Richard Nixon Library,WHPO-8521-17a, National Archives Identifier:40509550. National Security Council staffer (and later U.S. Copyright 2022 NPR. As for the visit itself, I agree with Bills prescient observation that we pay too little attention to what was happening within China itself. February 27 marked the joint issuing of the Shanghai Communiqu, a statement of Chinese and American foreign policy views that has remained the basis of Sino-American bilateral relations. The U.S. had literally turned a cold shoulder to Chou in 1954, says Thomas. George Magnus, a research associate at Oxford University's China Centre, also said Kissinger's goal was flawed in design. Another element that is not well understood is how divided U.S. allies were in their China policy in the early 1970s. RUWITCH: Lord says the Americans were a little disappointed at first. 2023, A&E Television Networks, LLC. [citation needed], Within a year after Nixon's visit, a number of U.S. allies including Japan, Great Britain, and West Germany had broken relations with Taiwan in order to establish them with China. 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. The Wilson Centers Digital Archive contains a considerable number of documents surrounding the Nixon visit to China. They arrived the next day in Guam at 5 pm, where they spent the night at Nimitz Hill, the residence of the Commander, Naval Forces, Marianas. Kissinger and his assistant Winston Lord were also present. HLT: How would you characterize U.S.-PRC relations these days? What are its consequences? After 4 hours in the air, the Nixons arrived in Shanghai. Copyright 2022 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved. RICHARD NIXON: We have been here a week. NPR's China affairs correspondent John Ruwitch explains. Niu Jun, a historian and expert on international affairs from Peking University, said that besides the Taiwan aspect, the section on common interests - especially the joint commitment on opposing hegemony - also stood out in the 1,800-word document. I have benefited from having superb students and excellent colleagues from China, as well as Taiwan. Astill rather tedious negotiating and acculturation process was necessary before the formal exchange of diplomatic relations could be achieved in 1979, and before business, military, cultural, and people-to-people ties could flourish over the next few decades. [25], John T. Downey and Richard Fecteau, CIA operatives who were held captive in China from November 1952, were released after Nixon's visit to China. You should at least consider visiting all of these seven tourist landmarks: the Great Wall on Mao Loyalty Ridge, the Forbidden City, the Terracotta Army, the best giant panda base, 20-Yuan Hill on the Li River, Mount Everest, and Dunhuang Mogao Caves.. A pivotal moment in twentieth century diplomatic history, historians and other observers nevertheless continue to debate the visit, its legacies, and some of the myths that have come to surround it. The visit certainly laid the groundwork for a much more stable relationship between China and the West for decades to come. President Nixon meets with his National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, en route to China, 1972. That lack of attention has been very costly for the relationship, inflating our sense of agency and fostering undue expectations among policymakers here and in the American public more generally about our capacity to shape events in China to our liking. An overview of Richard Nixons February 1972 visit to China and associated Wilson Center publications and Digital Archive resources. As Kissinger himself explained during his second China trip: "The trouble is that we disagree, not that we don't understand each other. A memorable protest from Enver Hoxha of Albania, for example, asked Mao Zedong to reconsider his plan to host the US President. In the communiqu, both nations pledged to work toward the full normalization of diplomatic policy and acknowledged longstanding differences. [33] Deng met with then-sitting President Jimmy Carter and ex-President Nixon at a state dinner in the White House.[34][35]. Visitors can also flip through images on a touchscreen display from the yellow legal pads on which Nixon scribbled copious notes. [6], One of the main reasons Richard Nixon became the 1952 vice-presidential candidate on the Dwight Eisenhower ticket was his strong anti-communist stance. The trip would begin a new period of Chinese-American relations. Under the cover of night, Kissinger boarded a private Pakistani jet to Beijing, where he personally asked the PRC leadership to approve an official state visit from the American president. Before his election as president in 1968, former Vice President Richard Nixon hinted at establishing a new relationship with the PRC. So too did photos of first ladyPat Nixon inspecting a kitchen at a Beijing hotel. For Nixon to hold out his hand was a clear signal that times had changed and that America was ready to embrace the Chinese. Nixon's trip to China, therefore, was a move calculated to drive an. RUWITCH: Washington didn't agree to switch diplomatic relations right away, though. We understand each other very well. How have US-China talks failed and succeeded in recent years? HLT: Why was the trip, and the agreement coming out of it, significant? The Nationalist government, supported by the Americans, fled to Taiwan, where the Republic of China (ROC) continued to be recognized by the United States and most other Western countries as the legitimate government for all of China. Every moment of the weeklong visit was carefully orchestrated and staged, with TV cameras broadcasting it all to rapt audiences worldwide. JAMES SHEN: Well, Mr. President, I'm going back to Taiwan. Modern thinkers widely misunderstand the contemporaneous significance of Nixon's 1972 trip to China. Nevertheless, Mao felt well enough to insist to his officials that he would meet with Nixon upon his arrival. 