There he was, shaking hands with communist leader Mao Zedong in Peking, along with Henry Kissinger. President Richard Nixon’s historic weeklong trip to China in February 1972 shocked his conservative critics, who accused him of abandoning his anti-communist background.
But for Nixon, the trip was neither a surprise nor a publicity stunt. Rather, it was part grand vision of a designed foreign policy and part realpolitik.
Before Nixon’s foray to China, there was a quarter-century of noncommunication between the U.S. and the communist government. On the other hand, there was direct fighting between American and Chinese military forces during the Korean War, threats of U.S. action against China for its aggression toward Taiwan and other islands, U.S. support for Tibet, and China’s successful testing of atomic weapons.
The first signs of a thaw occurred in 1971, when China hosted American table tennis players. That was followed by national security adviser Kissinger’s secret trip to China and American support for Chinese recognition at the United Nations.
Clearly, the Nixon White House had several objectives during the 1972 visit. For one, Nixon and Kissinger understood the uniqueness of the trip for fulfilling the president’s promise as a peacemaker and its ramifications for his reelection prospects. However, there were other goals, as well, including removing China’s isolationism, further splitting the Sino-Soviet relationship, hastening an end to America’s involvement in Vietnam and fostering greater cooperation in trade.
China, too, had its own agenda for the Nixon visit, as was expressed by the Shanghai Communique signed at the end of the event: garnering American support for the one-China policy, thereby setting the stage for ensuing reacquisition of Hong Kong and Macau, among other areas.
The immediate impact of the China trip was rapprochement with the Soviet Union, which agreed to a summit with President Nixon and the finalizing of strategic arms talks on limiting nuclear weapons just three months later.
Over time, America’s relationship with China strengthened with normalization of diplomatic ties in 1979 and normalization of trade ties in 2000. But China’s ever-growing economy created an imbalance in the latter area, and its recurrent aggression toward its own citizens strained relations in the former.
Additionally, China’s efforts to expand its territory in the South China Sea and elsewhere, tremendous military buildup, interference in Hong Kong and Taiwan, initiatives in outer space and recent failure to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have become national security concerns for U.S. policymakers. Right or wrong, American citizens tend to blame China for perpetuating the coronavirus pandemic and presently have an overwhelming negative view of China overall.
Maybe it’s time for a renewal of pingpong diplomacy.
Dr. Samuel B. Hoff is a George Washington Distinguished Professor Emeritus of history and political science at Delaware State University.
