As Jonathan Fenby releases Tiger Head, Snake Tails, his latest book and an ambitious new attempt to sum up modern China, Time Out meets the veteran historian
Jonathan Fenby first arrived in Hong Kong to edit the South China Morning Post (SCMP) in 1995. But his journey into China was almost a short-lived one. Robert Kuok, the Malaysian tycoon who owns the English-language newspaper, meddled on a weekly basis: this person must be dismissed, that person must be hired.
‘This began within three days of my arrival in Hong Kong, when he ordered someone sacked. And I said, no. Melodramatically I went back to my hotel and said to my wife, “Let’s pack our bags. We’re flying out in
the morning!” ’
Kuok backed off and Fenby, who had taken the job after a two-year stint editing The Observer, stayed at the SCMP for five years. It was ultimately a happy outcome: had Fenby stormed out, he may never have made the trip to the Mainland, which has subsequently seen him become one of the leading figures writing about China today.
Fenby is the author of a number of seminal books on the country (and France, his other great love); not least The Penguin History of Modern China. This month sees the publication of his latest work Tiger Head, Snake Tails: China Today, How It Got There And Where It Is Heading. It’s an encyclopedic account of contemporary China – a country described by the author as a ‘nation on speed’.
We meet Fenby at the chic Opposite House hotel in Beijing, as girls in sky-high stilettos totter nearby. The sheer volume of his works – 12 books in 14 years – his reputation, and the titles that decorate his name (he has a CBE, the British Order of Merit, and is a Chevalier of the French Order of Merit) is intimidating, yet in person Fenby, 69, is like your favourite grandpa. He cuts a jolly, roly-poly, Father Christmas figure – one with Asian sympathies judging by the large gold dragon stitched on his faded red jumper.
The author grew up surrounded by hacks. His great uncle owned a paper and his father was deputy editor of The Picture Post, where his mother was also a reporter. His earliest memory is of arriving home after a Sunday trip to the sound of the telephone ringing. It was the outbreak of the Korean War (1950-53). ‘My father put the phone down and said, do you want to come? And I went along to the newsroom and just sat there watching,’ remembers Fenby with obvious fondness.
Fenby’s own career has seen him take on positions ranging from chief correspondent at The Economist in France and Germany to deputy editor at The Guardian. (‘If I'd been original I would have been a bus driver!’ he exclaims). His time at the SCMP saw him cover the 1997 hand over.
It was a moment when eyes the world over were fixed on Hong Kong. ‘That was the sexy story. And the Post was the visible barometer [of freedom]. I had an American editor at the Boston Globe who said: “You’re the canary in the coal mine. We’re watching.” ’ Any erosion of autonomy in the former colony as China took the reins would start with the free press.
The canary survived and Fenby only remembers one case of PRC pressure in his five years as editor – when a Beijing official saw a poll he didn’t like the look of he asked: ‘Why do you run these erroneous opinion polls? We think you should get some new ones.’ Above all, the SCMP gave Fenby a VIP seat from which to observe China’s meteoric rise, something he has kept up for the past 17 years.
Tiger Head, Snake Tails is in many ways a culmination of these years’ work. The title is taken from a Chinese phrase, ‘a tiger’s head, but a snake’s tail’, meaning a strong start but a poor finish. The message is that while the bold and brash ‘tiger’ – the surging economic success story – dominates the headlines, we should be wary of the myriad ‘snake tails’, or problems on the ground.
The book’s genesis came after Fenby realised that dozens of China tomes zoned in on individual subjects, from the Party to the environment, but there wasn’t ‘a single book which draws together all the different themes: the politics, the economy, the society, international relations, history, environment...’ It’s an ambitious project; but one which Fenby pulls off with aplomb.
Above all, he seeks to fill in the middle ground between the China bulls and the China bears: the former who preach that China’s economy will prevail and the latter who believe it will crash.
‘They’re both right and they’re both wrong,’ he insists.‘A very fine sinologist is reputed to have said, the great thing about China is that you can take one position in the morning and find all the evidence you want for it, and the opposite position in the afternoon and find just as much evidence.’
Next up for the writer is a biography of the fallen hero, Ferdinand de Lesseps; a Frenchman who became a national champion after building the Suez Canal only to spectacularly fall from grace after the Panama Canal disaster. ‘It’s the rise and fall. I’m fascinated by people who do one very big achievement and then get carried away.’
And what about China? After so many years as a respected ‘China watcher’, how does Fenby see the country’s future? ‘This is perhaps the biggest challenge facing any government in the world,’ he says. ‘People always say to me: where is China going to be in 30 years’ time? I haven’t got the slightest idea. You know, if you’d gone back 35 years to the death of Mao in ’76... could anyone have predicted this?’
Tiger Heads, Snake Tails is published by Simon & Schuster and is available from Amazon, priced around 200RMB.
Clarissa Sebag-Montefiore
