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Nixon and China: fifty Years Later

Revisiting Nixon's famous trip to People's republic of china and his own analysis of China-U.S. relations in the decades that followed.

Nixon and China: 50 Years Later

U.S. President Richard Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai share a toast, February 25, 1972.

Credit: Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum

From the moment U.South. President Richard Nixon landed in Prc on Feb 21, 1972, he understood that global politics would undergo a transformation that would terminal well into the 21st century and beyond. Indeed, even before that dramatic historic moment, Nixon envisioned Communist china's ascent in an commodity he wrote in Foreign Diplomacy in 1967. And in his post-presidential years, he wrote a series of books in which his view of China's identify in global politics was further refined in response to geopolitical developments.

Fifty years later the "opening" to China, it is worth revisiting Nixon'southward evolving approximate of U.S.-Red china relations in the context of global geopolitics.

It is a shame that Nixon never wrote a book specifically about People's republic of china. Information technology would take been the crowning achievement of his post-presidential writings. Instead, to analyze Nixon'southward worldview of Red china it is necessary to delve into all of his post-presidential books, from "RN" (his memoirs) to his concluding book "Beyond Peace," which he completed shortly earlier his death in 1994.

"RN," published in 1978, is amidst the best presidential memoirs, non just because of Nixon'south crisp and curtailed writing style, but also because his life and political career touched interesting and consequential events in history: the Great Depression, World War 2, the espionage case against Alger Hiss, the Eisenhower administration (in which Nixon served as vice president), the tumultuous 1960s, his presidency, the finish of the Cold War, and the beginnings of the post-Cold State of war earth.

In his memoirs, Nixon detailed the step-by-footstep diplomatic approach to normalizing relations with Red china early in his presidency. In February 1970, he sent a Foreign Policy Report to Congress, which stated that China "should non remain isolated from the international community," and opined that it was in the United States' involvement "and in the involvement of peace and stability of Asia and the earth, that we take what steps nosotros can toward improved practical relations with Peking." These were sentiments that Nixon had made public in his 1967 Foreign Affairs article, published the yr earlier his election. And he followed that up the next month past ordering the Land Department to relax restrictions against travel to China, and the post-obit month he eased trade restrictions between the two countries.

Nixon understood that overturning two decades of hostility between Prc and the United states of america would not be swift or without political risks. Important substantive moves to amend relations, therefore, were at first conducted in cloak-and-dagger by opening "back channels" to China via Pakistani and Romanian envoys. Meanwhile, People's republic of china for its own reasons allow information technology be known that information technology would welcome a visit by a high-level U.South. official. Ultimately, Nixon would select his national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, to carry out clandestine talks with China in apprehension of a presidential visit. Nixon told Kissinger that the biggest diplomatic stumbling block with China would be Taiwan, and the biggest domestic political stumbling block would be the conservative reaction within the U.S. to opening relations with the communist government.

Nixon recounts in "RN" that preceding his historic visit to China there were "letters and signals" – both public and individual – sent by both sides for more than two years. It was a diplomatic minuet that Nixon and Kissinger conducted brilliantly. On May 31, 1971, Kissinger received a message from the Romanians that Chinese leader Mao Zedong was prepared to see with Nixon for "directly conversations" and would welcome Kissinger to Communist china to work out such arrangements with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. When Nixon read the Romanaian message, Kissinger remarked, "This is the virtually important communication that has come to an American President since the terminate of World War II."

Nixon then subtly began to prepare the American public for the historic opening to China, including a speech in Kansas City on July 6 where he told reporters that Mainland china's potential was so groovy that "no sensible foreign policy could ignore or exclude it." Kissinger secretly traveled to China in July 1971 to lay the groundwork for Nixon's visit. And before leaving for Mainland china, Nixon met with the French philosopher Andre Malraux, who told Nixon, "You are about to endeavour one of the almost important things of our century," and compared Nixon to the 16th century European explorers "who gear up out for a specific objective simply often arrived at an entirely different discovery." Malraux then told Nixon, "All men who understand what y'all are embarking upon salute you."

Nixon landed in Beijing on February 21, 1972. He was met at the drome by Zhou. Nixon remembered that at the 1954 Geneva Conference, Secretarial assistant of State John Foster Dulles had refused to shake hands with Zhou. "I made a point," Nixon wrote, "of extending my manus as I walked toward [Zhou]. When our hands met, 1 era ended and another began."

