the 17-volumes of vince flynn and this new young author called lisa lutz. she's a young, hip, funny reader and writer. so that's the -- if i can get through that this summer, i'll feel good. >> i'm looking forward to my summer vacation and my summer reading. i'm going to read adam gopnik. this is a long shot but i'm reading this about the story of lincoln, darwin and modern life. and that's my lead-in. and then i carry my books about lincoln and my books about fdr, which i take on each trip and then forget to read. but i will do it this summer. >> to see more summer reading lists and other program information, visit our website at booktv.org. ..

rap diane wei liang talks about growing up in a work camp during china's cultural revolution. her participation in the student democracy movement and june 198090 ann and square demonstrations that ended with the massacre of hundreds of government citizens by china. the world affairs council of dallas-fort worth is the host of this event. it's 45 minutes. >> good evening. thank you very much for coming. i'm very thrilled to be in dallas. thank you very much for the world affairs council. i hear first fall to talk about my book, "lake with no name," and i think it is only fair we

go back to tianenman, not only to look at what happened. clearly my book was the memoir of that time but also perhaps you can spend some time to look at what has happened since and maybe have some time to debate the legacy of tianenman and china as its development in the future in that lovely introduction jam said i grew up in a labor camp with my parents and i was sent there mostly because my parents were sent to be reeducated because they were intellectuals and that was a term used in the culture revolution for anyone who has had a college degree.

i spent about three years in the remote mountain region with my parents, and under very atrocious living conditions. afterward i went back to beijing. my mother took my sister and i back to beijing. while my father had to go back to shanghai where he was born and where he grew up because in china we had a system that meant permission that you have from the government to live in a place. and normally one house to live and work in the place one is born. so my father also had gone to the university of maine schenck, met my mother and had children and he was not allowed to live in beijing it took him 12 years to gain permission from the government to move to beijing and live with us.

after that 12 years had passed, luckily the man died in 1926 and then gone -- universities were closed and the cultural revolution that began in 1966 for tenet years because mao deemed education as being on necessary so the university of china was sent to farms to people to be taught by peasants and learn to be a form heads and after the universities were reinstated and the educational system went back into its normal operational mode i was able to go to the university in the 1980's and during that time i

was very fortunate to have met a lot of people highly involved in the student democracy movement. and before 1989 china had gone through to periods, which you might not be aware of. and early 1980's china had gone through a relatively liberating period of time and from 1980 to 1986 there was a rapid economic development in the very first stage and a an open-door policy that was introduced and there was also cultural liberation. the students were able to debate certain ideas about what we find fascinating and novel that we were able to read from newly translated for an and western literature's and these ideas

included a democracy and liberty and freedom. but in 1986 the president of the communist party by the name of -- sympathetic to the students and debate and democracy movement at that level was stripped of his position and put under house arrest. and when that happened, china can into a relatively repressive period wendi bate had to go underground and caused a lot of tension and that built up until the 1989, spring of 1989 when he unexpectedly died of a heart attack and that as you all remember was the tent that triggered tiananmen square demonstrations and the students wanted to go to the street and demand they would be allowed to

his funeral to say goodbye to someone who was sympathetic to the students. when that demand was refused the students took to the streets and developed into a massive demonstration and i was at the university at the time. i took part in the movement with lots of my friends, some of whom became prominent in the movement and became student leaders and led honker strikes for examples and throughout the seven and a half weeks of the trademark movement. wind june 4th came the tanks rolled into beijing and the army opened fire on the students. the movement was crashed and after that beijing came after all and the university campuses were sued off and that there was a lot of of arrests.

there were executions. and it became a very dangerous place. and i had before the tiananmen event earned a scholarship from the u.s. to continue my graduate studies. so i was able to get my passport after i had been in hiding in the countryside for about a week. and once i received my passport and got my visa from the u.s. consulate and left china the second of august to america, and ollie remembered clearly still today when i write in williamsburg and i stood on the campus of william and mary and it was very quiet and was an amazing and liberating feeling. and to be standing in a place where i realized for the first time in my life that no one was

