Bridging seas and decades: A personal journey from Beijing to the West Philippine Sea

In a recent discussion we had here in Washington, DC on the evolving dynamics of the South China Sea, I found myself reflecting on how my own experiences with China have spanned approximately four decades.

- AMBASSADOR B. ROMUALDEZ

It’s a story that began in 1974 when, as a neophyte reporter for RPN 9, I joined the Philippine basketball team on a mission that we called “basketball diplomacy” because we had with us some of the country’s top basketball players at the time. My uncle, then-Ambassador Eduardo Romualdez, led our delegation, and I vividly remember meeting Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping and Premier Zhou Enlai, who formally received us at the Great Hall of the People.

In retrospect, it was an extraordinary time because sports was able to open doors that politics could not.

Being a reporter, I tried to absorb as much as I could on that historic visit. Our delegation stayed at the Friendship Hotel — the only major hotel at the time — which was a converted 1950s Russian complex. Beijing was then a quiet, austere capital — still recovering from the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution — but already showing signs of the discipline and national pride that would drive its transformation.

When I returned in 1983, this time accompanying then-Ilocos Norte governor Ferdinand Marcos Jr. and several other local government leaders that included then-Olongapo mayor Richard Gordon, Tawi-Tawi governor Nur Jaafar and other local officials, I witnessed a country that was already showing signs of transformation. The streets were busier, and there was a palpable sense of activity. The reforms initiated by Deng Xiaoping — acknowledged as the architect of China's free enterprise policy — were beginning to reshape China, and there was optimism in the air that progress was happening.