David Mulroney

David Mulroney served as Canada's ambassador to China. A well-respected career public servant, he has written this book which is part memoir and part foreign policy analysis.

I think the memoir portion was very interesting. It gave me a sense of what our ambassadors really do. It made a solid case for having an effective, non-partisan foreign service.

The policy aspect of the book was less impressive. I think the author didn't present a lot of information that isn't already known. China is often difficult to deal with, but we must find a way because it is big and growing in both economic and geopolitical power.

This book is timely, which is both a strength -- it is topical -- and a weakness -- it will be out of date quickly as Canada has a new government and China's politics are also changing.… (més)