Later on that evening, Nixon met with Mao, and the two leaders talked history and philosophy, and broached several substantive issues. The more detailed substantive talks were with Zhou, and the historic summit ended with the Shanghai Communique, which dealt with the status of Taiwan simply, more chiefly, contained what Nixon described as "a provision [that] subtly but unmistakably made it articulate that we both would oppose efforts past the USSR or any other major power to dominate Asia."

At the terminate of his historic trip to China, Nixon spoke briefly at a banquet and predicted that the U.Due south. and Communist china "volition… in the years ahead… build a bridge across xvi,000 miles and 22 years of hostility which have divided us in the by… We have been here a week. This was the week that changed the earth."

When Nixon looked back at that week in Prc in "RN," he wrote that the United States "must cultivate Communist china during the next few decades while information technology is still learning to develop its national strength and potential. Otherwise, we will ane day be confronted with the nearly formidable enemy that has e'er existed in the history of the world." How sage that communication looks 50 years after Nixon'south trip.

But "RN" was simply Nixon'south "first take" on our developing relationship with China. Ii years afterwards, Nixon wrote the first in a series of mail service-presidential books on strange policy, "The Real War" (1980). In that volume, Nixon sounded like James Burnham, describing the Cold State of war with the Soviet Union as World State of war Iii. "World State of war 3," he wrote, "has proceeded from the Soviet seizure of Eastern Europe, through the communist conquest of Red china, the wars in Korea and Indochina, and the institution of a western hemisphere outpost of Soviet power in Cuba, to the nowadays thrusts by the Soviet Matrimony and its allies into Africa, the Islamic crescent, and Fundamental America." World War III, he continued, was a global and total war.

Nixon referred to China in "The Real War" equally the "enkindling giant," and briefly described its celebrated enmity with Russia and after the Soviet Matrimony afterwards the Sino-Soviet divide. China, he wrote, "potentially could determine the globe residue of power in the last decades of the twentieth century," and could emerge as "the most powerful nation on world during the twenty-first century." China possessed a "huge population," "enormous natural resources," and "some of the ablest people in the world."

Nixon called the China-U.S. rapprochement of 1972 "the most dramatic geopolitical event since Globe State of war Two." Just, he wrote, "the about pregnant geopolitical issue was the Sino-Soviet split that preceded it." The Sino-Soviet separate, which Nixon did and so much to exploit, erased (at least for the time beingness) "the specter that haunted the world" – that of an "ambitious, monolithic Sino-Soviet bloc."

Nixon wrote that he believed that Sino-U.Southward. relations could improve considering "[thousand]reat nations human action on the footing of interest, not sentiment." Differences in credo, even differences over Taiwan, took a backseat to common fears of Soviet hegemony on the Eurasian landmass. The key questions looking forrard, Nixon wrote, were how long the Sino-Soviet separate would last, how permanent improved China-U.S. relations would be, how Red china would deal with economic and political reform at habitation, and what role in the world China'southward leaders envisioned for themselves in the 21st century.

Nixon was certain that China would become a dandy power with a formidable military. He envisioned China becoming an economic colossus and possibly the "strongest power on earth" in the 21st century. Chinese leaders, he explained, run across China as "the eye of the world, the angelic empire, 'all under Sky.'" And he presciently warned that if Red china reverted to the communist policies of the 1950s and 1960s, it would pose "an enormous threat to the peace of the globe and to the survival of the Westward."

Three years after in "Real Peace" (1983), Nixon wrote that the China-U.S. relationship "is a cardinal element of our strategy vis-à-vis the Soviet Matrimony." For Nixon, it didn't matter that both Prc and the Soviet Union were communist countries. What mattered was that "[t]he Soviet Union threatens u.s.a.. China does not." And he warned that if the U.s. forced China dorsum into the Soviet orbit, the threat to U.South. security "would exist infinitely greater than it is today."

Nixon too wrote that the China-U.S. human relationship should not be limited to playing the "China carte" against the Soviets. If Washington followed that track, the relationship will plummet like a firm of cards, he warned. The China-U.S. relationship, he connected, was based at the time on common interests and fears of the Soviet Union. If those interests changed and the fears faded (which is what later happened), in that location would be aught to foreclose China from becoming an adversary. What's worse, Nixon warned, there could be no real peace if China and Soviet Russia renewed their strategic brotherhood (which is what nosotros confront today).

In 1988, Nixon wrote "1999: Victory Without War," a book that appeared just as the Common cold War was winding downwards. Here, Nixon was looking ahead to a new century. He was not convinced that the Soviet Union was finished yet, only he foresaw that China would surpass the Soviet Union economically by the 21st century. Nixon noted that a Chinese leader one time told him that if the Soviet Marriage did non reform, information technology would disappear as a great power. Nixon believed that Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev understood that and it was the ground for perestroika and glasnost.

