If you look at the top of our home page, you’ll see a tab with two Chinese characters, which mean “Chinese.” Few people know the struggle and angst that put those characters there. In August 2001, I accompanied our publisher, Arthur O. Sulzberger Jr., and a group of New York Times writers and editors to see Jiang Zemin, then the president of China. The meeting took place in a typical Chinese meeting room — doily-draped fauteuils underneath a monumental ink-and-brush painting of sea and mountains — at China’s leadership compound in Beidaihe, an otherwise gritty seaside resort on the northeastern coast. Read more
