China pays glowing tribute to Kissinger, ‘old friend of the Chinese people’
by PEI- LIN WU AND VIC CHIANG Lyric Li contributed to this report. 1 Dec 2023 - The Washington Post Chinese officials and state media mourned the death of Henry Kissinger, the 100-year-old who was at the heart of the United States’ rapprochement with China half a century ago and had visited Beijing only this summer. The outpouring of praise and nostalgia for Kissinger was a distinct change in tone for China’s state-run news outlets, noted in recent years for their antipathy toward American administrations as relations have plumbed their lowest depths since the normalization in relations in the 1970s that Kissinger helped bring about. Kissinger, who served as Secretary of State and National Security adviser in the Nixon and Ford administrations, made his first trip to Beijing in 1971, laying the groundwork for President Richard M. Nixon’s historic trip the following year. He had since made 100 more visits, most recently in July, which Chinese media call a “double centenary” because of h...