Nixon expressed the hope that Sino-American relations would continue to better in the twenty-first century, but he recognized that the economic reforms undertaken past China could threaten the political command by the Communist Political party. Nixon believed, however, that China would proceed forth the path of economic growth without undermining communist rule. Only he warned that the fear of Soviet aggression that brought the United States and Communist china together in 1972 "may not exist plenty to keep us together in 1999." He hoped that even if the mutual threat receded (which it did with the fall of the Soviet Wedlock), mutual economic interests would sustain practiced relations between the U.Due south. and China (which they did not).

Nixon cautioned confronting "romanticizing the human relationship" between China and the The states. "Relations between keen nations," Nixon wrote, "… are complicated, intricately structured devices that have to be watched and tended constantly." There was no guarantee, therefore, that Sino-American relations would continue to improve afterward the Cold War ended.

Four years later, in 1992 (Nixon's books tended to appear during the U.S. presidential election campaigns for maximum issue), Nixon wrote "Seize the Moment: America's Claiming in a One-Superpower World." In that book, Nixon briefly historic the Westward's victory in the Common cold State of war, but derided the notion that the world was at "the end of history" and that geoeconomics had replaced geopolitics as the fulcrum of world politics. He did believe that the U.S. needed to "reset its geopolitical compass." At that place should be no U.Southward. "cause" for global democracy; the very notion ignored the limits of U.S. power, he wrote. U.Southward. global leadership should instead be based on an understanding of "enduring geopolitical realities."

Nixon identified the Pacific Rim equally "the earth'south new economical locomotive." China was a "potential economic superpower" whose current leaders were "unwilling to relinquish their totalitarian command." China's "emergence as a global heavyweight," he wrote, "is inevitable," and it will likely go a "military superpower within decades" and may become "the world's richest nation in the twenty-offset century." Nixon condemned the Tiananmen Foursquare massacre but noted that there is "likewise much at stake in our relationship to substitute emotionalism for foreign policy." The United States should not let man rights concerns define the relationship with China, he wrote.

Nixon was optimistic – in hindsight, overly and so – that Communist china would not be able to escape the changes that had swept communist governments from power in Eastern Europe and the quondam Soviet Union. And he sensed that the Asia-Pacific region was becoming more important to U.S. interests and security than Europe.

Nixon'due south last words on Communist china appeared in his last book, "Beyond Peace" (1994). Interestingly, Nixon predicted that Russia would once again become a great power, and the important question was "whether a strong Russian federation volition be a friend or an adversary of the Westward." He warned against "creating the impression that the United States wants to proceed with a new encirclement of Russian federation" (which is precisely what happened with the hubristic expansion of NATO e). He urged U.South. policymakers to help reduce tensions betwixt Russia and Ukraine. And while Nixon hoped for a strong, independent Ukraine, he understood Russia's preoccupation with the former Soviet republics in its "most away."

Meanwhile, Nixon noted that Mainland china had awakened and was already beginning to "move the world." It was still a communist dictatorship, just China's growing economic power, Nixon wrote, "makes U.S. lectures virtually morality and human being rights imprudent." He again expressed the hope that China's experiment with market place reforms would result in a more open and freer society. Unfortunately for the Chinese people and the world, that has not happened.

Much has inverse in the globe since Nixon's dramatic visit to Beijing in February 1972. It was a visit that first and foremost recognized that the world'south leading power should have formal relations with the world's most populous country. Nixon's visit also laid the foundation for a de facto strategic alliance that helped the United states of america win the Common cold State of war. Information technology was a politically courageous deed for the anti-communist Nixon to reach out to the earth's most ruthless communist state, and he suffered the slings and arrows of bourgeois critics for doing so. Just history judges that he was correct to do so; that the "opening" to Communist china at that fourth dimension was very much in the U.South. interest. At a time when the United States' internal divisions (over Vietnam, race relations, and more) were stark, it had a president who put the country's interests get-go.

The end of the Cold War, however, removed the common threat that produced the improved Sino-American relationship in the first identify. Nixon knew of course, similar Great britain's Lord Palmerston, that permanent alliances and permanent enmities were not part of the real globe of global politics. He was too much of a hard-headed and sensible realist to believe in "perpetual peace" or "the end of history." Nixon'south hope that shared economic interests would cause good relations between China and the U.Due south. to continue was shattered. Today the powerful China that Nixon foresaw is a reality – only is viewed more than an enemy than an marry of the U.s..