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. JOE LOPEZ: This is an interesting one here, this section - what they want, what we want, what we both want. I remember as a student in Cambridge, England being excited seeing Nixons reception in Beijing covered extensively on the BBC and itching to get there. In the end, the final version of the communique, released at the scenic Jinjiang Hotel, Shanghai's first guest house for foreign dignitaries, on the eve of Nixon's departure back to the US, provided ambiguous assurance to China about Taiwan. Despite this, in 1972 Nixon became the first U.S. president to visit mainland China while in office. In a meeting with Taiwan's military leaders on February 26, a day before the issuance of the landmark China-US joint communique in Shanghai, Chiang told the generals that Taiwan must have a new . Nixon did not shift the Wests policy toward Communist China; it was already happening. This meeting was arranged and facilitated by Pakistan through its strong diplomatic channels with China. Only after the Nixon visit did my father dare to reach out to his brothers, leading to the family being reunited many years later. When Kissinger presented the first draft communique to Zhou, it was rejected immediately after the Chinese premier checked with Mao. 3, get U.S. out of Asia. But if you see something that doesn't look right, click here to contact us! This text may not be in its final form and may be updated or revised in the future. RUWITCH: But the chairman did do the meeting, putting a huge stamp of approval on the controversial visit, and setting the tone in a way that only Mao could do. Rigger also said that of the three China-US communiques, the Shanghai Communique was the most important. Alford: I think that, 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, with almost no attention to the Chinese side. China is modernizing rapidly, a fact which makes its ancient treasures all the more precious. RUWITCH: He says the U.S. wanted help ending the war in Vietnam and a reduced threat of confrontation with China. The U.N. expulsion, the Nixon visit, and the severing of diplomatic ties by many countries afterwards catapulted Taiwan into a diplomatic isolation that is still ongoing. The media presented Nixon communicating with Chinese government officials, attending dinners, and being accorded tours with other people of influence. But the meeting failed to address one major issue, one that's become an even more pressing issue today. 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. Good Americans, Bad Americans, and the US-China Rapprochement. That said, it seems to me that without some measure of principled engagement (meaning an engagement in which we do not abandon our values), no global regime (be it about climate change, trade, rights or anything else) will flourish. Although Nixon met with Chairman Mao Zedong only once during the visit, the two had a meaningful dialogue on philosophic problems in the US-China relationship. When I accompanied then-Dean Martha Minow to Taiwan in 2013, we had a very stimulating conversation with then-President Ma Ying-jeou S.J.D. But talk of Taiwan would have to wait. From the moment U.S. President Richard Nixon landed in China on February 21, 1972, he understood that global politics would undergo a transformation that would last well into the 21st century. [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. Domestic events in China that followed the visit, such as Deng Xiaoping prevailing in the leadership struggle, will likely prove even more important. The authoritative record of NPRs programming is the audio record. WU: On the Taiwan issue, the U.S. is trying to discover the geopolitical and geo-economic value of Taiwan, and play its card against China by putting Taiwan in the broader framework of U.S. Indo-Pacific project. But the story is still playing itself out we are only fifty years into a historical event that may require several more decades before its eventual outcome is known. At one point Nixon intervened, cautioning Zhou that "if too much was said publicly, that would be seized upon by Americans who opposed the opening to China from both right and left as an excuse to disrupt normalisation". LOPEZ: Yeah. The visit was a visual spectacle for the US President, his entourage, and much of the rest of the world, which closely watched the American leader's travels inside