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John Kamm Remembers: Kang Yuan Means John Kamm 1972-1989

 

Listen to John Kamm’s audio introduction:

Cool Timeline

1972
February: Nixon Visits China
Zhou Enlai Welcomes President Richard Nixon on February 21, 1972, symbolically ending 17 years of Sino-American tension. Source: White House Photo Office Collection (Nixon Administration)
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President Richard Nixon spent eight days in China, during which he met Chairman Mao and signed the Shanghai Communiqué with Premier Zhou Enlai. This would begin a thaw in relations that would be made official in 1979. 

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August: Going to Portuguese Macau

A postcard of the Macau Palace floating casino. Source: Nentavaiconta

Inspired by Nixon’s visit to the People’s Republic, I arrived in Portuguese Macau on a one-way ticket, then spent the next four months teaching at Linson College under the Princeton-in-Asia program. Read more: Macau Days 

1973
February: Liaison Offices Established

The liaison office in 1973. Source: Priscilla Roberts, David Bruce in China, 1973-1974. Occasional paper No. 1. Keele: David Bruce Centre for American Studies, Keele University, 1999

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The first Liaison Offices were established in Beijing and Washington. These functioned as informal diplomatic posts during the years prior to normalization. However, for several years the United States continued to maintain its embassy in Taiwan. 

1973-1975: Gaining My Footing

In 1973, after landing a part-time tutor job at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, I conducted fieldwork research in Kam Tin before going to Harvard’s Graduate School of Art and Sciences to pursue a degree in East Asian Studies. I returned to Hong Kong in 1975 and began writing for the Asian Business & Industry and the National Council for US China Trade. Hear about my research by clicking below.

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1976
January: Zhou Enlai Dies

A group of mourners assemble for the walk to Zhou Enlai’s funeral in a side hall of the Forbidden City. Source: The Dui Hua Foundation

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On January 8, Zhou Enlai – first Premier of the People’s Republic of China – passed away from bladder cancer. 

 

 

 

July: Foray into Shanghai & Beijing after Achieving Notoriety with the Gang of Four

After attending Zhou Enlai’s funeral in Beijing, I visited the Great Wall with a Chinese official. Source: The Dui Hua Foundation

 

After publishing an article that criticized the ultra-radical economic policies of Zhang Chunqiao (a member of the “Gang of Four”) in Asian Business & Industry, I caught the Gang’s attention, and the magazine was banned from circulating in China. I took my first trip to Shanghai and Beijing and was in Beijing when Zhou Enlai passed away.  Read more: Target of the Gang of Four.

July: The Great Tangshan Earthquake

At 3:42 a.m. on July 28, 1976, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake hit the region around Tangshan, Hebei, China. Within minutes, 85 percent of the buildings in Tangshan collapsed or were rendered unusable, all services failed, and most of the highway and railway bridges collapsed or were seriously damaged. The official report claimed 242,769 deaths and 164,851 serious injuries in Tangshan, making it among the deadliest natural disasters in China’s history. 

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July: Surviving the Earthquake

(Top) A report about the earthquake published in Newark, New Jersey’s The Star Ledger on August 3, 1976; (Bottom) The article I wrote about my earthquake experience was translated into Chinese in Ta Kung Po on August 2, 1976. 

.Image source: The Dui Hua Foundation

I was accompanying Ambassador Christopher Phillips of the National Council for US-China Trade on a weeklong trip to Beijing, when we unexpectedly found ourselves in the middle of the Great Tangshan Earthquake. Read more: The North China Earthquake 

September: Death of Mao

Mao Zedong suffered two major heart attacks, one in March and another in July, then a third on September 5, rendering him an invalid. He died four days later, at 00:10 on September 9, 1976, at the age of 82. 

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1976-1980: Publications on Canton and China Trade

In 1976, my research firm Primary Sources put out a magazine that was the first English-language publication that told people everything they needed to know about the Canton Trade Fair. Take a look at some of our work with the slideshow.

1977
October: Post-Mao China, Downfall of the Gang of Four & the Rise of Deng
October: Post-Mao China, Downfall of the Gang of Four & the Rise of Deng

Having overcome the Gang of Four, Deng Xiaoping became paramount leader of the Communist Party and embarked on a series of economic reforms, opening the doors to foreign investment and business. Companies from the United States, Europe, and Japan began to flock to China to take advantage of new opportunities. China also joined the IMF and World Bank. 

