MY CHINA DIARY is a good book written by K Natwar Singh.He is former external affairs minister of India and has been ambassador and high commisioner to several countries including Pakistan but started his career as a IFS officer from China.
The former part of this book comprises of his diary written in that period when he joined his posting in China in 1956.This portion is quite interesting to read as we know many new things about China in that period.He learned Chinese and learnt many things as a 25 year old young officer.Lived in Hotel for an year and met famous people.Sino-Indian relations were quite good at that time.
But When Dalai Lama fled to India and stood about Tibetan people’s rights, relations became bad and after that their Prime Minister Chou en lai visited India in 1960, relations couldn’t be mended till 1988 when Rajiv Gandhi went to China to improve relations.
I particularly liked Natwar Singh’s memoirs written in his early days.Also I got to know why relations between two countries worsened and what were the bones of contention.Things are written in great detail in this book.One section is devoted to speeches of Dr S Radha Krishnan, Jawahar lal Nehru and Rajiv Gandhi.
It’s a well written book, but detailed and boring at times, also author writes about himself in self praising ways many times.
Thanks for reading my review.