John Roderick

Who was John Roderick?

John Roderick was an American journalist and foreign correspondent for the Associated Press news service. Roderick was best known for covering Mao Zedong and other Chinese Communist guerillas while living with them in a cave during the mid-1940s. Roderick continued to cover China throughout the rest of his career. He was considered to be a leading "China watcher," who covered the country from before the Chinese Communist victory of 1949 to the economic reforms during the 1980s. He was once praised by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai as the man who "opened the door" to China for foreign news media.

Roderick's career as a correspondent with the Associated Press spanned over fifty years, with postings in Asia, Europe and the Middle East. Roderick reopened the Associated Press bureau in Beijing in 1979. He continued to work with the AP as a special correspondent for the two decades following his retirement in 1984.