When President Richard M. Nixon met with Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing in February 1972, at his side was a young U.S. diplomat serving as his principal interpreter: Chas W. Freeman, Jr. had started studying Mandarin (and Taiwan’s dialect, Minnan) in Taiwan three years earlier; and he spent much of his long diplomatic career specializing in China, including Taiwan. InInteresting Times, Ambassador Freeman brings a broad and well-informed historical perspective to his analysis of the issues that have confronted the world’s two most powerful countries over the last four decades.