Feb 13: Screening — Assignment: China – The Week that Changed the World

The JMSC and the Department of History will screen documentary Assignment: China – The Week that Changed the World on Monday, February 13 in HKU’s Wang Gungwu Lecture Hall.

About the film:

February marks the 40th anniversary of U.S. President Richard Nixon’s visit to China, an historic event that reshaped the global balance of power and opened the door to the establishment of relations between the People’s Republic of China and the United States.

It was also a milestone in the history of journalism.

Since the founding of the PRC, Beijing had barred virtually all U.S. reporters from China. For the Nixon trip, however, the Chinese government accepted nearly 100 overseas journalists and allowed the most dramatic events – Nixon’s arrival in Beijing, Zhou Enlai’s welcoming banquet, visits to the Great Wall and the Forbidden City – to be televised live.

While the outlines of the Nixon trip are familiar, the behind-the-scenes story of how that momentous event was covered is much less well-known.

Assignment: China offers remarkable and previously unreleased footage of the Nixon visit, interviews with Chinese officials, people who worked for Nixon, as well as many of the journalists who accompanied the president.

Reported and narrated by Mike Chinoy, the film offers a fascinating and previously untold perspective on one of the most important historical moments of the 20th century.

The screening will be followed by a discussion with:

Mike Chinoy, Producer, Assignment: China; former CNN Senior Asia Correspondent and Beijing Bureau Chief
Frank Ching, Author, TV anchor and former Wall Street Journal correspondent who opened the WSJ’s Beijing bureau in 1979
Chen Jian, Michael J. Zak Professor of History for US-China Relations, Cornell University; Distinguished Visiting Research Professor, History Department, The University of Hong Kong
Jim Laurie, former ABC News Asia bureau chief, who in 1981 opened the first American TV network bureau in Beijing
Ying Chan, Professor and Director, Journalism and Media Studies Centre, The University of Hong Kong (moderator)

Date: Monday, February 13, 2012
Time: 6 -8 pm
Venue: Wang Gungwu Lecture Hall, The University of Hong Kong (Map)
All are welcome. No registration required.