Assignment China opening up - Foreign correspondents in China

A nice documentary of the USC US-China Institute, a documentary of the first generation foreign correspondents in China after 1979 by Mike Chinoy (who must have been part of the second generation). Almost everybody must have been interview, including Graham Earnshaw who was representing the British agency Reuters.

European journalists could enter the country already before the famous Nixon trip to Beijing, but apart from Graham, the focus is clearly on the US veterans. I had never heard of the Philippian story, but I was a foreign correspondent from the 1990s and in Shanghai, so a part of their war stories I knew, but nice enough to have some new stories. But it was not really a sentimental journey. And we were not as close as the first generation US correspondents.

Might be nice for the current foreign correspondents who last week complained it took so long before they got their visas. China's treatment of foreign correspondents might not be perfect, but much has improved indeed. And footage from a very young Graham Earnshaw, a musical genius already in the 1980s.

Update: You can find some recent music by Graham Earnshaw here.