Mao to Now

The people of Taiwan seemed keen to exploit all the bewildering economic changes on the mainland. That in itself was a huge change. I lived in Taipei in the mid-'70s, when Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek's paranoid martial-law regime kept the island in perpetual fear of being overrun. I remember an American friend who was hauled in and interrogated because his dry cleaner had found a mainland coin in his suit pocket and tried to turn him in for the $11,000 bounty on "Red Chinese spies." I got in trouble for writing an article on indirect trade with the mainland, mentioning that Chinese herbal medicines and a certain type of Shanghai freshwater crab could be bought in Taipei despite official enmity between the two governments. Taiwan government minders castigated me for daring to predict that Taiwan and the mainland might someday have commercial links, cross-strait tours and even occasional athletic and academic exchanges.

By 1996, Taiwanese investment on the mainland was at least $24 billion, and tens of thousands of Taiwanese were living in Shanghai alone. Some of my Taiwanese friends were sending their kids to university in Beijing. And Taipei's Di Hwa street market now specialized in mainland goods like live Shanghai crabs and fiery Mao-tai liquor. My timid suggestion from a decade before had become a fact of everyday life.

IV. The East Is Red
My father always amazed me with his evolving views on China. He was 80 and recovering from heart surgery in early 1997 when I mentioned that I'd be in Hong Kong on July 1 to cover the British crown colony's historic reversion to Chinese sovereignty. He immediately announced, "I'm going, too!" The plan sounded insane. The flight would be 18 hours, and why would he celebrate the handover? He'd never had any use for the communists in Beijing. But he insisted, saying he just wanted to be there—"one of only a few million Chinese to see the moment." He was eager for China to get back the land taken from the spineless Manchu dynasty more than half a century before Mao took power. "As a kid, I had the history of the Opium Wars drummed into me," he said. "It was the biggest humiliation in history. We hated the British for that." And for what came after. He recalled seeing burly cops—turbaned Sikhs from British India—beating Chinese beggars and prostitutes in Shanghai's International Concession in the 1930s.

Papa came to Hong Kong to watch the handover ceremonies in the company of old friends. I remember Prince Charles delivering a stiff-lipped farewell speech while a summer downpour dripped from his cheeks and chin. One flaglowering event featured a team of three motley Brits, mismatched in height and gait, and each in a different outfit. One wore a kilt. They made a sad contrast to China's towering honor guards, perfectly synchronized in their movements and wearing impeccably tailored uniforms. A PLA soldier unfurled a gigantic Chinese national flag with a single fluid motion and a snap so loud and clear you could practically feel it. A burst of pride and vindication swept through millions of Chinese—my father included.

China's rulers needed Hong Kong, and not just for its money-spinning stock exchange. With little trace of communism remaining beyond the name of their monolithic party, they had to find another "ism" to justify their continued hold on power. The answer: nationalism. Party leaders recast themselves as the country's great defenders, who would avenge past injuries and restore national pride. Hong Kong was only the first step. Macau would soon follow. And the big prize would be Taiwan. America, the policeman of the Pacific, watched nervously. A year earlier Beijing had staged a massive missile-firing exercise in the Taiwan Strait, attempting to tilt the island's presidential vote. Now the Chinese Navy was vigorously asserting claims to specks of sand and coral in the South China Sea. At times the territorial grabs seemed laughable, like the giant raft of mainland topsoil they anchored at a spot called Mischief Reef. The Chinese planted a floating vegetable garden on it under a sign declaring LONG LIVE THE MOTHERLAND. Still, Washington couldn't help wondering if a new cold war was brewing.

The party's new rallying cry was a resounding hit with the Chinese people. When I returned to Beijing in 1998 for another tour of duty at the bureau, I got to know China's first teenage female punk-rock group, Hang on the Box. With her spiky red hair and studded dog collar, 19-year-old singer-guitarist Wang Yue was a chain-smoking, foulmouthed rebel. But she didn't have a bad word to say about Tiananmen. "The Army did the right thing," she told me. "It could have been worse—outsiders might have exploited the chaos to occupy and harm China."