watching me and no one was going to report the things i said. if i could, i would very much like at this time to read a very small passage from my book and then i would be happy to open up to the audience to answer questions. and "lake with no name" i had decided to begin the book with actually returning to china. when i left china in 1989 and, i remember walking through the gate at the capital airport and turning back to look at my parents for i thought probably the last time. i had said to myself that i would never return to this country. and fortunately, or unfortunately for me, seven years later i get a return and i was the professor at the

business school at the university of minnesota and i was invited to teach the first mba students in beijing and when i returned to beijing and i realized -- and i was absolutely shocked -- how much of the city transformed as the city in the taxi with my parents i didn't realize we were actually close to home because i couldn't recognize any of the streets. the streets i had remembered had disappeared and been replaced by high rises and highways and flyovers. and i have since returned back to china every year and every time i go i am amazed how much china changed and how much it improves. and it gives me some times -- feeling and i go to tiananmen square and i see happy faces and young people who have not a

single idea of what happened there 20 years ago and other times i feel absolute joy that the tiniest people are now living in the prosperity, wealth, and happy, very happy lives and they stroll along the square with their children, with grandparents. i think in some ways that was the vision we wanted 20 years ago. this passage i would like to read is from that first time i return to china in 1996. sitting in the rickshaw i was overwhelmed i did not say anything all the way around the square, which looked serene under the quiet afternoon sun. there must have been many thousands of people there. but to me, tiananmen square looked empty. this was not what i had remembered. tiananmen was a battlefield in

the summer seven years before crowded with people, the young people of china, wearing their blood on their sleeves, hear -- hair in their eyes. where had they gone, those 18 year old boys and girls. i hadn't been here since i came as a guard june 1989. every time i came back it brought back in motion, tension and fear. i walked further insight climbing the monument to the people's heroes, the obelisk at the center of the square. and down with the base of the monument or stone carvings of things from chinese history. the boxer uprising, the opium war, the antijapanese invasion and the civil war. the monument was built in 1958

to symbolize the resistance of ordinary people to fuel powers and colonization. in 1989 the students of beijing found a particularly fitting to set up the command center here. the power of ordinary people was as mao used to say the force behind history. walking around the monument i couldn't help but think of the heavy cost and suffering the ordinary chinese have endured throughout our turbulent history. i had finally returned to the place my friends and comrades marched, some fought and died. hunger strikers refused food for days. they could feel the life of 20 years slowly leaving them. happiness was on their mind. happiness for the ordinary people, their children growing up. they had to close their eyes. they had no strength to look up

the sky or clouds anymore. it was the best time and it was a terrible time. we were young and full of hope and passionate about the cause. we were ready to pay the dealer price for space and free china because we never doubted that we would wind, that our sacrifice would be worthwhile. but however faith was crashed. one night tanks rolled down the boulevard of eternal peace. troops opened fire at students and citizens and blood flow. overnight i lost the innocence of my youth and love of my life. the images of my last days in china came back, each one clearer than the last. i feel that i was going to crumble under the pounding waves of the motions come each stronger than the one before. standing on the base of the

monument, i could clearly see the square occupied only by strolling tourists snapping photos. i had returned but so had my turbulent memories and they're seemed to be no place and the peaceful scene i saw in front of me. that is all from the book i would like to read and i would now like to open up to the floor if you have any questions. and there is michael going aground. >> [inaudible] >> my question is about the new memoir that has been released, and certainly it seems extraordinary, and he has his own version of events he is sharing in his memoir and i

wonder if you could comment a little bit about how you might have seen his role at the time or how you might see it now. >> i haven't read the book. when i came out to the states to do the book tour the book was just being released in london. but i have been together interviewed with of the editor of the book. so i was told a little bit about its content. and i think this version was that he was against the troops from moving in, but in the power struggle he lost to the hard-liners which included shopeng who ordered the army to come in and crash the student movements. and that was very much the version that we guest after he was stripped of power. in fact the moment that he came to tiananmen square with a megaphone asking students to

leave with tears running down his face. we thought now we have the support of the chinese leadership. we found that this was the moment we would win. the next day he was stripped of his power and put under house arrest. i believe that is the moment we realized how serious the situation had become and perhaps for the very first time we felt we might not win the battle in the end. yes. >> there was a woman who ended up leading a revolt at tiananmen square and i can't remember her name but i was wondering what happened to her and what do you

know about her story? we know she rose to power and then what happened to her? >> she was my roommate at the university. she was the leader of the honker strikers and later on the commander in chief at tiananmen square, twice nominated for a nobel peace prize. she is today an internet entrepreneur in boston. she runs an internet company. >> thank you very much for your time. [inaudible] -- the significance of what he did and what he stood for and the defense of tiananmen square.

