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| Jerome Cohen says that the progress in China's social, economic and legal areas has been "fabulous and enormous" over the past decades. (Source: China Daily/Chen Weihua) |
BEIJING, July 6 (Xinhaunet) -- Jerome Cohen was the first Western lawyer in Beijing and he has been a witness to the evolution of China's legal system over the past 30 years. Chen Weihua reports
In 1960 when Jerome Cohen, a young law professor at University of California Berkeley, was asked by the dean to find someone studying the Chinese legal system, he failed. As a result, he decided to study it himself.
"Many of my friends and colleagues thought I must be having a nervous breakdown. They wondered why I would want to study a country that I could not even go to. That was right after my 30th birthday," said Cohen, who turned 80 on July 1.
Cohen said his mother wanted him to be the US Secretary of State, but he wanted to be a pioneer and do something irrational.
He started studying Chinese in 1960, but it would be another 12 years before Cohen got to visit the Chinese mainland.
"Chiang Kai-shek was wooing us to go to Taiwan, but I was interested in going to the mainland," he said.
In February 1972, Richard Nixon made his historic visit to China. Few people knew that Cohen and a number of other scholars had been instrumental in realizing this epic moment.
