The Window of the Forbidden City - David Bruce's Beijing Diary

Author: (USA) Priscilla Roberts / Country: Mainland China
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-06-01
Features: This morning, I visited with several colleagues at the Director of the State General Administration of Sport of China, Wang Meng. As I expected, the talkative and cheerful man discussed the importance of the Shanghai Communique and said that he believed the friendship between China and the United States had been effectively demonstrated in the field of sports. He hoped there could be more exchanges among athletes. We had a very pleasant conversation for an hour, drinking a lot of tea. In the afternoon, I visited Charles John Small, the Canadian Ambassador, to thank him for helping us use his communication channels for our encrypted messages. For his staff, this must have been an annoying and excessive request, as we were sometimes forced to rely on them to transmit messages on Sundays, Saturdays, and holidays during the week, and sometimes to send messages 24 hours a day. But next Monday, we expect to have our own communication system. Small, 53, was born in China, where his father was a missionary, and became Canada's Ambassador to China in October 1973. Since 1969, he has served as Canada's Senior Representative in Pakistan and Ambassador to Afghanistan, with a residence in Islamabad. After receiving a Bachelor of Science degree from the Ontario Agricultural College and a Bachelor's degree from the University of Toronto, he joined the Department of Trade and Commerce in 1949. Before moving to the Department of External Affairs in 1955, he served as Assistant Minister of Commerce in The Hague. After working in the Department of External Affairs' Far East Division and studying Chinese at the University of Toronto, he became Canada's trade representative in Hong Kong in 1958. During this time, he participated in Canada's trade delegation to the People's Republic of China. In 1961, he returned to Ottawa and worked again in the Far East Division until 1963, when he was appointed Consul General at the Canadian Embassy in Karachi. From 1965 to 1969, he served as Canada's Permanent Representative to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development in Paris. Small's analysis and judgment on current affairs left a deep impression on U.S. officials. His wife is JoanMcNeil, and he has four daughters. I met with Professor Chao Yuen Ren of the Department of East Asian Languages at the University of California, Berkeley, accompanied by his wife. The views of this renowned professor on the formal written language of Chinese deeply fascinated me. We received an unexpected phone call from the office of Premier Zhou Enlai, saying that the Premier would like to meet me at the Great Hall of the People at 6:30 p.m. Jenkins, Holdridge, Pratt, and I were delighted and arrived at the Great Hall of the People on time. At first, we took photos with him and his colleagues, and then we sat down for a quite cordial conversation. The Premier, considered one of the most outstanding political figures of our time, was a handsome, slender man with striking features, dressed in a light gray, fashionable-style uniform (with no decorations except a belt). He was relaxed, composed, and loved to laugh, humorously expressing his views. He was known to work 18 hours a day or even longer, a fact that people did not doubt, as it was said that he had slept only a few hours that morning. He was famous for sometimes appearing very tired but never confused in his thinking. Many years ago, Clement Attlee, after meeting with Premier Zhou Enlai, once remarked that the Premier was the most impressive politician he had ever met. Henry Kissinger also thought so, but he added that Zhou Enlai was the most charming man he knew. After leaving his office, we went to the Beijing Hotel, where we had a very good dinner at a very low price (Chinese caviar and vodka), so low compared to the prices in Washington that we could hardly believe it. We felt very proud that we had had a conversation with this great man, and we had long looked forward to visiting him.