>> the tank man has become the most iconic image is of the century. this is in some ways when we think of tiananmen and a lot of fuss including myself i think have this almost the honorable fragile person in front of a longer line of tanks, and i only saw this image after i came out to the west. and i was very proud when i saw that because i, myself, had been stopped going out to stop tanks. we managed to stop tanks from coming to beijing and i stood in front of the tank and climbed up onto the tank and tried to convince the soldiers to come back and at least not opened fire on the students. so it to a designated with me greatly that to me what this represented in the way that

almost amazingly beautiful that we don't know who he is at least at the moment i don't believe we know what he is and what happened to him. i think it is very much represented this unknown soldier and the unknown person just so bravely yet innocently stood in front of the tank and it also represented to me that absolute confidence we filled in the spring of 1989 that we could do this. we could stand in front of tanks and the tanks would not move on. and i think very much it was represented at that moment and symbolized, i think, it's very much their movement and that we, the students felt that we were able to take on the chinese

government. >> excuse me, i think you said jubilation. [inaudible] the other day we watched the 20 the anniversary [inaudible] i'm wondering what does that say about the current state of politics and democracy in china today? >> currently i believe there is a general tendency and a general believe china can progress without political reform in fact the chinese government would very much prefer the progress and the development to continue without having to reform

politically, and i think the coverage or the censorship if he would like of tiananmen square evens the past 20 years for a much represents that kind of thinking and that china dustin marvelously economically. and in some ways politically as well. and the chinese people are living happier lives, and so there is possibly a deal or feels like there is a deal struck between the government and the people of china at the moment that the economic prosperity has taken precedence over political reform, and i think that even and very much represents that kind of desire to separate political reform from the economic reform, and also it has been very much a chinese side key from way before

the communism that order and stability is a key to development and that sprung out from long history over turbulent fighting and invasion etc.. so for the chinese government has been absolutely first priority to keep the country in harmony and order and they believe that can be only achieved with control from the government. >> there are two questions i have. number one, on the cnn retrospectives we are seeking now there are still conflicting reports about how many people died in tiananmen square. i would like you to address that. and number two, i would like to have your delinks -- i believe you mentioned earlier you've

gone back to beijing. you also met with students there. can you give me perhaps a comparison of students with their philosophy on democracy now as it was compared to 20 years ago when you were a student. >> okay. i would be happy to. to answer your second question first i've been traveling back to beijing to do research for my fiction and beyond that i taught students in china. today the students are different from the time we were there. the students as we were. they are very confident. they are wildly and they've grown up in post tiananmen china. the experienced only prosperity and opportunity. they can travel freely overseas if they so choose which they do and they can afford and they can

study anywhere in the world if they would like. and china offers them great opportunities and possibilities of wealth so they are much less interested in politics as we did and partially because all supposed to have other outlets to vent their criticism or to participate in the adult men of their country for example, environmental issues. there is a huge youth concern for global warming and environmental improvement in china and also the use of china, very clued in to the terms of charitable work. if you follow some of the reports from the earthquake last year lots of donations came from ordinary chinese to help the victims of earthquake. and also there is a huge surge of nationalism, which a lot of times are led by demonstrations

dominated by young students in the cities. and so these are outlets they now choose to excerpt at their desire, there will and expression, and partly because tiananmen, for example, is censored by the government. there have been a lot of issues including tibet. it isn't openly debated. open debate on political issues is still dangerous matter. when i go to beijing i meet with my friends with whom i have shared days and nights at tiananmen. they now have -- some of them have worked and studied in the states and now they have gone back to china and are working very prominent positions and private organizations or in the government, and we could have this absolutely free

conversation about anything, about tiananmen we can have a debate but as soon as the cameras are right for example when there was a field crew wanting to film something nobody would say anything. and that censorship, public and to me, that is the current state of china in terms of politics and the students. and i am sorry, your first question, i forgot your first question. >> -- people in tiananmen square, the number dead. >> no one knows how many people died in tiananmen, even today, 20 years on. i believe secretary of state hillary clinton issued a state on june 4th asking the chinese government to confirm the number of death and acknowledge the number dead in tiananmen 20