the world's largest communist country. HLT: It is generally portrayed as Nixon changing the world indeed, leading to the phrase a Nixon goes to China moment. Alford: It also irks me that Nixon is seen as a global strategic genius. President Richard Nixon and his wife traveled in a landmark visit to the People's Republic of China in February 1972. President Richard Nixon and his US entourage, along with Zhou Enlai and Jiang Qing, at a performance of "The Red Detachment of Women" in February 1972. Ailing Chinese leader Mao Zedong wanted to meet. The resulting document that was issued on the last day of Nixon's China trip in February 1972, would become known as the Shanghai Communique. Bush, who later became the de facto ambassador to China and then US president, described the vote as "fighting the battle of people who obviously do want to see us lose" and urged Nixon to reschedule the trip, according to a transcript of the White House meeting. William P. Alford 77 is the Jerome A. and Joan L. Cohen Professor of Law and director of the East Asian Legal Studies Program. The biggest coup was Kissingers secret visit to Beijing in July 1971 to meet face-to-face with the Chinese leader Chou Enlai. (SOUNDBITE OF J LORENZO'S "RAIN ON LEAF"). 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. Wu: There are areas of profound disagreement, but also narrower areas where the two sides may choose to cooperate. [28] The Beijing-Washington hotline was later created in 2007. They also shook hands with each other, the photograph of which is probably the most famous image to come out of the trip. Watergate scandal, interlocking political scandals of the administration of U.S. Pres. Awhirlwind tour through three of Chinas major cities brought Nixon to several famed historical sites and cultural performances (including a revolutionary ballet), andface-to-face with many senior Chinese leaders. [22], The Chinese agreed to a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question. The trip is consistently ranked by historians, scholars, and journalists as one of the most importantif not the most importantvisits by a U.S. president anywhere in the world. Deputy Director, History and Public Policy Program, 2023 The Wilson Center. The Americans will say that [the] Chinese attitude of finger-pointing is precisely the lesson - that engagement in the hope to change China is a mistake," she said. Former President Richard Nixon's weeklong 1972 China visit provides one blueprint. It was brilliant stagecraft.. On the eve of the big day, Bloomberg spoke to Anthony Ledru . 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. But the visit helped to achieve Nixons larger political goal of realigning the balance of power on the global stage. RUWITCH: Winston Lord was 34 at the time and an aide to Kissinger. Almost as soon as the American president arrived in the Chinese capital, CCP Chairman Mao Zedong summoned him for a quick meeting. Zhou was quoted by Lord as saying. "But the United States never made clear what this meant, and the US has never subsequently clarified its formal position," commented Jerome Cohen, a law professor at New York University. Mao said that he had no interest in Japan's Communist Party, and "also voted" for Kakuei Tanaka. Magnus also said the Shanghai Communique had limited relevance in the 2020s "other than as a historical signpost". Nor would there have been a 1982 communique - in part because the Shanghai Communique emerged from a negotiating process in which Beijing was misled into thinking the US would not continue to support Taiwan militarily. Repercussions of the Nixon visit continue to this day; near-immediate results included a significant shift in the Cold War balance, driving an ideological wedge between the Soviet Union and the People's Republic of China, resulting in significant Soviet concessions and its eventual fall. HLT: You each have personal and professional ties with respect to the PRC and Taiwan. "[19][20], As an observer of the MaoNixon meeting, Lord noted Mao's peasant-like sensibilities and self-deprecating humor. "Without it, there would not have been a normalisation communique in 1979 (at least, not at that time). The fate of Taiwan was not addressed, and the issue still stalks U.S.-China relations. 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. Nixon's unprecedented presidential trip to China in 1972 steadied a rocky diplomatic relationship. What has the Nixon visit meant to you? When the Chinese Communist Party gained power over mainland China in 1949 and the Kuomintang retreated to the island of Taiwan after the de facto end of the Chinese Civil War, the United States continued to recognize the Republic of China (ROC) as the sole government of China, now based out of Taipei. Part of Kissinger's mission was to hammer out the finer details of United States president Richard Nixon's historic trip to China that both sides had agreed to in July, including setting the date and discussing press coverage to convince the hostile public in the US to warm towards communist China. It was a stunning development in international politics, one that has often been hailed as a week that changed the world.. The US-China