 

Photos taken in Canton in October 1976 showing posters about the Gang of Four’s downfall and people marching to celebrate, carrying portraits of Mao and Hua. Source: Guide to Canton

1978
1976-1980: Becoming Kang Yuan

 

On June 5, 1979, I joined a National Council for US-China Trade delegation to Beijing. There I met paramount leader Deng Xiaoping and shook his hand. I was introduced to him as Kang Yuan, a name I adopted upon writing a eulogy for Zhou Enlai, whose funeral I attended in January 1976. Source: National Council for US China Trade

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I was active in the China trade, buying, selling, and investing on the Mainland, under my new Chinese name Kang Yuan. I was in the right place at the right time, taking advantage of China’s opening by launching several pioneering initiatives.  Read more: Right Time, Right Place, Right People

1979
1979-1980: Formal Ties & One China Policy

Deng Xiaoping and Jimmy Carter during the Sino-American signing ceremony, January 31, 1979. Source: Carter White House photo collection

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US President Jimmy Carter announced full diplomatic recognition of China would take place in January 1979, while acknowledging the PRC’s One China principle and severing normal ties with Taiwan. President Reagan visited China in April 1984. In June, the US government permitted Beijing to make purchases of US military equipment. 

1981
1981-1989: Climbing the Corporate Ladder

For me, the 80s began with the sale of my company to Diamond Shamrock, and I became its Vice President in charge of the Far East region including China. Over the next decade, I undertook a number of pioneering business initiatives. A fateful day in 1989 and a banquet a year later, however, would change things.

John Kamm Remembers: Climbing the Corporate Ladder 1981 – 1989

1983
September: China’s First Strike Hard Campaign

China’s First Strike Hard Campaign. Source: Chinanews.cn

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Deng, now paramount leader of China, launched the first “Strike Hard” Anti-crime Campaign, a massive crime-fighting effort in response to the worsening public safety of post-Cultural Revolution China. Counterrevolutionaries were one of the targets. 

September: Witness to Executions

Prisoners transported for public display during Strike Hard 1983. Source: Sina Blogger

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Shortly before the Spring Chinese Export Commodities Fair was to open in Guangzhou in April 1983, an event took place that would have a great effect on me: two young men from Hong Kong hung a banner from their hotel room denouncing the Chinese Communist Party. Read more: Executions of Hong Kong Residents Spur Interest in Human Rights

1984
December: Sino-British Joint Declaration; Emergence of the Guangdong-Hong Kong Region

After two years of negotiations, UK Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and China’s Premier of the State Council Zhao Ziyang signed the Sino-British Joint Declaration. Under the agreement, Britain would relinquish control of the New Territories to China following the end of the 99-year lease (July 1, 1997). Britain would also relinquish control of Hong Kong Island and the southern part of the Kowloon Peninsula. China declared that following the return to China in 1997, Hong Kong would become a Special Administrative Region and retain a high degree of autonomy under the ‘One country, two systems’ principle. The intertwining of the Guangdong and HK economies accelerated after the 1984 agreement. 

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1984-1989: Collaborating with Professor Vogel

 

Photo taken on the occasion of my being awarded an honorary position at Guangzhou Foreign Trade Institute in October 1988. Ezra Vogel on the right. Source: The Dui Hua Foundation

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I developed a partnership with Harvard Professor Ezra Vogel and wrote a chapter on Reforming Foreign Trade in Vogel’s One Step Ahead in China: Guangdong Under Reform, published in 1989. Read more: Guangzhou Days: Remembering Ezra Vogel 

1989
Spring: Domestic Unrest & Tiananmen Square

Tanks near Tiananmen Square during the unrest culminating on June 4, 1989. Source: 64memo

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Following the death of General Secretary Hu Yaobang in April, thousands of students held demonstrations in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square, demanding democratic reforms and an end to corruption. On June 3, the government sent in military troops to clear the square. Tensions between the US and PRC continued into the next year. While both sides lobbed criticisms at each other, diplomatic ties were never severed and China remained open to foreign trade. 

 

 

June 1989: The View of June Fourth from Zhuhai & Macau

A view of the Pearl River near Zhuhai taken in June 1989. Source: The Dui Hua Foundation

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.As the Far East Vice President of Oxychem, I experienced the June Fourth protests firsthand in Zhuhai and Macau. Read more: 1989 in Zhuhai and Macau

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