cover image Daughter of China: A True Story of Love and Betrayal

Daughter of China: A True Story of Love and Betrayal

Meihong Xu. John Wiley & Sons, $24.95 (349pp) ISBN 978-0-471-35673-8

""I thought Robert Frost was one of the greatest Communist poets who ever lived."" Having left her farm village in 1981 at age 17 to join the People's Liberation Army (PLA), Lieutenant Xu was one of an elite corps of girls selected to become intelligence agents--those who viewed ""the road less traveled"" as the correct Communist path. Xu married Lin Cheng, a glamorous PLA man whom she saw only twice a year, since their training came first. After befriending coauthor Engelmann in a student exchange program, she was designated an ""Enemy of the People"" for divulging state secrets to him. Although she had never slept with the American, she was ordered to ""confess"" that he had raped her. After eight weeks of interrogation, Xu was expelled from the Party and the army. Lin divorced her, Engelmann married her and she was granted an exit visa and warned, ""You may be leaving China...[but] your family is still here. Don't forget that, ever."" Xu's refusal to name names only temporarily saved her mentor, ""the General""--the probable grantor of her passport--who soon ""disappeared."" Xu's memoir reads like a political thriller with an inconsistent narrator. She admits to lying but shows integrity in protecting the General and her family. Constant shifts in chronology, repetition and nameless key characters don't help. However, the ground-level view she offers of the Cultural Revolution, the democracy movement, the Tiananmen Square massacre and the hints of struggle among the top leadership will fascinate those familiar with Chinese politics. Ultimately, Xu's is not a love story (she has divorced Engelmann and now works in computers); it is a survival story. Agent, Sandra Dijkstra. (Oct.)