Opinion: The long and tense history of American journalists trying to understand China

In the summer of 1973, just one year after then-US President Richard Nixon’s historic trip, I made my first visit to China. One of the places I was taken to was the Wusan People’s Commune outside Shenyang in northeast China. There, I met model Maoist peasant Yu Kexin and ate lunch at his modest home. It was the highlight of my visit.In 1993, as CNN’s Beijing bureau chief, I decided to retrace