In 1979, not long after America's Jan 1. recognition of Beijing's Communist regime as the legitimate government of China, former U.S. President Richard Nixon returned to China and was feted as a hero for his groundbreaking visit to the Chinese capital in 1972.
As a young reporter on the South China Morning Post, I covered Nixon's press conference in Hong Kong, where he suggested that the U.S. should arm China to balance Soviet expansion in Asia. With the naivety and confidence of youth, I described the former president as "driven and passionate," but noted that the new U.S. policy meant swapping a dictatorship in Taiwan for one in Beijing.
