Nixon in China: 50 years on, pessimism over Sino-US ties might again prove unfounded

On the 50th anniversary of the historic visit, it is tempting to view the US-China relationship with apprehension, amid tensions over human rights and trade
Looking back, however, nearly every milestone anniversary of Nixon’s visit appeared similarly fraught, and yet the relationship has managed to endure

Chi Wang

Published: 3:30am, 23 Feb 2022

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It is rare to come across a description of US president Richard Nixon’s 1972 visit to China that does not use the words “historic” or “groundbreaking”. The phrase “Nixon goes to China” has entered the American political lexicon, which journalist David Ignatius defined as “a moment in which a leader reverses his past positions to do something that is shocking but beneficial”.

For the United States, the news that Nixon, whose entire political career had been built on rooting out communism, was announcing his intention to visit “Communist China” was indeed shocking. But it came as the US public, weary after years of a fruitless war in Vietnam, was eager for a change in approach to East Asia.

Nixon himself had indicated his shifting views in his 1967 article in Foreign Affairs, “Asia After Viet Nam”, arguing that China could not stay outside the “family of nations” forever.

In fact, Nixon began considering the possibility of opening to China in 1968. During a visit to Taiwan, Nixon asked my friend- and future US ambassador to China – Arthur W. Hummel Jnr why we did not have any dialogue with Beijing and how we could go about starting one.

The diplomatic estrangement between the US and China after the establishment of the People’s Republic in 1949 had only been infrequently broken via negotiations in Paris which had proved largely ineffective.

Nixon ultimately went about his opening through a different, more secret channel. It was through Pakistan that Nixon’s national security adviser, Henry Kissinger, secretly entered China in July 1971 and set the stage for Nixon’s trip seven months later.

05:10

Nixon in China: How a US presidential trip made history 50 years ago

What brought about this shift in China policy? It was not that Nixon had entirely evolved past his Cold Warrior days, but rather it was a change in how he perceived the US’ adversary in this conflict.

The enemy was not monolithic communism, as had been the dominating theory in the 1950s, but rather the Soviet Union. Beijing no longer represented the communist bloc, but was a potential partner, given Washington’s concerns about Soviet militarism and expansion.

While the opening would facilitate significant trade benefits for the US and help lift millions of Chinese out of poverty, neither was the true priority for Nixon or Mao when they met in 1972.

Winston Lord, who was in the room with Mao and Nixon, on US-China relations then and now

As William C. Kirby of Harvard pointed out, the word “trade” only appears once in the minutes of their meeting, when Mao listed it among “smaller issues” to be sorted out later. More than any other factor, a shared fear of the USSR had driven the US and China together.

Yet it was in the areas that Nixon and Mao largely ignored that US-China relations have flourished most in the 50 years since their historic meeting. Trade, educational, cultural and people-to-people ties between the two nations grew stronger even as the partnership against the Soviet Union never quite materialised in the way Nixon had hoped.

The culmination of Nixon’s visit was the Shanghai Communique, at the heart of which was a compromise on Taiwan that would pave the way for normalisation between the US and China.

On the 50th anniversary of this historic visit, it is tempting to view the US-China relationship with apprehension. It appears that conflicts over human rights, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the South China Sea, and lingering anger over the coronavirus – not to mention systemic trade issues – are threatening to derail the relationship.

Yet, looking back, nearly every milestone anniversary of Nixon’s visit appeared similarly fraught, but the relationship managed to endure.

Not only Nixon could go to China: there’s still hope for Sino-US relations

China barely acknowledged the 10th anniversary of Nixon’s trip in 1982, when Chinese anger at continued US arms sales to Taiwan under Ronald Reagan had analysts speculating that Beijing might downgrade diplomatic relations. Deng Xiaoping even bluntly stated then that “Sino-US relations are not good”.

In 1992, the relationship was still reeling from the Tiananmen crackdown less than three years prior. In 2002, president George W. Bush visited China on the 30th anniversary of Nixon’s visit, as the relationship struggled to reconcile lingering issues over Taiwan and human rights with the shared goal of confronting terrorism in the wake of the September 11 terrorist attacks.

02:25

Xi Jinping and Joe Biden call for mutual respect and peaceful China-US coexistence

Around the 40th anniversary of Nixon’s trip, then Chinese vice-president Xi Jinping visited the US. Xi’s host during this trip was then US vice-president Joe Biden. The relationship at the time was full of optimism, even as president Barack Obama warned Xi in an Oval Office meeting that the US had concerns about trade, human rights and the South China Sea.

It is unclear whether Xi or Biden will officially mark the 50th anniversary. In better days, Biden could have attended the Beijing Olympics and commemorated the 50th anniversary of Nixon’s trip.

Instead, the US led a diplomatic boycott of the Games and Xi met Russian President Vladimir Putin. A celebration of US-China ties in Washington is unlikely, with some members of Congress proposing a bill to end “panda diplomacy” and congressional candidates running in the upcoming midterm elections arguing over who is tougher on China.

Thus, on the 50th anniversary of Nixon’s visit, although the US and China appear further apart than ever, it is important to note that analysts have frequently believed the relationship to be on the brink of collapse, but it has always bounced back. The largest triumph of Nixon’s visit was reassuring both China and America that neither country posed an imminent threat to the other.

Today, with anxieties about a new cold – or hot – war escalating by the day, perhaps what we need now is another face-to-face meeting between two leaders to come to a similar understanding.

Chi Wang, a former head of the Chinese section of the US Library of Congress, is president of the US-China Policy Foundation