Have you tried Irene Kuo's Key to Chinese Cooking? It's an older book, but really good, and explains a lot of technique.

I don't have my copy on hand to check author bios, but The Chinese Cookbook by Virginia Lee and Craig Claiborne may qualify, and it's definitely good.

Chowhound and similar have good threads on the topic, though it can be hard to tell from just the author's name.

I was not impressed with Lin-Liu's recipes in Serve the People, and it doesn't work very well as a cookbook either, so I can't recommend it for the recipes. It's pretty good for context and such, though.

ETA: The library should have these!