Hao Hao ReportThe best China news and blog posts

"I have never heard of Watergate," a close friend told me a few days ago. "All I know is that Nixon was the first president of America to connect with China. He was a great man." There are very few Americans from the past 50 years who Chinese people will laud and defend as ardently as former President Nixon. To the Chinese, Nixon's historic visit to Beijing in the winter of 1972 was an early landmark in China's quest to 'open doors' and promote development.The visit is also remembered fondly by many here as the first time that an American head of state officially acknowledged that there is only one China.