This "gripping" multigenerational memoir of a life spent serving America's interests across the Far East is "an adventure story worthy of John le Carre" (Wall Street Journal) James Lilley spent his childhood in China and later served for three decades in the CIA in Tokyo, Taiwan, Hong Kong, Laos, Bangkok, Cambodia, and Peking before moving to the State Department in the early 1980s to begin a distinguished diplomatic career. From covert operations during the wars in Korea and Vietnam, to participating in Richard Nixon's opening to China as the CIA's first station chief in Peking, Lilley rose up through the ranks to become the country's leading intelligence officer on China. As America's top diplomat in Taiwan and South Korea while those countries became "true" democracies in the 1980s he participated in extraordinary changes while advancing America's interests in Asia. China Hands, written in Lilley's voice with the assistance of his son Jeffrey, recounts his adventures as well as those of three generations of his remarkable family. It is an absorbing, thrilling look at America in Asia.