Chas W. Freeman Jr. is one of the world's foremost authorities on China, and served for years as one of America's top diplomats. He was President Richard Nixon’s principal interpreter on his historic 1972 trip to China. Freeman went on to be the charge d’affaires at the newly opened U.S. Embassy in Beijing, where he frequently interacted with Chinese leaders like Deng Xiaoping and Zhou Enlai. He later served as the U.S. Ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War and Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs. Freeman is now a senior fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute for International and Public Affairs and is chairman of Projects International, a business development company in Washington, D.C. What follows is a lightly edited Q&A. Chas Freeman Illustration by Lauren Crow Q: As President Nixon’s translator on his first trip to China and then Charge d’Affaires at the newly opened embassy in Beijing, you’ve seen the whole arc