The Myth of Nixon's Da Hong Pao

[berrysoup]

That's not a safe assumption by any means. Whereas a box of tea might be seen as a relatively trivial gift by the American press, who already had plenty of things to write about given the restriction on length of what they can submit, the Chinese press is, if anything, more likely to talk about formalities such as gifts exchanged and the full texts of speeches given. In fact, I know the coverage in the People's Daily included some really mundane details that no reader of an American paper would want to see.

Then this would be a good route to pursue. It appears that my school has digital records of 人民日报 from 1946 (were the Communists distributing newspapers even before the fall of the KMT?) to 1977 and again starting in 1997. The earlier records are not available online, so I haven't checked them yet.

So I just registered an account here literally to ask if the OP managed to check those articles from People's Daily and found anything. I'm super curious. The Nixon tea story is such a fascinatingly wide spread myth that if it's actually debunked, or confirmed for that matter, the process of finding the answer would make a great piece of journalism in itself. Otherwise I'll always lament that every story I read on the internet is a lie somehow