It is almost common sense to reserve a place in any historical narrative of China or the world of the 20th century for Zhou Enlai, a leader of the Chinese Communist revolution for nearly 50 years, and premier of the People's Republic of China for 27 years. Yet existing studies on Zhou's life and career are remarkably thin and inadequate. There are books, articles and other writings about Zhou, to be sure. However, compared with the English-language literature on Zhou's Chinese contemporaries, such as Mao Zedong, Deng Xiaoping, or even Chiang Kai-shek, accounts on Zhou are weak and unsatisfactory in both narration and interpretation.

The absence of a good, comprehensive biography of Zhou Enlai reflects, to a large extent, the inherent difficulty of identifying, describing and evaluating Zhou. Indeed, many see Zhou as a person at once familiar and obscure. Familiar in that his outstanding position in modern Chinese and world history, especially his extensive role in Chinese diplomacy, made him one of the country's most visible leaders from the late 1940s to the mid-1970s; obscure in that throughout his almost half-century political and diplomatic career, he was almost always in the shadow of Mao Zedong, a highly controversial figure of enormous historical consequence who eclipsed Zhou's own vision, aspirations, anxieties and passions. Scholars have even struggled to reach a consensus on identifying Zhou's exact position in the decision-making structure of the People's Republic. While some believe that Zhou played a central role in determining China's domestic and international policies, others contend that he was more policy practitioner than policymaker in Mao's China.

Within this context, Michael Dillon's Zhou biography certainly comes as a welcome addition to the existing English literature on Zhou. The biography has its merits. Chronologically organized, event-centred and clearly written, Dillon's book provides the reader with another useful source to trace Zhou's story. Dillon depicts Zhou as a devoted Communist who saw the Party and its revolutionary cause as matters of such profound importance that he even subordinated his life to their advancement. He was a complex person, especially in his relationship with Mao. Dillon offers a solid thesis in the book: he characterizes Zhou as Mao's enigmatic shadow who served Mao while deftly conditioning Mao's policies and actions. Thus, Dillon avoids falling into the trap of simply branding Zhou as either a “sage” or a “villain,” as has recently become commonplace among admirers and critics of Zhou alike. Dillon's comparison of Zhou and Deng Xiaoping, another giant of the 20th century, has benefited greatly from his having authored a biography on the latter. This forms another insightful part of Dillon's volume.

Yet Dillon's overall contribution to Zhou studies cannot be described as pathbreaking. This is mainly due to Dillon's failure to incorporate in-depth primary source research on Zhou Enlai, the subject of the biography, into his book. Basically, Dillon has written the book with the support of a careful yet limited reading of secondary Chinese literature on Zhou, composed mostly of publications by officially endorsed Chinese institutions and authors. It is apparent from the book's bibliography and footnotes that Dillon has not availed himself whatsoever of the declassified Zhou documents available in Chinese archives. For example, Dillon obviously did not do research in the Chinese Foreign Ministry Archive, where, between 2004 and 2012, Chinese and international scholars were able to access hundreds of thousands of Chinese foreign relations files, including tens of thousands relating to Zhou. Nor has Dillon done research at the various Chinese provincial and municipal archives that have also kept large volumes of Zhou files. It is a bit surprising to see that Dillon has not even consulted the Zhou documents in the China files at the British Foreign Office Archives, now readily available online. Also disappointing is Dillon's overlooking of such published primary sources as Zhou Enlai zaoqi wenji (A Collection of Zhou Enlai's Early Writings); Jianguo yilai Zhou Enlai wengao (Zhou Enlai's Manuscripts Since the Formation of the People's Republic); Zhou Enlai waijiao wenxuan (Selected Diplomatic Papers of Zhou Enlai); Zhou Enlai junshi wenxuan (Selected Military Papers of Zhou Enlai); Zhou Enlai tongyi zhangxian wenxuan (Selected United Front Papers of Zhou Enlai); and Zhou Enlai 1946 nian tanpan wenxue (Selected Papers of Zhou Enlai's Negotiations [with George Marshall] in 1946), to list just a few. In recent years, the History and Policy Program at the Wilson Center in Washington, DC, has translated into English hundreds of transcripts of Zhou's conversations with foreign visitors, obtained from the Chinese Foreign Ministry Archive, each of which the Center then published at https://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/collection/241/conversations-with-zhou-enlai. Dillon has not made use of these valuable sources, either. Further, with a few exceptions, Dillon has neglected the numerous memoirs written by Zhou's relatives (especially his nephews and nieces), colleagues, associates, interpreters, doctors and bodyguards.

Dillon's accounts of Zhou are consequently dotted with noticeable holes. This is clearly reflected, for instance, in Dillon's discussion of Lin Biao's downfall in September 1971. Although this was a critical turning point in the history of Mao's China and a transformative moment in Zhou's rather bumpy relations with the Chairman in the last years of his life, Dillon's discussion of this episode is remarkably brief and, thus, disappointing.

These major reservations aside, we should still give credit to Dillon's Zhou Enlai: The Enigma Behind Chairman Mao for having added to our knowledge and understanding of Zhou. In the meantime, the biography should also serve as a timely reminder of the need to carry out more thorough, in-depth explorations of Zhou aided by extensive, multi-archival and multi-source research.