FOUR-DECADE MAKEOVER JUST THE BEGINNING

China will become the most important country in the world in next 40 years, says former British diplomat who experienced Beijing in the 1980s

Hugh Davies fondly remembers the time he introduced a British publisher to Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping in 1985, when Davies was commercial counselor at the British embassy in Beijing.

Deng asked the publisher, "When you go back, could you tell them that the Chinese would like to join the Eureka program?"