Graham Earnshaw was the Daily Telegraph correspondent in Beijing from 1980 to 1984, and he's been looking through his clippings, which seem to prove both that China has changed completely and also that China has stayed exactly the same. This spring and summer, Danwei will be publishing a series of these reports from the past. This is today's resurrected item:

‘Careless Talk’ Warning
By Graham Earnshaw in Peking
March 16, 1981

The Peking Workers Daily told readers at the weekend not to reveal state secrets to foreigners. They
should be friendly but oppose servility and anything “which injures Chinese integrity.”

“When talking with foreign guests, political discussion should be avoided. When certain questions come up which require an answer, be precise, brief and reserved,” the paper said.

Author note: Relations between foreigners and Chinese people, and particularly Chinese and foreign journalists/diplomats, were very rare and weird in that era. You still see a hint of that time in the guards on the gates of the Jianguomenwai and Qijiayuan compounds. The number of Chinese people with whom I had even a vaguely natural relationship was very small indeed, and most for me were related to Democracy Wall in one way or another, and highly dangerous for my friends. Conversations with officials were almost always stilted, as required by this article. There were only occasional touches of humanity. Once, an official of the Foreign Ministry whose job it was to call on foreign journalists and criticize their “unfriendly” reports, came to an official cocktail party and was seen to be limping. When asked what had happened, he smiled ruefully and said: “You see, I picked up an rock and …”