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China's first introduction to the perils of American television came first with the crews that
came to cover the Ping Pong game diplomacy of 1971 and the visit of U-S President Richard Nixon
to Beijing and Shanghai in 1972.
Following the Nixon visit, NBC and ABC News negotiated their first access to shoot documentaries
in China. The result in 1972 was a program on NBC called "The Forbidden City" and an hour on ABC
called "The People of People's China."
Even countries that had full diplomatic relations with China had little TV
access. The BBC was
barred for years. Japanese television operated mostly with small non-professional eight millimeter
film cameras.
Television access began to widen in January 1979 with the full normalization of diplomatic
relations between Washington and Beijing.
For the first time, the Chinese Communist government permitted American news organizations to
open bureaus in Beijing. The wire services were first in the door.
Reuters, of course had been there for sometime. See Anthony Grey's riveting account "Hostage in
Peking" [London: Michael Joseph 1970].
In 1979, the Associated Press and United Press International re-opened bureaus which had been
closed in the late 1940's.
The major U-S newspapers followed. Fox Butterfield of the New York Times and Jay Mathews of the
Washington Post became the first Peking or Beijing based correspondents for their newspapers
since 1949.
Still television news bureaus were barred. It took two more years of negotiation to gain access
for the American television networks.
In the 1970's, ABC News relied on Nigel Wade of the London Telegraph for limited pictures from
China. Wade had been given a small film camera and what few original visuals we had of the
transition period from the death of Mao Zedong in 1976 to the rise of Deng Xiaoping in 1978
came from him.
Television covered Deng's authorization of limited democratic expression in the 1978-1979
"Democracy Wall Movement" in fits and starts: mostly though bits of amateur film.
I joined a tourist group late in 1978 to Beijing and with a small film camera shot ABC's first
report from Beijing on "Democracy Wall."
By 1980, I was visiting China frequently shooting my own film or video using amateur equipment.
American network television in those days put anything about China on the evening news,
no matter how slim. We reported on how to raise "Peking Duck," and on Tai Chi (Chinese morning
exercises) as well as slightly more serious stories on China's first private restaurants, first
American investment, and first privately owned automobiles. ABC's "World News Tonight" could not
get enough on China in the 70's in early 80's. China then was an exotic novelty.
In July 1981, I was finally permitted to set up a news bureau in Beijing.
We at ABC beat the other U-S nets into the Chinese capital by a few months.
We housed our first office in the QianMen, a run down hotel built in the Soviet Russian style
near the Temple of Heaven. We were soon joined, first, by Bruce Dunning of CBS and in the fall,
Sandy Gilmour of NBC. These were the days before CNN.
Not permitted a cameraman or any TV technicians, we improvised coverage as best we could.
Officially, the Chinese Foreign Ministry recognized me as a "broadcast" correspondent. In
Chinese, the word broadcast or "Guanbo" means radio. When I printed calling cards with the Chinese words
"dianshi" meaning television on them, I was summoned to the Foreign Ministry and given a stern
criticism plus a warning that I was not to consider myself a television correspondent. So
I told the foreign ministry I would get by doing radio with pictures.
Many of the pictures we used, of course, came from China Central Television.
The quality of television in China was poor. But we made frequent visits to CCTV in the old
Russian style wedding cake building near Fuxingmen.
Often we simply lifted the video off air. Before we had monitoring equipment in Beijing, we
relied on "Cable and Wireless'" monitoring station at Lion Rock, Hong Kong to
take the signal
off Canton or Guangzhou television. It may not have been good, but it was all we had.
In those early years, I relied even more heavily on the Canadian television network "CTV" for
most of my video assistance.
In an experiment, the Chinese government authorized only one accredited professional camera and
operator into the country in 1980.CTV the small, commercial network, dwarfed in resources by the
giant CBC, was given the nod.
It was always unclear why CTV had been given preferential treatment.
The Canadians had long had special access to China, however.
The Toronto "Globe and Mail" dominated western newspaper coverage of China through the 1970's.
Some cited the Canadian, Dr. Norman Bethune, who stayed with Mao during the "Long March" in the
1930's, as a reason for China's special affection for Canada.
In any event, the Chinese viewed Canada as the friendly face of Western democracy.
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