Trudeau goes to China

the snake in the grass

 

'Two innocents in Red China'..were they?

"When the sleeping dragon awakes," Napoleon once said of China, "he will shake the world." In the 20th century, multiple upheavals shook the Asian giant. The rule of emperors gave way to civil war and the Communist revolution, closing China to the world. The doors slowly opened in the 1970s with new diplomatic ties and economic reforms. The crackdown on democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in 1989 barely checked China's growth, and today the world's most populous nation is on its way to superpower status. CBC Archives presents China as CBC journalists have seen it over the decades.

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'Two innocents in Red China'

Author Jacques Hébert recalls travelling to China with Pierre Trudeau in 1960.

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In 1960, China was virtually a closed society. Foreign visitors were rare, but somehow, five French-Canadians were invited to tour the country for 32 days. Among the group were a journalist, Jacques Hébert, and a labour lawyer, Pierre Trudeau. The pair would write a 1961 book, Deux innocents en Chine rouge, about their experiences there. On the CBC Radio program Matinee, Hébert describes the paternalistic treatment he and Trudeau received from the Chinese.