time and/or vicissitudes of history, or have simply been replaced by better books on the same topic.

And yes, I know I spend way too much time on Goodreads - but as addictions go it's probably better than internet porn. I think.