years ago. we do not know how many died, we do not know their names and that in itself is a tragedy that the did were not honored. it has been a great chinese tradition to honor the dead and remember the dead and particularly this is a very sad happening to the parents lost their children and people who lost their loved ones. >> i first visited beijing in 1997 and have been many times since and witnessed the transformations you talked about putting it in your opinion what has been lost and what has been gained during this time? >> i would rather start with what has been gained because what has been gained is a lot. and we had demanded free china, we wanted a modern china and today we have a modern china.

we have china that is economically stronger. we have chinese people who feel confident, who feel that finally after hundreds of years perhaps this is the moment to share that weaker asia and it to become a major player. we have also seen great development as i said earlier he had been abolished. people can move freely today and that the state monitoring of people's activities have been dramatically reduced. when i was growing up, five committees would always watch over what everyone said and even friends, relatives could turn because their lives could be threatened if they did not.

and all of these happenings had vanished so the chinese people don't live in fear anymore though the censorship in the press is still there. and i have things who are dissident writers who can visit to beijing for example as an individual citizen and yet they cannot publish their work and china, nor could they speak to the press and one way that is an indication of lack of freedom. being another, that is a great leap forward for what china used to be. ..

the. >> who take a mind corruption environmental pollutions and we see the reports of these people all the time and when i say i need ordinary people and policemen and of his support in the provinces and the

retirees sponsoring disabled children. there are a lot of these wonderful things happening on the individual basis. >> the lead generation of tiananmen [inaudible] like yourself who escaped to the west but there may be many who were left behind is there a generation working its way up through the chinese communist party and maybe the gorbachev of the next generation? today with nashville as the market frustrated by the fact [inaudible] as the economic power could allow them to be?

>> and that is the $6 million question, isn't it? what shape and form a will china be in the future? a lot of my friends, the people who are participants in the tiananmen ef- said it seems now moving up the ranks within china and as i said a lot of my friends return to china to work in the country and we do see changes happening gradually. in chinese and their reactions as far as academic and the international crisis we will look at north korea and china's reaction today is very different from what china said the three years ago. we see the changes. i don't know if that change comes from further engagement in the west or china's desire to be part of the international community or

perhaps to some degree a yeoman third generation of chinese moving into a leadership and that brought out the changes but these are happening maybe not as fast as people would like it but slowly and surely changes are happening and i think that is very positive. how would china looked 10 or 20 years from now? i suspect it would economically be the very strong particularly if we look at how china is recovering from the recession and how reflective the stimulus package worked in china vs. everywhere else there is great confidence in the chinese model if there is a model of certain types of capitalism is working. but politically how would china be? i don't know if anyone would be able to predict and

certainly i would not be the one to try that. i think sometimes have been staged the things happen slowly just like tiananmen a great movement will occur. that is possible but whatever happens i believe engagement, further engagement with china will only help for china to develop and progress and moving into a more international standard country despite the economic developments in china over the past few years there has been a prominent amount of censorship in communication

and general. do you think that economic development will cause the censorship to open up or communication to become more open in the china society or what would be your opinion on that? >> i think economic development is itself a first of has a great impact on liberty and increasing the liberty for the people they used to say the biggest limitation to the liberty of individuals is a complete lack of money and i think the chinese government has done a great job that lifting that's and therefore creating research and liberty for the chinese people get the same time economic development along is not enough i don't

think it will increase the hostility of political reform. i think a certain amount of debate is necessary remembering and perhaps pressure and reminding china that human rights and liberty and write down is something that chinese people desire. and today the chinese people are very content and happy and when the time comes no one, no one in the world will reject liberty and freedom. thank you. [applause]

