Читать книгу CHINA BOYS: How U.S. Relations With the PRC Began and Grew. A Personal Memoir - Nicholas MD Platt - Страница 32

The tools and techniques of China watching changed radically. Gone was the careful listening for sour notes in the daily symphony. The orchestra dissolved into bedlam, and musicians threw their instruments at each other and fought on stage. We paid attention to the central media, because the leftists still controlled it. But wall posters and Red Guard newspapers became the most sought after sources of information, always juicy and often wrong. Our demands for these were insatiable. Friends from foreign embassies in Beijing obliged, ripping posters from the walls and stuffing them, flakes of concrete still attached, into diplomatic pouches bound for Hong Kong.

The staid weekly dispatch I had produced became a daily telegram, approved in person by Consul General Edward Rice, in a vain effort to satisfy Washington’s voracious appetite for news and analysis. I was in the hottest of seats, and enjoying the temperature, but wondering whether I could maintain the pace.

Happily, help arrived in the form of Charles Hill, a fresh graduate of the language school in Taichung. He shared my fascination with China’s domestic politics, love of rowing, and unwillingness to take too seriously either himself or the momentous events we witnessed. Perhaps the highpoint of our collaboration occurred when the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution arrived in Hong Kong during the summer of 1967. We stood together on the roof of the Consulate General, transfixed by the absurd sight of local fat-cat communist officials leaping from their Mercedes cars to wave Mao’s Little Red Book at the Governor ’s Residence. Together we followed the tortuous course of the Cultural Revolution and formed a lasting partnership that took new shape decades later when we both served as special assistants to Secretary of State George Shultz.