We probably would have had a continuation of an angry, isolated China that was destabilizing and trying to export revolution. That would have removed China from the geopolitical chessboard and left us alone without the support that we gained by enlisting China in the containment of the Soviet Union. There were broad historical forces that may well have brought us to the same place anyway.įreeman: The Soviets who had come to us and asked us to join them in crushing China might have tried to do that. Deng Xiaoping probably would have ended up making a deal similar to the one that got made, only several years later because it accorded with China’s interests. It was a very solid move that showed a real strategic understanding and had a great deal of foresight in it, but let’s not overstate it. We asked them four questions and distilled highlights of those interviews below, edited for length and clarity.ĬW: What would have happened if Nixon hadn’t gone to China?ĭaly: There’s a danger of over-romanticizing and lionizing this Nixon moment. Embassy in Beijing MARGARET MACMILLAN, emeritus professor of international history at Oxford and author of “ Nixon and Mao: The Week that Changed the World” ROBERT DALY, director of the Kissinger Institute on China and the United States at the Wilson Center and interpreter for Carter and Kissinger and GINA TAM, assistant professor of East Asian history at Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas. We talked to four China experts on the lessons of Nixon’s China trip and its relevance to current U.S.-China relations: CHAS FREEMAN, Nixon’s lead interpreter and former deputy chief of mission at the U.S. investors and manufacturers to take advantage of the economic liberalization within Chinese paramount leader DENG XIAOPING’s “ reform and opening” policy that helped transform China from impoverished backwater to the economic powerhouse - and increasingly, the U.S. diplomatic recognition in January 1979 and switch ties to the PRC. That opening paved the way for President JIMMY CARTER to strip Taiwan (as the Republic of China) of U.S. 28, 1972 with China as a new ally against the Soviet Union and boasting of “ the week that changed the world.” rapprochement with China overrode his anti-Communist Cold Warrior reflexes and ended 22 years of confrontation with Chairman MAO ZEDONG’s People’s Republic of China. Nixon’s sense of the strategic advantages of U.S. Monday marks the 50th anniversary of Nixon’s historic trip to China. Got a book to recommend? Tell me about it at. And if you’re wondering where HENRY KISSINGER’s allegiances lie, scroll to the bottom for our latest author conversation in our “One Book, Three Questions” section. We’ll look at a senator’s NBC “genocide allegations,” unpack USTR’s damning trade report and probe Starbucks’ venti-sized police problem.
This week we parse the lessons of the 50th anniversary of President RICHARD NIXON’s historic trip to China. President Richard Nixon shake hands as they meet in Beijing, China on Feb. Chinese communist party leader Mao Zedong and U.S.
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