I was an admirer, not anymore

IN my younger years, I had the greatest admiration for China. It's one of the surviving ancient civilizations. Its four outstanding contributions to humanity have stood the test of time — paper, gunpowder, printing and the compass. And its sense of history and greatness enabled it to stand proud and tall among the nations of the world.

My first trip outside our national borders was to Hong Kong in 1970. Cantonese cuisine was out of this world, and it was a paradise for bargain hunters. In the early 1980s, I marveled at the majesty of the Forbidden City; the Great Wall; and the engineering skills that built Beijing's vast underground city, driven by fear of a nuclear attack by the Soviet Union when border clashes came close to open warfare. Beijing was still in its early paces of becoming a modern city.