William N. Brown poses for a photo with children dressed in Naxi and Tibetan clothing in Yunnan province, in February.

Brown visits a monument marking the bond between the Red Army and the Yi ethnic group during the Long March in Mianning, Sichuan province, in April.

Brown tries traditional Tibetan archery in Shangri-La, Yunnan province.

Brown discusses a course assignment with students at Xiamen University in Xiamen, Fujian province, in March 1989.

Brown learns about potato noodle-making techniques that were taught to the locals by Red Army soldiers during the Long March in Xiji, Ningxia Hui autonomous region.

William N. Brown, an American business studies professor at Xiamen University, is celebrating his bond with China that began half a century ago when he served on a United States Air Force base on Taiwan Island in 1976.

After leaving the military in 1981, completing his education and selling his business, Brown moved with his family in 1988 to the coastal city of Xiamen in Fujian province. Known for his academic work in business management and promotion of local culture, he in 1992 became the first foreign national in Fujian province to obtain Chinese permanent residency.

In 2019, President Xi Jinping congratulated him in a reply letter on the publication of his book, Off the Wall – How We Fell for China.

Marking his 50-year bond with the country, the 70-year-old recently embarked on a multimedia project retracing the historic Long March.

From October 1934 to October 1936, the Red Army, the precursor to the Chinese People's Liberation Army, marched across treacherous terrain to break the Nationalist Kuomintang regime's encirclement and regroup for the war against Japanese aggression.

With some marching as far as 12,500 kilometers while enduring hunger, thirst and cold, the Red Army carried out a daring military maneuver that changed the trajectory of the Communist Party of China and the history of the whole nation.

For Brown, however, the journey was deeply visceral. Having previously driven over 200,000 kilometers across every Chinese province — including a grueling 40,000-km road trip in 1994 when he noted road infrastructure was primitive — he still found the physical realities of the Long March staggering.

"I could not imagine walking through such terrain, in sweltering heat or freezing winters," Brown said. "Just reading about the Long March is interesting, but it's no more real than watching a historic movie. Even if the facts are correct, you still can't grasp the essence of the joys and sufferings."

While retracing the footsteps of the Long March this year, Brown was moved meeting the descendants of those who lost their sons and weren't able to find out where they had died until decades later.

"What most impressed me was that even though the Red Army troops, who averaged only 19, I hear, were starving and freezing, and lacked weapons, they never took advantage of the common people," Brown said.

Brown found that if the Red Army soldiers received food or clothing, they always found a way to pay for it.

"In all of history, I think there was no other 'march' as grueling as this, and yet the soldiers showed their love for China by their love for the people they met. It was not a slogan, 'Love China', but the reality of their love for the people," he said.

Later this year, Brown's latest book will be published, entitled Many People, One Dream: Bill Brown's Record of China's Shared Prosperity For All Ethnicities.

When revisiting the Long March sites, Brown was especially moved to learn more about how the Red Army treated the Yi ethnic group living near Yihai Lake in Mianning county in Southwest China's Sichuan province.

He found that the Yi people initially disliked the Red Army because they thought the Red Army "were just like the Nationalists (led by the Kuomintang regime) and the warlords".

"The Red Army could have destroyed the Yi, but instead they very patiently won their trust, helped them understand what they were fighting for — and the Yi made peace with them," Brown said.

"This is amazing to me that not just the Han Chinese but the minorities across China supported the Red Army because they all could see clearly that, if the Red Army failed, China would also fall — either to the Japanese or Chiang Kai-shek, or to the warlords or to the foreigners who wanted to divide China into tiny colonies as they did in Africa," he added.

In Brown's view, if the Red Army had failed to reach Yan'an, which is located in today's Shaanxi province and was home to a revolutionary base, "Japan would likely have conquered China, and then the rest of Asia".

"History is like a lot of little dominos falling, and something that seems insignificant now might loom much larger months or years later. So in telling the Long March story, I think it's important to help foreigners see what was really at stake," he said.

Living library

Brown has collected countless books recounting the historical experiences of foreigners in China over the years, and stories of Chinese people traveling overseas.

He noted that many of the books tell the stories of Chinese in Southeast Asia, working hard to send money home to help not just their families but also their home villages, such as for building roads and schools.

