Mike Chinoy is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the University of Southern California’s US-China Institute. He previously spent 24 years as a CNN foreign correspondent, serving as the network’s first Beijing Bureau Chief and as Senior Asia Correspondent. He has received Emmy, Peabody, and Dupont awards for his journalism, and is the author of five books. This article is excerpted from Assignment China: An Oral History of American Journalists in China, to be published by Columbia University Press in early 2023.