Media

Special Viewing of 'DECLASSIFIED: NIXON IN CHINA'

14 Dec 2009

 

The Department of History and the School of Humanities of the University of Hong Kong are happy to announce a special showing on December 16 (Wednesday) of the first TV documentary based on the fully declassified record of President Nixon's historic trip to China in 1972.

The showing of this Emmy Award-winning film will be introduced by one of the team who made it: Prof. Chen Jian, Visiting Research Professor in the Department of History for 2009-2013, and Michael J. Zak, Chair of the History of US China Relations at Cornell University. Prof. Chen will be available to comment and take questions on this film, which combines previously secret U.S. documents with newly available evidence from Chinese files to reveal details of the dramatic diplomacy that remained hidden for 30 years.

Media representatives are cordially invited to the event. Details are as below:

Date: 16 December 2009 (Wednesday)

Time: 5 p.m.

Venue: Rayson Huang Theatre, The University of Hong Kong

Pre-registration available on first-come-first-served basis, at http://hkuems1.hku.hk/hkuems/ec_regform.aspx?guest=Y&UEID=12809 .

About the documentary

The film revealed for the first time the secret initiatives on the Chinese side that began as early as 1969, when a group of four marshals recommended that Chairman Mao "play the American card" against the Soviet threat and even undertake high-level talks with the U.S.

One of the four marshals then sat across from national security advisor Henry Kissinger during the most secret single meeting of the 1972 Nixon trip, when Kissinger briefed the Chinese in detail on Soviet troop movements - details so sensitive even the U.S. intelligence community was kept out of the loop. The transcript only emerged in 2003 after appeals by the National Security Archive of Washington, DC. "My jaw dropped when I saw what these discussions had covered," said Tom Jarriel, who reported on Nixon's trip for ABC News, in the documentary.

Produced by ABC News Productions for the Discovery Times Channel (the digital cable venture of Discovery Channel and the New York Times), the documentary features interviews with key players and eyewitnesses Henry Kissinger, Winston Lord, Dick Smyser, Alexander Haig, James Lilley, and Jarriel, together with commentary from China experts such as University of Virginia professor Chen Jian and Georgetown University professor Nancy Tucker, and National Security Archive director Thomas Blanton.

"The new documents are rewriting the history of that amazing breakthrough, of what we thought we knew," comments Blanton on screen in the program. "But the new evidence also serves as a reminder of the use and abuse of government secrecy."