Tom Clifford is an Irish journalist, currently based in Beijing. During his three-decade career, he has covered the fall of Marcos, the invasion and liberation of Kuwait, South Africa before Mandela became president, the Hong Kong handover, spent time, as a non-embedded journalist, in Iraq and freelanced in South America. He has worked in newspapers in Britain, the Middle East, South Africa, Hong Kong, Lebanon, Tokyo, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Prague and Beijing.