>> on behalf of the audience i wanted to thank you for eliminating a subject we all care very deeply about bryant all agree you are brave to have experienced what you did and the been graver to write about it and share it with us. thank you [applause] >> host: miriam greenberg is the of third "branding new york" how a city and crisis was sold to the world did you think of new york city in the '50s and '60s what do think of? >> guest: i think in new york and the post-world war two period was in a position

of pre-eminence in the united states and its fortunes were rising it was a famous working-class city to quote another book by joshua freeman, it was a city that had a lot of business during world war ii and the industries were employing many, many new yorkers and it was also a growing media capital. and it was expanding the office infrastructure, a growing in terms of the of united nations and getting a lot of international attention in a new way politically and seen internationally as the capital of a resurgent u.s. following world war ii. the star was rising during

that period. >> host: what happened to new york in the 1970's? >> guest: a complicated question that has global, national, local reasonings behind it. political and economic and cultural it was a period of crisis. on many levels. it was a period that began in the 1960's, the decline. and there really reached the height in the '70s that had to do with the local level with a mismanagement of funds and a fiscal crisis of the state that led to the city technically going bankrupt and when i say it is a complex story over which it has a debate and had to do on the one hand the city government spending an enormous amount to

build mass amounts of high-end private sector office space and residential buildings of well as maintaining the level of social spending at a time when revenues were shrinking. that created a crisis for the city budget but on the other hand, in new york was not alone there were many cities during a period were facing bankruptcy having to do with a global recession and inflation and stagflation as a result of the combination of the global oil crisis. a complex time when the fortunes of cities in particular given the retrenchment of the federal government were put in this very difficult position. they had to find new sources of revenue. >> host: was new york losing population in the '50s, '60s, '70s.

>> guest: no. there was suburbanization going on since the late 19th century and the surrounding suburbs. one thing was occurring was the rise of the suburbs more widely in the united states and the expansion of suburbs. so there was a loss of population to there growing sun belt region that was going on in the '50s to the west and southwest of the united states. the sunbelt's the suburbanized sunbelt was also the base of a growing and more conservative political movement in the country which saw a new york despite its strengths reflected the old guard form of civic populism, if you will, the right-wing republican party was trying to supplant.

new york was losing population to some extent, finding itself and competition, in serious competition with other cities that were in the republican or bit. >> host: in your book "branding new york" you talk about the crisis of the '70s and new york's response. house of bear was the crisis and the response? >> guest: the crisis of the '70s was extremely severe it went into bankruptcy. as a result of which the crisis was produced by these local and national and global circumstances but also the reaction, and it not only be felt the york but produced as a reaction to its. and involved very harsh austerity measures which cut back social spending on things

like fire protection and a sanitation and city services and laid off thousands of public-sector workers and led to the increased exodus of people from corporations and businesses from new york as a result of these cutbacks. it was very, very severe. to this day i think their reaction and the degree of what people may call the draconian severity quote has been questioned. >> host: what do you mean by that? >> guest: there was a calculus that where the priorities should be placed by the city and i think the city is essentially decided that under intense pressure from the ford ministration and

which is something the court was not releasing to new york but many cities that he did not literally say it but cities were no longer getting that type of resources they got under the model city programs of the '60s and the municipal funding that they once got and there was intense pressure to privatize and downsize public spending and increase competitiveness and attract new investment as opposed to a similar the keynesian approach to what obama is talking about now to invest in a stimulus package and the working class there was a calculus that if one had to be lost, what could be lost is the quality of life for the working and middle-class of

the city in order to bring in new funds in the corporate headquarters, tourism and an upper middle class. there was a bold restructuring of the priorities and ultimately the budgetary priorities and new forms of incentive for provided for investment and relocation and tourism at the same time that money was cut from social spending for existing residents and workers of the city. >> host: what is the fact today of those changes? >> guest: i think it created what some people have started to call already in the 1980's a dual city, a city that was far more divided and unequal between classis, a city that was far more focused on of the

center of manhattan as opposed the carter burroughs that lost out with this calculus, and a new form of centralization and created a city that what i focus on in the book is out marketing and media were used in concert with these new priorities the new political and economic priorities and it created a new a imaginary or identity for new york. no longer was of the famed working-class capital now it became really represented as a more e leads luxury city and the city that could be prominently placed an advertisement in association with products that wanted that cachet. >> host: and factor in your book "branding new york" you talk about the very famous

