The lost art of understanding the enemy
On October 1, 1970, China’s People’s Daily published a picture on its front page showing American writer Edgar Snow standing next to Mao Zedong on the Tien An Men gate tower. Snow, the author of the acclaimed “Red Star Over China”, had met Mao in Yenan in 1936, and while not himself a Communist, never hid his sympathies both for China and its new regime.