THE world knows media mogul Rupert Murdoch as a hard-nosed dealmaker not given to an outward show of sentimentality. But the 75-year-old tycoon can be a romantic when he is in love.

He secretly ordered flowers and organised a dinner cruise to court his China-born wife Wendi Deng, now 39, shortly after they met, a new book says.

Bruce Dover, now CEO of ABC TV's Australia Network, was Murdoch's right-hand man in Beijing when the chairman of News Corp ventured into China with satellite broadcaster Star TV in the 1990s.

Dover has written a book called Rupert's Adventures In China - How Murdoch Lost A Fortune And Found A Wife, about his ex-boss' business forays in China.

He also writes about Deng, a Yale MBA graduate who interned with Star TV in early 1996, rose to become an executive and married Murdoch in 1999, just 17 days after he divorced his second wife, Anna.

In the book, Dover says he suspected that something was afoot between Murdoch and Deng when the tycoon, who had met Deng just seven months earlier, said he wanted to be left alone to work during a weekend in Hong Kong in February 1998.

But he was secretly arranging for a dinner cruise and sending flowers to Deng, Dover later learnt from a concierge. The cruise was cancelled because of bad weather but Dover concludes: 'Nevertheless, the wooing, I sensed, had only just begun.'

It was Dover who introduced Murdoch to Deng at a cocktail party in Hong Kong just before the July 1, 1997, handover celebrations.

The 1.8m-tall and attractive Deng, then Star TV's business development executive, impressed Murdoch. After the party, he praised 'the young Chinese women' he met at the bash and said the company of young people 'rubs off on you, revitalises you'.

Significantly, weeks earlier, Deng, born in China's Shandong province, had told her colleagues that her idea of a perfect mate would be a 'richer, older man'.

She married such a man when she was 21 in 1990, Dover claims.

Engineer Jake Cherry, then 53, had sponsored her move to the United States. She allegedly broke up Cherry's marriage but took up with another American, David Wolfe, just months after they wed. They divorced in 1992.

In October 1997, Murdoch and Deng drew closer when she served as his interpreter in Shanghai and they toured the city together, Dover writes.

On his return, an excited Murdoch bubbled on about his day with Deng. The morning after, Dover saw them at the hotel gym, working out on exercise bicycles.

Another clue came in late 1997 when Murdoch, who is never without his phone, announced that he would be uncontactable for four to five days as he was going for a 'walking tour of Wales'.

Coincidentally, Dover reveals, Deng also took 'four or five days' off, supposedly for a wedding in New York.

Murdoch may be the head of a global media empire but Dover paints a picture of a non-flashy man who enjoyed a good bargain.

He travelled on commercial flights alone with his 'battered suitcase and briefcase'. The billionaire was over the moon when he got a haircut in Shanghai for under a dollar. He would not pay for a bottle of wine that a hotel billed for US$110 (S$152) but would order a US$3,500 one for a meeting with a Chinese host.

Deng apparently influenced her husband to take up yoga. They have two daughters - Grace, now six, and four-year-old Chloe. Murdoch has four other children with his first and second wives.

In July last year, Deng, who has said that she does not want to be a 'stay-at-home society wife', was appointed chief of strategy for MySpace China to launch the social networking website in the country.

News Corp had bought the website for US$580 million. It was her first official position in News Corp since her marriage.

It had been no secret during their marriage that Deng had been aiding Murdoch in his China deals, by in part introducing him to well-connected US-educated Chinese entrepreneurs.

In his book, Dover is unconvinced as to how helpful Deng has been to her husband in his quest to conquer China.

But don't tell that to Murdoch. At a book party in 2006, he was overheard saying affectionately of his wife: 'She's my great help and adviser.'

Rupert's Adventures In China: How Murdoch Lost A Fortune And Found A Wife is available from www.amazon.co.uk for £12.53 (S$34.90).

This article was first published in The Sunday Times on Mar 9, 2008.