"Foreigners were amazed that their (Chinese expatriates) dream was to return home in their old age and die in China — or, at the least, if they died abroad, to have their remains returned home and buried in their ancestral home ... Chinese people love their country regardless of the politics," Brown said.

Among the books that have most influenced Brown is Red Star Over China by Edgar Snow — the classic account "that opened the eyes of the world to what was really happening in China".

"It opened my eyes as well," he said, citing Snow in chapter one of the book saying that the Red Army "had for nine years been isolated by a news blockade as effective as a stone fortress…Some people denied that there was such a thing as a Red Army".

"Had I not read this, I would not have been so keen on exploring China myself, driving a total of over 200,000 km these decades, visiting every province, to see the fruits of the Long March's many sacrifices," Brown said.

Prior to revisiting the Long March route this year, Brown had been to all of these places, and read about most of them.

"But it was much different when I spent almost 50 days with a team whose sole purpose was to experience and explore both the first Long March and the Long March that China faces today," he said.

It gave him "a much more visceral appreciation of the sacrifices and tragedies" during the Long March, and it also helped him "better feel the spirit of the Chinese, and perhaps most of all, their love for their country".

"No other people I know of have, for so long, had such a deep love for their country," he said.

Brown appreciates the stories of how Chinese people today show the Long March spirit in their lives in overcoming difficulties or serving others.

One of his favorite stories is about China Post mailman Lhalung Dorje, who works on the snowy western plateau of Sichuan province where temperatures can plunge below — 10 C.

"A mailman for 18 years, a 216 km mail route, traveling a total of 500,000 km, delivering 5 million pieces of mail, no piece ever lost," Brown said.

"He helped children get college acceptance letters, and drove over 100 km after work to deliver medicines for an elderly Tibetan lady. His e-commerce studio helps Tibetans sell local products," he added.

National rejuvenation

When Brown moved to Xiamen nearly 40 years ago, he felt China was "behind the world".

"Today, every time I go abroad for work, whether to Europe, South America or Africa, it is obvious that the world has fallen far behind China," he said.

"It's not just technology, but lifestyle and culture. We talk of China speed as 'fast', but it's also China slow — the slow and human speed of social relationships. I love slowly brewing tea on a train going 300 km per hour," he said.

Brown attributes China's governance success to what he terms "precision government", pointing to large-scale initiatives like targeted poverty alleviation.

"The world faces the same problems, and can learn from China. Otherwise, there is no hope. The world is too small for the so-called powers to continue on as they have for 500 years," he said.

"Win-lose is no longer viable; our only choices are win-win or lose-lose," he added.

When asked about prevailing misconceptions of China in the rest of the world, Brown said, "Sadly, perceptions have changed little for many Westerners since I first lived on Taiwan Island 50 years ago."

He added that China's image is changing slowly because it is getting harder for Western media to portray the country as "failing".

He has constantly urged friends to come to China to see it for themselves.

"If you love China, come see it and learn. But if you fear China, even more reason to come. Sun Tzu's The Art of War says, 'know your enemy', but once you know the Chinese, you'll see they are not the enemy but friends — and perhaps even family," he said.

"My oldest son, Shannon, is married to a Xiamen girl," he added.

Throughout his decades of public commentary, Brown has frequently challenged prevailing Western media narratives, which he argues remain trapped in outdated Cold War paradigms and persistent anxiety over China's rise. Brown said that while Western media frequently characterizes China's rise through an aggressive lens, China's historical footprint has predominantly centered on internal consolidation and peaceful trade rather than colonial expansion.

"China invented fearful weapons 2,000 years ago ... yet China has never attacked other nations for trade; and the West has not ever stopped attacking other nations for trade, even now," he said.

When asked about how to improve China's image on the global stage, Brown referred to a Chinese idiom called "he er bu tong" — harmony without uniformity, meaning that real gentlemen always agree to disagree while getting along well.

"This is a key to telling China's story to the world — whether it is the Long March story, fighting poverty, or whatever. China and the peoples of the world have much in common. We need to show them that we have the same dreams, needs, problems, hopes and fears, and show how we have overcome these in China," he said.

Once people understand this, they can better accept China's differences, and perhaps even embrace them, he said. "After all, being different does not mean you are wrong."

原载于《中国日报》2026年10月19日第6版