when i had been to china but before nixon went, nixon invited the french novelist andre mulieu, who hadeen to china, to see what we could learn from it. and he said, china is such a desperately poor country that the most important thing you can do for them is to do kind of a multiplan and give them economic aid but mao didn't want economic aid and he didn't want china connected with the rest of the world at all. china was so poor at the time, that when nixon went there, they did not have telephonic equipment to connect us with washington in a way appropriate to the president. so we brought in a ground station. technically sold it to the chinese so that they did not do it. at any rate, we would have been amazed at the rapid progress that has taken place and which really couldn't take place until mao had died and a reforming group came in. >> host: after mao who was succeeded by ping who really revolutionized the chinese economy because he began reform through agriculture. he began agriculture reforms that then laid the framework for what we see today, right? >> guest: right. for mao, eve