Middle Kingdom and Beautiful Country

2. How the circumstances of my birth intertwine with a new era of U.S.-China relationship

February 1972. Then-U.S. President Richard Nixon, his wife Pat and National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger led a historic delegation to China. They met with Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai in Beijing and stopped by Shanghai and Hangzhou, where you were just born.

You were barely a month old, and would have no idea whatsoever that this pivot…