rapprochement, symbolized by Nixons visit, substantially altered the international balance of power and arguably concluded the Cold War in East Asia. Read more, One Woodrow Wilson Plaza1300 Pennsylvania Ave. NWWashington, DC 20004-3027, The Future of Central Asias Development: Between Russia and China, Cold War Liberation: The Soviet Union and the Collapse of the Portuguese Empire in Africa, 1961-1975. It was recorded on the Nixon tapes. On July 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon addressed the nation in a live televised broadcast to make an unexpected announcement: he had accepted an invitation from Beijing to become the first. The visitwasa visual spectacle for the US President, his entourage, and much of the rest of the world, which closely watched the American leaders travels inside the world's largest communist country. Fifty years ago this week, President Richard Nixon made his famous trip to China. 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. But despite the intensity of the discussions, the Americans appeared to have failed to have "fully absorbed the centrality of Taiwan to PRC interests", according to the late US diplomat Alan Romberg, a leading expert on cross-strait relations. This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. From February 21 to 28, 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon traveled to Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. In one Chinese record from December 1970, Mao Zedong confided to Edgar Snow that he liked Nixon's "reactionary" approach to foreign policy and desired to speak with him directly. Most importantly, but for the opening, I would not, while in the mid-1980s creating the first academic program in U.S. law in the PRC, have met my wonderful wife. In addition to the widespread support among developing nations, pundits believed Kissinger's secret trip to Beijing and the subsequent announcement of Nixon's state visit helped tilt the balance in China's favour at the UN and on the world stage. However, pundits admit the original Shanghai Communique might not provide much guidance for the challenges of today. Location: Luoyang, Henan. No. MacMillan provides vivid thumbnail biographies of the four major players in the drama of that weeklong visit, Nixon, Mao, Henry Kissinger and Chou En-lai, each a fascinating character in his own right. 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Chen Jian - From Mao to Deng: Chinas Changing Relations with the United States. RUWITCH: Where they wanted to cooperate most was in counterbalancing the Soviet Union, which both saw as a threat. And at the end of it, he had this to say. As defined by the Oxford University Press, a landmark is a notable structure or characteristic of a landscape that allows you to decipher the location you are in. Examining China's perceptions and tactics in negotiating with the United States during the Cold War, this Working Paper features an introduction by Yafeng Xia and translations of more than 30 original documents from the Chinese Foreign Ministry. However, the U.S. continued to maintain official relations with the government of the Republic of China in Taiwan and did not break off until 1979, when the U.S. established full diplomatic relations with the PRC. Nixons announced visit to China will not be understood and approved by the people, the revolutionaries, and the communists of different countries, Hoxha wrote. HLT: What was most significant about that trip? And what we have said today is that we shall build that bridge. Key materials from February 1972 include the verbatim records and agreements of US-China bilateral exchanges, including: Memorandum of Conversation between Chairman Mao Zedong and President Richard Nixon, February 21, 1972, Memorandum of Conversation between Richard Nixon and Zhou Enlai, February 22, 1972, Joint Communiqu of the United States of America and the People's Republic of China (Shanghai Communiqu), February 27, 1972, Although declassified Chinese language records from the February 1972 are generally lacking (the Chinese Foreign Ministry Archives never released any materials dated later than 1966), the Digital Archive does feature a number of sources from before and after the visit. Mao also joked that "I voted for you during your last election. Taipei eventually left the U.N. And Beijing was voted in in the fall of 1971. [26], Nixon's visit to China was well-planned. The Digital Archive also features materials on the diverse responses to Nixons visit from members of both the capitalist, communist, and non-aligned camps. For the 50th anniversary of the "week that changed the world"--- the summit between the United States and China from February 21-28, 1972 during which US President Richard Nixon met with Chinese Communist Party leader Mao Zedong---this video features excerpts from China experts on the significance of what is considered one of the major diplomatic turning points in modern history. One could, however, also argue that some of the massive distrust that marks the U.S.