50 years in news, and wonders never cease

Memories of first encounter with China swamped by the excitement of a country on the move

A little more than 50 years ago, fresh out of school and with only a vague idea of what I wanted to be, I hopped on my bicycle at my home in an Oxford suburb, and rode down the hill to see if I could get a job as a cub reporter on my local newspaper, the Oxford Mail and Times.

Looking back, the sheer cheek of it makes me blush. In answer to the question "Why do you want to be a reporter?" I could only answer: "Well, I was good at English at school."

Amazingly, I got the job.

World events were a sort of vague background to my provincial life, which consisted of music, playing rugby and begging my father to be able to borrow the car on a Saturday night.

Vietnam, China, the Cold War, nuclear weapons and politics were just that - words.

Fifty or so years on, my growing inquisitiveness about world events and the people who create them is very much alive.

When I took my first hesitant steps into the world of reporting, Mao Zedong held sway in a China that was closed to most people, Ho Chi Minh was giving the Americans a hard time in Vietnam, Cuba was a defiant outpost of Communism aimed at the soft underbelly of the United States, and Prince Sihanouk was calling the shots in forgotten Cambodia.

I drifted into international journalism when all you needed was a typewriter, loose change for the telephone (if you could find one), no ties to bind you at home, and a little bare-faced cheek.

Vietnam beckoned, because my colleagues said that was where reputations were made, and that's where the biggest news story of the decade was continuing.

So I persuaded my then employer, Reuters news agency, to send me via Singapore for what became a two-year war-reporting stint and an enduring love affair with Asia that persists to this day.

My first view of China was, admittedly, a bit off-putting. During a respite from Vietnam's battlefields I went to Hong Kong, then a British colony complete with rickshaws, red pillar boxes, double-decker business and ramshackle trams. The highlight of the visit was a trip to the border with China, still very closed.

From the lookout post at Lok Ma Chau, you could look down into that vast, mysterious country. The first things I saw were vast flocks of ducks and acres of rice paddies, with the odd distant figure in a straw hat and tattered shorts tending them. But that was all you could do, just look.

Things have changed - and that was an understatement. Gone are the rice paddies and, I assume, the ducks, replaced by the bustling, shiny city of Shenzhen with its glittering tower blocks and network of highways.

In 10 hours, one of China's state-of-the-art high speed trains will whisk you over the 2,400 kilometers between Shenzhen and Beijing.

Now the latest stage of my journalistic adventure is giving me the opportunity to report and comment on one of the most dramatic stories of the past 50 years or so - the emergence of a modern, confident China as it takes its rightful place on the world stage.

It's often said the past is what makes us, but the future is in our hands. Both Britain and China have long and illustrious histories, some parts to be ashamed of, some parts to be proud of.

It's that joint history which dates back to 1793, when British envoy Lord Macartney staged the first diplomatic British mission to China, bringing back political, geographical and cultural observations to London.

Sino-British relations survived after the defeat of Japan in World War II, the many years of Mao's reign, and the reversion of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty in 1997.

Could I have believed in 1965 that I would have witnessed preparations for a Chinese president who was about to spend three days in London as a personal guest of Queen Elizabeth II?

Probably not. The continuing story of China is as gripping as ever.

The author is managing editor of China Daily Europe, based in London. Contact the writer at chris@mail.chinadailyuk.com