Beijing: When the formidable journalist Margaret Jones landed in Beijing in 1973, she found a city that was “dusty, noisy and endlessly fascinating”. Her first impression of the Chinese capital has been echoing in my mind since I stepped off the plane at Beijing’s international airport a fortnight ago, at the tail end of the Chinese New Year holiday. More than 50 years after Jones blazed a trail as The Sydney Morning Herald and The Age’s first China correspondent, I’m following in her footsteps and reopening our news bureau to cover this vast, consequential country at a time of great upheaval in the international system. Ironically, I landed in Beijing just as a sandstorm was hitting the city, with winds sweeping off Mongolia’s Gobi Desert, throwing grit into the air and greying the skies overhead. Clear-air days have otherwise become more common in this city of 23 million people as authorities have made inroads on Beijing’s air pollution over the past decade.…