Henry Kissinger visits the Johns Hopkins University-Nanjing University Center for Chinese and American Studies in Nanjing on June 23, 2007. Song Qiao / for China Daily

 

Henry Kissinger is scheduled to arrive in Beijing on Friday for a series of public and private meetings as a guest of the China People's Institute of Foreign Affairs. He will discuss with his hosts his latest book, On China, which has been much touted in the Chinese media and much coveted among the Chinese.

As he summarized after he received a lifetime achievement award from the Asia Society in Washington last week, he attempted to share with readers his historic analysis of how the Chinese and the Americans handle their problems and how "this translated itself into the actual interaction" between the United States and China.

The book "provides us with his insightful view over Sino-US relations over the past 40 years, including his meetings with four generations of Chinese leaders," Zhang Yesui, Chinese ambassador to the US, said during the Asia Society event.

A highlight of the trip will be his meeting with a celebrated party of old friends - and children of his old friends - to recall the memorable 48 hours he spent in Beijing in July 1971 on his secret mission to break the ice in China-US relations.

Among the many memoirs are some by a small circle of Chinese and Americans who worked to make the visit not only a success but also to initiate changes that have transformed the world.

Numerous Chinese and American journalists have also come up with their accounts to unravel the "mysteries" surrounding the events that led to the secret trip and US President Richard M. Nixon's historic visit to China in February 1972.

In his new book, Kissinger, who was Nixon's secretary of state, recounts and re-analyzes the history-making moments, providing details of his talks with Premier Zhou Enlai.

Avid researchers can also delve into the now declassified "eyes only" documents posted on www.gwu.edu or countless Chinese language volumes, such as Collected Writings of Chairman Mao and Chronicles of Zhou Enlai, from the Publishing House of Central Archives, a subsidiary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China.

But some questions always remain: Who should take the credit for the breakthrough? What juicy details were absent from official documents? And, above all, what impact does this exciting moment 40 years ago have for future China-US relations?