Watching China emerge into light

Following his teaching job, Boller became the first accredited Swiss journalist in Beijing, reporting on China's reform and opening-up drive for Western media, which badly needed experienced China hands.

"I filled such a vacancy and was hired by several Swiss media companies until 1983," Boller says.

In those days it was rare to see any foreign faces in Beijing, and Boller could put a name to almost every one of them in the capital.

"We were only a few foreign correspondents at that time, and life was less hectic, if you want," Boller says.

"We could dedicate ourselves to investigating the ongoing changes of daily life, the appearance of commodity markets in Beijing."

Boller witnessed the historic changes taking place across China in the late 1970s and early 1980s, and recalls interviewing Beijing's first private tailor and restaurant owners, as well as talking with farmers in Anhui and Sichuan provinces who had disbanded communes to set up businesses.

He also wrote about China's first four-star hotel in Beijing and its first joint venture. And he still keeps a clipping of an article he wrote about Zhang Haidi, a young disabled woman who taught herself several foreign languages and is now chair of China Disabled Persons' Federation.

Boller saw the devastation wrought by the "cultural revolution" (1966-76), which caused untold suffering to millions of people.

"China as a whole had reached the bottom," he says. "It was unbelievable and incredible."

There was a collective sigh of relief, followed by a sense of enthusiasm, when news spread in 1977 that Deng Xiaoping was to return to his former State functions, Boller says.

"I vividly recall the moment when people spontaneously took to the streets to celebrate the event. There was this feeling of awakening after a decade of dire struggle for sheer survival."

Boller says Deng lived up to the expectations of almost everyone he knew at that time as he initiated China's reform and opening- up policy at the third plenary session of the Party's 11th Central Committee in December 1978.

The policy was to cause momentous changes to Chinese society that are still taking place today, enabling the country to make rapid economic progress.

"And, of course, it was exciting to report about all this as a journalist since China became - and still is - a laboratory of economic and social reforms on a huge scale," Boller says.

"And when I am telling you this, it jumps to my mind that we were probably more curious and less ideological than most of the Western media reporting from China today."

Boller believes the Western media's more critical approach to China today is due to the world's changing balance of economic power.

"So their media takes a tougher stance, emphasizing ideological differences, often with missionary zeal and at the expense of factual and accurate reporting."

He also believes China should be more relaxed with foreign media organizations.

"Let them move around and show them what's really going on in China," he says, adding that most people change their attitude toward the country after visiting it.