-PRC relationship today stems in part from the fact that the public in China and, to a lesser degree, the U.S. was not apprised of the extent to which Beijing and Washingtons positions regarding Taiwan diverged in 1972 and, then again, when the Carter administration normalized relations in the late 1970s. Over the course of a week, he met with Communist Party Chairman Mao Zedong, negotiated with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, and toured historical and cultural institutions including the Great Wall, the Forbidden City, Shanghai, and Hangzhou. Nixon concluded the visit in the morning of February 28, when he left China on a flight to Anchorage, Alaska. The negotiations over the communique went for months, finishing when Nixon's week-long China visit had almost drawn to a close and ultimately boiling down to semantics, especially in relation to Taiwan. The Soviets, who previously rejected calls for limiting their nuclear arsenal, changed their tune when Nixon reopened talks with China. By the late 1960s, frequent border skirmishes between the Soviets and the Chinese verged on all-out war. The Shanghai Tower is the tallest structure in China. 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. They'd probably like the U.S. out of Asia. Mark Wu: On July 15, 1971, President Nixon shocked the world by announcing that he was planning to visit the PRC the next year. When US President Richard Nixon walked down the red-carpeted stairs from Air Force One to shake hands with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai on a cold day in Beijing on February 21, 1972, it was hailed. Also, a "Nixon to China" moment has since become a metaphor to refer to the ability of a politician with an unassailable reputation among their supporters for representing and defending their values to take actions that would draw their criticism and even opposition if taken by someone without those credentials. Today . It's been 50 years since President Nixon went to China, a trip that changed the world's balance of power. Nixon was the first American president to ever visit mainland China while in office, a now almost routine act undertaken by US heads of state. Washington "acknowledged" the PRC's claim to the island - that "Taiwan is part of China" - and stated it "does not challenge" that claim. Kissinger and his assistant Winston Lord were also present. 81, who had been a classmate, about times when ambiguity may be preferable to clarity. Tiger Leaping Gorge. The Great Hall of the People is the landmark on the back of the 100 Yuan banknote. Here are the 14 most famous landmarks in New Zealand. But its fate is as unresolved as ever. 1585 Massachusetts Ave. Great Hall of the People, Tiananmen Square, Beijing. The fate of Taiwan was not addressed, and the issue still stalks U.S.-China. 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. Alford: It is no exaggeration to say that this is the most important bilateral relationship in the world. One famous landmark in China that you absolutely need to experience is the Dujiangyan Panda Base (also known as the Chengdu Research Base Of Giant Panda Breeding). The two sides hadnt spoken for decades, and the United States was at war with the Communist North Vietnamese in Chinas backyard. Being so large, Yangtze is China's most important waterway, providing water to farmland that gives food to one-third of the population. The normalization of ties culminated in 1979, when the U.S. established full diplomatic relations with the PRC. With the premiere of HBO's "White House Plumbers," the Watergate scandal is having yet another moment, 51 years after the original break-in that ultimately led to Richard Nixon's resignation. For two decades, my grandparents had been afraid to get in touch, lest it cause further harm to my uncles. RUWITCH: Indeed, just months earlier, the Nixon administration had tried to keep Taiwan in the United Nations under a two-Chinas formula. Mark Wu is the Henry L. Stimson Professor of Law. The following list is the most famous Chinese landmarks, which . Resolving the Vietnam War was a particularly important factor. How could Mao pull off such a stunt after two decades of intense anti-US propaganda? It has thrived economically and politically. It'll have no credibility, because how can two nations that have hated each other and fought each other and been isolated from each other for 22 years, suddenly put a document out like this that suggests they're friends?" "I don't think anyone set aside ideological rivalry; instead, they both were practising Mao's Theory of Contradictions," she said. In the two decades since China's Communist Revolution, the countries' Cold War relationship. Early in his first term, Nixon, through his National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, sent subtle overtures hinting at warmer relations to the government of the PRC. As always, avoid the holidays 1-7 May, and 1-7 October. But from the Chinese perspective, Nixon's words were prophetic. It was a breakthrough, says Wu Xinbo, director of the Center for American Studies at Shanghai's Fudan University. The Great Hall of the People and 100 Yuan Note. And while Taiwans democratization is predominantly attributable to domestic factors, I do think a secondary consideration has been to distinguish itself from the PRC internationally.