Will history repeat itself today?
Will either Chinese President Jiang Zemin or Prime Minister Zhu Rongji be as well attuned to the need for symbolic gestures in Sino-American relations as former Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai was on Feb. 21, 1972?
In that year, all it took was a brief but revealing incident. When U.S. President Richard Nixon arrived in Beijing to end the post-1949 Sino-American cold and hot wars, he was uncertain what would happen. A surprise awaited him as he stepped out of Air Force One.