For this week's story on TIME'S 52nd Man of the Year, three of our Hong Kong correspondents brought distinctively different and personal points of view to the task of reporting on Teng Hsiao-p'ing and China's New Long March. Bureau Chief Marsh Clark had recently completed a three-year assignment in Moscow. He found it easier to get information on the Chinese Communists than the Soviets. One reason: the famed wall posters, which, says Clark, "tell us much about how the Chinese people feel these days about their leaders." Adds Clark: "On a trip to the mainland I found the officials engagingly candid about the conditions in their country."

Correspondent Richard Bernstein, who studied Chinese language and history at Harvard, toured southern China. Reports Bernstein: "The reception I got at the riceroots was far warmer than the one I got six years ago when most Chinese were terrified of being seen talking to a foreigner. Both farmers and workers gave me the impression on this trip of being rather poignantly embarrased by the difficult times China has experienced in the past 10 years. And they have invested enormous hopes in Teng." Bernstein and Clark depended heavily on the encyclopedic knowledge of the Hong Kong colleague Bing W. Wong, a native of Fukien province, who was pleased when his homeland resumed relations with the U.S. Says Wong: "Each country has something to learn from the other."

Not since 1938, when Generalissimo and Madame Chiang Kai-shek shared the title as Man and Wife of the Year, has an Asian been selected Man of the Year. The main story is the work of Senior Writer Lance Morrow, who wrote last year's Man of the Year cover about another foreign leader who acted boldly: Anwar Sadat. Staff Writer Patricia Blake, who learned about Communism as an expert on Soviet affairs, wrote Teng's biography and the article on life in China. Reporter-Researchers Laurie Upson Mamo and Oscar Chiang also contributed to the 21 -page package, which was designed by Assistant Art Director Rudolph Hoglund and supervised by Senior Editors John Elson and Ron Kriss. Says Elson:

"What we are really talking about is an event that has just barely begun. The Great Leap Outward is also China's Great Gamble. For China's sake as well as ours, I hope it succeeds."

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