National Security Council staffer (and later U.S. Feb. 21, 2022 3 AM PT. As Mark suggests, there are and will be areas of profound disagreement, given important differences in values. "[18] Nixon, charmed, said "you voted for the lesser of two evils," and Mao replied, "I like rightists, I am comparatively happy when these people on the right come into power. Despite Bush's fight, Beijing took over the seat at the UN previously occupied by Taiwan with a landslide victory in the General Assembly vote. This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. Fifty years after the Nixon-Mao summit, it is time to put to rest the myth that Nixon alone could pursue rapprochement with China; other American politicians advocated engagementand were even invited to China before Nixon. But the U.S., he said, had to take the long view in all of this. At the conference, John Foster Dulles, then secretary of state under Dwight D. Eisenhower, had famously refused to shake hands with Zhou Enlai, the Chinese premier and lead negotiator. RUWITCH: He asks if Nixon had a message for Taiwan's president, Chiang Kai-shek. All Rights Reserved. At the time of the visit, my grandparents, my father, and my aunt were all in the U.S., but two of my uncles and their families had remained in China after 1949. The visit and subsequent normalization of relations with the West provided the ideological cover necessary for the economic reforms of the 1980s that launched China from a pariah state to the economic juggernaut that it is today. To avoid embarrassing Secretary of State William P. Rogers, Nixon requested to the Chinese for Lord to be cropped out of all the official photographs of the meeting. Lets not forget his central role in the Red Scare rhetoric that essentially prevented other political figures from advocating for engagement with the PRC in a more tempered manner. All Rights Reserved, International Dimensions of Decolonization in the Middle East and North Africa: A Primary Source Collection, The Jupiter Missiles and the Endgame of the Cuban Missile Crisis: Sealing the Deal with Italy and Turkey, Iraqi Archives and the Failure of Saddams Worldview in 2003, The CIA and the Committee for Free Asia under Project DTPILLAR, FJHUMMING: Radio Libertys Russian Language Broadcasts from Taiwan. However, the goal was itself flawed in that it left the issue of Taiwan unresolved, not least because it was not a burning issue to be resolved at the time for either side. When Richard Nixon took office in 1969, it marked the 20th anniversary of the creation of the Peoples Republic of China, and 20 years of frozen diplomatic relations between the United States and Communist China. The communiqu also contained an acknowledgment that the U.S. does not challenge the view that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China and therefore helped shape the policy of U.S. strategic ambiguity toward Taiwan that remains today. 3, get U.S. out of Asia. On the eve of the big day, Bloomberg spoke to Anthony Ledru . Every country has its landmark tourist attractions, and China is no exception. Russia's war against Ukraine has largely overshadowed the 50th anniversary of Nixon's landmark trip to China in 1972, which established the basis for a normalization of relations between the two powers. So, the fact that Nixon, as president, would be willing to embark in outreach to Beijing came as a surprise. Instead they, including Kissinger himself, still largely saw the Taiwan issue as more of a practical obstacle rather than China's "central question of concern", as Zhou had claimed. To be sure, some American academics, including Jerome Cohen, who was the founding director of Harvards East Asian Legal Studies program, had from the late 60s been urging a re-evaluation of U.S.-China policy. Nixon's porcelain swans statue, a gift to Mao, was presented along the way in the gift-giving ceremony.[21]. The surprise announcement was the result of months of top-secret diplomacy between the Nixon White House and Beijing. With Nixon's China visit in February of '72 WU: The U.S. adopted the one-China policy, which means there's one China and Taiwan is part of China. Former Embassy of Taiwan, Washington, D.C. Taipei Economic and Cultural Office in Houston, Taipei Economic and Cultural Representative Office in the United States, Former Ambassador of the United States to China, American Institute in Taiwan Kaohsiung Branch Office, Former Embassy of the United States in Taipei, July 2002 state visit to the United States, Taiwan Relations Act Affirmation and Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2014, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=1972_visit_by_Richard_Nixon_to_China&oldid=1144251046, Short description is different from Wikidata, Pages using multiple image with auto scaled images, Articles with unsourced statements from February 2022, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, This page was last edited on 12 March 2023, at 17:52. On July 15, 1971, the President announced on live television that he would visit the PRC the following year.[2]. The Digital Archive also features materials on the diverse responses to Nixons visit from members of both the capitalist, communist, and non-aligned camps. With the first visit in July, he nonetheless became the first senior American official to set foot in China since the Communist Party took control more than two decades before. Copyright 2022 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. The media coverage of the trip was overwhelmingly positive. Another element that is not well understood is how divided U.S. allies were in their China policy in the early 1970s. I fear no communique can paper over this existential competition.". Some in the administration of former president Donald Trump even suggested that the communique be scrapped in a bid to seek closer ties with Taiwan. After a series of these overtures by both countries, Kissinger flew on secret diplomatic missions to Beijing in 1971, where he met with Chinese