Awakening of sleeping giant

Former US congressman Don Bonker recalls his trip to China in the late 1970s, Charlene Cai reports in Washington.

Five years into representing the state of Washington in the US Congress in the late 1970s, Don Bonker got a rare treat: a visit to China, a country once regarded by the United States as the "red enemy" and eventually considered its new friend.

Bonker landed in China on the official US Air Force plane in April 1980 - less than one and half years after the two countries established diplomatic relations in January 1979 - along with five other congressmen from committees that oversaw the bilateral relationship.