As the son of an American diplomat in the early days of Sino-U.S. relations, David G. Brooks spent his teenage years in Beijing shortly after President Nixon's "ice-breaking" visit to China in 1972.

Nearly 40 years later, Brooks still lives in China, but with a different identity -- president of American soft drinks giant Coca-Cola's Greater China and Korean branches.

Brooks considers himself the "child of Shanghai Communique," as his deep connections with China started with the document, Brooks said as the two countries are about to mark the 40th anniversary of the communique on Tuesday.

The 50-year-old "expert on China" spoke in fluent Mandarin during his interview with Xinhua and has a Chinese name -- "Lu Dawei."

The Shanghai Communique was released on Feb. 28, 1972, the last day of the former U.S. President Richard Nixon's China tour, laying a foundation for the two sides to resume diplomatic ties.

Brooks' father was assigned to work in the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing, which was set up in Beijing after Nixon's visit and became the U.S. Embassy in 1979 after China and the U.S. issued the Joint Communique on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations -- the formal commencement of normal relations between the two sides.

Brooks' family moved to Beijing in 1975. Spending two years in Beijing, 13-year-old David Brooks was one of the first Americans to attend a local school in China in the mid-1970s during the Cultural Revolution.

Being the only foreign student in the 55th Middle School in the Sanlitun district, Brooks even worked in a factory and on a farm, each for a month -- extracurricular activities widely adopted by Chinese schools during the Cultural Revolution.

In 1979, the first 3,000 boxes of glass-bottled Coca Cola arrived in Beijing by train, making Coca-Cola the first US company to distribute its products in the Chinese mainland after the two countries re-established diplomatic ties.

"In 1979, I bought my first bottle of Coca-Cola in China in the Forbidden City during my vacation in Beijing," said Brooks.

"I was surprised to find a U.S. beverage there. It suddenly occurred to me that China's reform and opening-up was really happening," he said, referring to the policy adopted in 1978 to open the country to foreign investors.

Brooks' connections with China deepened when he joined Coca-Cola in Hong Kong at the age of 26. He later participated in the setup of a concentration plant in Shanghai.

"My Chinese language foundation was laid in middle school in Beijing. It wasn't until I was a general manager at the Hainan plant that my language skills really progressed. I was the only foreigner working with 450 Chinese at the plant," said Brooks.

Coca-Cola expanded rapidly after the two countries resumed ties. The U.S. drinks giant now has 41 bottling plants and 50,000 employees across China, a fast-growing country that has already become the world's second largest economy.

Coca-Cola's development in China has taken place during the two country's bilateral trade boom over the past decades. Trade volume between China and the US increased 180-fold since 1979.

Coca-Cola will invest another 4 billion U.S. dollars in China from 2012 to 2014, following an estimated spend of 3 billion in the three years to 2011, the company said in August last year.

Chairman and chief executive Muhtar Kent said that China, currently the company's third biggest market following the United States and Mexico, would eventually become its largest global market.

"I have been watching China's development and changes since 1975 and I believe that development in the country will never stop," said Brooks.

Brooks said that he was happy to see that cultural exchanges between the two countries are growing rapidly as well.

The last 30 years saw an explosion of cultural and education exchange. Many people from the United States came to China to study and work, but even more Chinese went to the U.S. for the same reasons.

Brooks said that his son is now studying at the very same school he attended in Beijing nearly 40 years ago.

"I am glad that he speaks Mandarin even better than I am," he said.