premier Zhou Enlai. The visit and subsequent normalization of relations with the West provided the ideological cover necessary for the economic reforms of the 1980s that launched China from a pariah state to the economic juggernaut that it is today. Code-named "[Operation Marco] Polo II" and publicly announced weeks before Kissinger left for China, it was effectively a full-scale dress rehearsal for the historic presidential visit. "It's instructive that the US and China were able to reach a modus vivendi in spite of political and ideological differences in 1972 and afterwards. But from the Chinese perspective, Nixon's words were prophetic. It is still relevant today because it helped stabilise the region and it would be impossible for China to open up to the outside world without a stable regional environment in the Asia-Pacific," he said. Nixon and his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger came to believe that by thawing relations with the Chinese and bringing them into the society of nations, America could gain a powerful new ally in its negotiations with both the North Vietnamese and the Soviets. Pete Millwood - No, Not Only Nixon Could Go to China. As with so much else in the U.S.-China relationship for the past two centuries, treatment of the Nixon trip remarkably has been viewed almost exclusively through a U.S. prism. The fate of Taiwan was not addressed, and the issue still stalks U.S.-China relations. We still suffer from the illusion that the U.S. can successfully lead the West in a strong unified response to China, when in fact, our allies historically have been generally more willing to placate Beijing. Copyright 2022 NPR. The Soviets, who previously rejected calls for limiting their nuclear arsenal, changed their tune when Nixon reopened talks with China. Mark Wu: On July 15, 1971, President Nixon shocked the world by announcing that he was planning to visit the PRC the next year. The first, Sino-American Confrontation, 1949-1971" provides insights into the contentious relationship from the founding of the PRC roughly up through National Security Advisor Henry Kissingers secret visit to China in 1971. Before the US president left China, the Nixon and Zhou teams hammered out an agreement between the United States and China known as the Shanghai Communique a document that outlined both individual and common interests, articulated a One-China policy that would redefine cross-strait and US-Taiwan relations, and called upon both countries to work together toward diplomatic normalization. What has the Nixon visit meant to you? The enemy of my enemy is my friend was a very Nixonian idea., Since direct diplomatic ties between China and the U.S. were severed, Nixon had to work through private back channels in Pakistan and Romania to make overtures to the Chinese, who proved receptive. Keenly aware of the support Taiwan enjoyed in the US, especially among lawmakers, Nixon understood that "the discussions with the Chinese cannot look like a sell-out of Taiwan" or like we were "dumping our friends". President Richard Nixon and his wife traveled in a landmark visit to the People's Republic of China in February 1972. During Kissinger's second China mission there were closed-door talks between Kissinger and Zhou, mostly over the drafting of the communique, while relying solely on Chinese interpreters - a departure from past protocols. "This is useless: this is a typical diplomatic document that papers over differences. They ask whether it really was the week that changed the world, and they question whether Nixon, a Republican and staunch anti-communist, was really the only American leader capable of opening relations with China. Visit our website terms of use and permissions pages at www.npr.org for further information. The Shanghai Tower is the tallest structure in China. The first of Adams's many operas, Nixon in China broke new ground with its effective use of a contemporary event as the subject of an opera. [11][12] Transcripts of White House meetings and once confidential documents show Nixon began working to open a channel of communication with Beijing from his first day in the White House. Sky Tower, Auckland, North Island. He was also tasked with an even more challenging job: to draft a joint statement for the presidential visit with then Chinese premier Zhou Enlai. Nixons intention with his visit was to project goodwill and cooperation, and make it known to the world that the U.S. recognized a third superpower on the world stage, one that could be an important economic ally and a strategic foil in negotiations with the Soviets. "Without it, there would not have been a normalisation communique in 1979 (at least, not at that time). [1] The seven-day official visit to three Chinese cities was the first time a U.S. president had visited the PRC; Nixon's arrival in Beijing ended 25 years of no communication or diplomatic ties between the two countries and was the key step in normalizing relations between the U.S. and the PRC. Shanghai at the Huangpu river with Shanghai Tower Did you know that China has the most skyscrapers in any country in the world? But as the tumultuous 1960s came to a close, the Nixon administration was facing several major challenges: a disastrous war in Vietnam, social strife at home, and stalled nuclear arms negotiations with the Soviets. Almost as soon as the American president arrived in the Chinese capital, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong summoned him for a quick meeting. Find History on Facebook (Opens in a new window), Find History on Twitter (Opens in a new window), Find History on YouTube (Opens in a new window), Find History on Instagram (Opens in a new window), Find History on TikTok (Opens in a new window), HUM Images/Universal Images Group/Getty Images, How Ping-Pong Diplomacy Thawed the Cold War, https://www.history.com/news/nixon-china-visit-cold-war, How Nixons 1972 Visit to China Changed the Balance of Cold War Power.
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