Jim Laurie is an international writer, lecturer, and broadcaster who has witnessed many defining moments in global history in the past 50 years.

A recipient of multiple Emmy, Peabody, and Overseas Press Club Awards, Jim roamed the world first for NBC News (1972-1978) and ABC News (1978-2000).

For most of his career, he has specialized in Asia – China, Japan, Cambodia, Vietnam. He was the only American TV correspondent to cover the fall of Saigon in 1975 remaining to watch the Communist victory. Earlier, he flew out on the US helicopter airlift as Phnom Penh collapsed under the Khmer Rouge onslaught.

In July 1981, Jim opened the first U.S. network bureau in Beijing for ABC News. Covering China, he witnessed the turmoil of 1989 and interviewed Deng Xiaoping and the Dalai Lama.

Based in Moscow in the early 1990’s, Jim reported on the collapse of the Soviet Union and the beginnings of independence for Ukraine, Georgia, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia. He is rare among journalists having interviewed Russian leaders Mikhail Gorbachev, Boris Yeltsin, and Vladimir Putin.

Jim is the author of ‘THE LAST HELICOPTER: Two Lives in Indochina’ (2020), a memoir of war, love, and survival in Cambodia and Vietnam in the 1970’s.

Jim provides a wide variety of motivational talks focusing on global and historical issues. In late 2022, Jim completed a six nation, six lecture global video tour speaking on China today, lessons to be learned from the wars in Vietnam and Cambodia, and his reflections on Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. His travels took him to Hong Kong, Vietnam, Cambodia, Singapore, Germany, and the United Kingdom. In April-May 2023, on a visit to Japan, Jim spoke of the lessons today of the Japanese “miracle” of the 1980s.

Speech Topics

What happened to Володя ?

Drawing on his experience living in Moscow and witnessing the end of the Soviet Union, Jim reflects on his meetings with Russian leaders and how they shaped the Russia we see today. Jim recalls and shows excerpts from his interview at the Kremlin with President Vladimir “Valodya” Putin as the long serving strongman of Russia was entering his second term as President.

Jim explores what caused Putin to launch his two invasions of Ukraine and what

the prospects are now. One of the few reporters to have met and interviewed three successive Russian leaders: Gorbachev, Yeltsin, and Putin, provides unique, personal anecdote and analysis.

Reflections of half a century: Vietnam and Cambodia

April 2025 marks 50 years since the end of the American wars in Vietnam and Cambodia. Jim was the only TV network correspondent to witness both the helicopter evacuation of Phnom Penh and 18 days later the Communist victory in Vietnam. His book THE LAST HELICOPTER dramatically recalls those days.

In the years since, Jim has travelled back to Indochina frequently.

What is the impact of these events on America in the 21st Century? For Jim, the end of the war is a deeply personal story. His talk reflects on issues of war, love, and survival. It provides a motivational tale of lessons learned and lessons forgotten from events long ago still vividly relevant today. Jim’s talk is accompanied by dramatic archival footage from Saigon and Phnom Penh.

China: The New Cold War

Jim has worked in China – on and off – since April 1978. He watched as America engaged in a “honeymoon” period with Beijing and its leaders from 1979 to 1988. He accompanied reformist leader Deng Xiaoping to America in 1979 and interviewed the Communist Party veteran at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing. He opened network television first bureau in Beijing in June 1981. In May and June 1989, he witnessed the student “democracy” movement and subsequent crackdown.

Through the 1990’s and into the new century, Jim watched China grow, prosper, and become the major global power it is today.

Unique among China watchers – Jim has studied China from the outside as an ABC News correspondent (1978-2000) and as an insider providing from 2012 to 2019 consulting services to China’s state media.

Since 2020 US-China relations have sharply deteriorated. Talk of engagement and cooperation has been replaced by talk of dis-engagement, de-linking, and in some quarters a new cold war.

Jim goes beyond an examination of what has gone wrong with US China relations. He provides perspectives on what the Chinese he has worked with inside the Chinese Communist Party and within the Party’s media industry believe about the relationship: where they think it is heading. Is there a real danger of war with China? Is Communist Party Secretary Xi Jinping bent on world domination as some in America allege? Is China a danger to American national security?

Supplemented by exclusive archival video from China and rich in anecdote, Jim provides a fascinating personal view of China’s past, present and future.