logo of all i heart new york. >> guest: that campaign in the initial campaign came from the artistic graphic designer who was famous in his own right it created a solidarity with new york and new yorkers and made people think about what would the essential qualities they love and what would they be sorry to lose because when i say it is a severe crisis, there was a lot of hype nationwide to the degree of some people that new york would cease to exist and there were satires of the new york sinking into the notion the famous scene and planet of nablus in the final episode when you see the george of the statue of liberty rising above the sand. there were a lot of caricatures of the city and

representations' in which the city ceases to exist and i hart's new york responded to what was an anxiety about that. many new yorkers war i heart new york among the nation and they had to identify with the idea there was something about the city, i write about this they were playing around with the font of the campaign, critique newspaper style front and the softness of the heart and that juxtaposition and the early newspaper, print and television campaign featured prominently broadway stars and broadway shows katz, chorus

line, some of what remains to be the great musicals and productions many of which originated in the '70s and early '80s, annie, and others and then there was characters from those performances gave their services for free and there was a sense of a great creativity and vitality in association with broadway and times square park about was the first phase this is the second phase and this was a campaign launched by the state and not the city which is now clyde big mccall the empire state development corporation they shifted focus largely away from this intense personal identification with new york to a much more bush and imagery of shopping and

downtown finance and the skyline of the city in association with the natural escape that you could have in the rest of new york state. i think that was part of the planning all along. i think the early phase was so much around the crisis people wanted the identification and later the more business development side of the campaign was focused on. from the beginning i love new york was the front stage of the deeper restructuring that i was talking about. and that became more and more clear as the campaign went on. so talk in this book about this transition and other side of the campaign that actually involves instead of having broadway stars perform involve having ceos of major corporations talk about why they love new york and they would say there is a 30% tax

rate for relocating there are all of these different deals that corporations could get was the reason and they love to new york. >> host: what is at its brand today? >> guest: i think the i love new york was successful and has held up as one of the most recognized city marketing campaign globally and was copied so much and that was allowed in the early phases that was not copy written until later and was allowed to viral the trouble -- travel. there was an effort after 9/11 two rebranding the city there was a feeling around a professionalize cohort of branders that the value of all i heart -- i heart new york was watered-down and they need a more resonant brand to do

more business about midday envisioned. so immediately following 9/11 with very patriotic imagery. and given the loss of the world trade center towers which had figured prominently in a lot of commercials with the skyline in particular of the second phase of the i love new york campaign, that had to be completely revise their residence of focus on the statue of liberty and the association red, white, and blue infinity logo with the statue of liberty so patriotic damage. with bloomberg there has been a shift again. bloomberg has spoken about to see new york as a luxury city again. there has been a lot of marketing along the lines that

was done in association with the effort to attract the olympics, that was done in association with the republican national convention, in association with a lot of different events that have been hosted by a much larger beefed up marketing apparatus that has been produced under his administration there is luxury images that have been produced and also a new campaign called of this is new york which associates luxury image with a utopian vision of a diverse city that harkens back to the early days of i love new york and that is the juxtaposition of a longing, a utopian longing with this luxury oriented identification and that makes this campaign so

successful and allows people not to think so critically about them as i think they should. >> host: as a sociology professor at university of california's santa cruz why are you writing a book called the "branding new york". >> guest: recently relocated to santa cruz not buy would be otherwise but i lived in new york 20 years before i moved to california. over the course of living in new york i became very fascinated with the sociology of the city, the history of the city i was a media maker, representation of the city, and i became fascinated with this period which i see is really formative in the canterbury form it takes and the strange juxtaposition on the one hand it with the draconian cutbacks and on the other hand, these investments

in the marketing the image of the city at the same time resources for the livelihood of the city were being taken away. i think while in new york, that fascinated me. i have taken that fascination with me to california and tried to convince people in santa cruz of the importance of this and i think it has resonance because i think cities around the country when faced with prices have a lot of these kind of decisions to make of how to represent themselves. >> host: the of 3,012th "branding new york" howl a city in crisis was sold to the world. >> sir david frost what are your reading?

>> frost and extend by david frost the autobiography that is not sure. i am doing relaxing reading in terms of thrillers and that sort of thing used to read robert ludlum and james patterson and that is light reading but more seriously i am doing the book that a great political speeches of all time. that is what i am reading. >> how do you select the books that you read? i race into the airport i hope there is not a long queue

. .