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Li Xing

Nixon or Obama, cooperation holds

By Li Xing (China Daily)
Updated: 2009-11-18 07:47

When Richard Nixon claimed that his one-week stay in China in February 1972 "changed the world", no one could have predicted how great the changes would be.

The changes have been phenomenal, especially when I compared the reports filed by The New York Times and China's Beijing Review magazine 37 years ago.

It was hilarious to read about Nixon's China visit, because it was compared to "a trip to the moon". It was the first China tour by an American president in history, and it was made even more complex because China and the US did not have diplomatic relations nor did they intend to seal the ties.

When he "soft-landed", I was entrenched in snow, one of the tens of thousands of Beijing residents who cleaned the street for his motorcade.

Even though it is Obama's first visit to China, he and President Hu Jintao are no longer strangers. Before they met for the first time on April 1 at the American ambassador's residence in London, they had talked over the phone twice, once after Obama won the election, another time after Obama was sworn in.

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As for the media, some 80 American journalists traveled with Nixon. China had been closed to the outside world for nearly two decades and The New York Times claimed that "the moon actually had had more official visitors and more time on American television than all of China".

But the hundreds of American media technicians and newsmen made a difference, thanks to China's willingness to have two ground stations established for satellite communication. American news people were thus able to beam to the world scenes of Nixon's historic handshake with Premier Zhou Enlai, as well as his talk with Chairman Mao Zedong.

The American journalists should have had most of the floor to themselves in those days, since very few Chinese journalists were present.

In those days, we in China only saw the newsreels or read the dry reports that listed all the events and the key people involved. We could only glean the highlights through full texts of the toasts by premier Zhou and president Nixon.

Obama's China visit has also drawn hundreds of journalists worldwide. More than 400 attended the meeting between Hu and Obama alone. A significant number came from the Chinese media, who are as well equipped as their foreign counterparts, giving live broadcast and feeding stories first to the Internet.

But as things have changed over the years, the desire to cooperate has remained.

When Nixon left China, he said both were committed to "build a bridge" over the Pacific and years of hostility.

When Obama leaves today, he and President Hu Jintao will have committed to collaborations over almost all issues that challenge the well-being of the world.

lixing@chinadaily.com.cn