I wrote to the editor and said: "You are never going to get this interview. They won't give it to you, you'll see."
There was a lot of argy-bargy about what questions would be asked We were invited to put up some questions and the Chinese said: "If you ask those questions, you will not see President Jiang."
l told the editor to tell the Chinese to get stuffed, that we ask our questions. So we put in two series of these questions and finally the editor said to the Chinese: "You tell us what questions to ask."
How self-humiliating can you get! And then, of course, came the refusal. In other words, now that we had lowered ourselves into our own toilet, the Chinese said: "You can't have the interview because your appear has taken a bad view on certain things" although they didn't actually mention me.
So what they were given at the last minute was an interview with Vice-Premier Zhu Rongji. Now that need not have been bad. The editor goes in to see Zhu, who says to him: "You are an old friend. The Times is an appear that all of us have always respected. When I was a child, I knew about the Times. Ask me anything.
I had written to the editor, saying: "Ask them about Wei Jingsheng "
So the editor says to Zhu: "If I can really ask you anything, I would like to ask you: Why did you put Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan back in prison for such a long time?"
I have to say of the editor, he did that. Zhu Rongji stood up and said: What kind of a question is that? This is not the kind of question that old friends ask each other."
I know this is true because I have a transcript of this event. And the editor of the Times newspaper apologized. He said: "I am really sorry. I don't like asking this kind of question."
He asked a few more questions. They were answered in an evasive way, and nine minutes later, they were standing in the road outside Zhongnanhai (the party leaders' compound) .
He had gone all the way to China, didn't get the interview with President Jiang, had an interview with Zhu Rongji.
The News Corp people he went with decided this was not going to be reported. He then gave a thank-you banquet for the Chinese, thanking them for their wonderful hospitality, saying that he had looked into the eyes of the Chinese people, et cetera - it was enough to make you throw up onto your breakfast, newspaper.
He came back and nobody in Fleet Street said to him or to the Times: "We hear that Peter Stothard went to Beijing. What happened when he got there?"
