Huang Hua had joined the underground Communist Party at Yenching University. Following his 1935 experience, he decided to forego Yenching's graduation ceremony and join the American journalist Edgar Snow as his interpreter during the latter's coverage of the Chinese communists in North Shaanxi. The adventure of crossing the Nationalist blockade, of meeting with Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and the Red Army commanders and soldiers, and of hearing their stories of the Long March, as well as the off and on battles they encountered, all brought Huang Hua closer to China's rural realities. The role-model behavior of these men and women strengthened his revolutionary faith and discipline. From that time on till the end of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression in 1945, Huang Hua stayed mostly in Yan'an, headquarters of the Chinese Communist Party. He has thus been able to give a lively first-hand account of life in the resistance base.

Huang's description of the US Army Observer Group in Yan'an, sent there in 1944 to coordinate the common struggle against Japanese aggression, is both detailed and fascinating. According to Huang Hua, himself a member of the Chinese liaison group, relations between the two sides were quite cordial, and the "Dixie Mission" members saw how effectively the Chinese Communist-led troops were fighting the Japanese. This relationship could be considered the prelude to New China's diplomacy.

Despite this rather auspicious beginning, Sino-US relations were tense and even antagonistic for many decades. Yet it was not caused by the Chinese side. Following Japan's defeat in 1945, the US Administration backed Chiang Kai-shek forces in launching a civil war against the Chinese communists, disregarding the Chinese people's common aspiration for peace and reconstruction after eight years of destructive war.

The tripartite Military Mediation Mission, of which the US was a participant, failed because the Chiang Kai-shek forces never intended to observe any agreement reached and the US side was partial to them. The breakup threw the country straight into full-scale civil war.

When the Chiang forces collapsed, Huang Hua was appointed the head of the foreign affairs office of the newly liberated Nanjing, formerly the Nationalist capital. US Ambassador Leighton Stuart, a long-time missionary in China and a former president of Yenjing University where Huang studied, remained in China. The two met informally on several occasions, and the topic of Stuart's possible visit to Beijing to meet the top Chinese leaders was broached. However, this northward trip was rejected by the US State Department, which reaffirmed Washington's continued recognition of the Chiang government in Taiwan. Thus, another historic chance for normalizing relations was missed. As the author observes, "It took the US 22 years to re-evaluate this policy."

The tight handclasp between veteran diplomat Huang Hua (right) and former US national security advisor Henry Kissinger during the Beijing Olympics in August shows their long-standing friendship. The two were key figures in promoting the normalization of Sino-US relations in the 1970s. [Photo courtesy of Huang Hua's family]

When this re-evaluation did come and then US president Richard Nixon's national security advisor Henry Kissinger secretly came to Beijing to start the negotiations, Huang Hua was again a member of the Chinese negotiation team. Huang was about to leave for Canada as the Chinese ambassador there. So, to prepare for the coming meetings, he, like Kissinger, also "disappeared" at Mao's request. Thus began the grand about-face in Sino-US relations, altering the world's balance of power.