Emily Chou
Breaking the Ice
I.
In 1972, America was in the midst of a cold war against communism and communist countries that had lasted over twenty years and had frozen US relations with the most populous country in the world: China. Americans viewed the People’s Republic of China as a great enemy far across the Pacific Ocean. The US was the dominant economy in the world and China, a country of more than eight hundred million people, was despairingly poor. By visiting China for diplomatic purposes in 1972, Richard Nixon, along with the guidance of his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, brought about diplomatic and economic changes in both countries that neither Nixon nor Kissinger foresaw.
II.
A1. A BIT OF HISTORY
To understand why Nixon had to reconcile US relations with China, it is necessary to look back to the end of WWII. Japan surrendered to the allies in 1945, ending the war. China returned to the pre-war infighting between the Nationalists and the Communists. Both wanted political authority over the entire country. The US public opinion was with Chiang Kai-shek, leader of the Nationalists.[1] When the Nationalists lost the Chinese Civil War and fled to Taiwan in 1949, they claimed control over “Mainland” China, but only controlled Taiwan. The Communists had control over “Mainland” China, but claimed control over Taiwan. Each claimed there was only one China. The US recognized the Nationalists as the “true” China even though they only ruled Taiwan as the Republic of China; the Communists (People’s Republic of China) controlled “Mainland” China, the most populated country in the world.[2] This change in government cut off US relations with Mainland China for the next twenty-three years.
A2. AMERICAN VIEWS ON COMMUNISM
During the Cold War, American foreign policy was to stop the spread of communism, which is why the US engaged in the Korean and Vietnam wars. The American people’s views on communism slowed the reconciliation between China and the US as Americans feared communism and communist countries.[3] In the 1950’s, the Red Scare sought to find Communist sympathizers within the US. American federal employees were tested for their loyalty.[4] Actors, actresses, directors, and film writers who were accused of agreeing with communism or socialism were put on the “Hollywood Blacklist” and forced out of their jobs.[5] Anyone who wanted to reconcile with China was thought to be a communist sympathizer.
A3. NIXON’S MOTIVE
Why would Nixon, a known anti-Communist who stated in 1964 on a trip to Asia that recognizing China “would be disastrous to the cause of freedom,” want to reconcile with China?[6] First, Nixon believed the US could counter the USSR by befriending China and isolating the USSR even more from the rest of the world, lessening the threat of a nuclear war against the USSR. Secondly, reconciliation could also reduce any chance of a nuclear war against China.[7] Another advantage would be that China could put pressure on their ally, North Vietnam, to remove troops from South Vietnam who was allied with the US.[8] A possible cause could also be that 1972 was an election year; a favorite tactic of incumbent presidents running for reelection is to demonstrate their foreign policy strength.[9]
Nixon leading the US to recognize China would also show he accepted the obvious: the PRC wasn’t going anywhere.[10] In 1972, the population of Taiwan was 14,769,725 and the population of China was around 871,800,000; it simply makes more sense to be allied with a larger population. In a 1976 article for Foreign Affairs, Nixon wrote, “There is no place on this small planet for a billion people of its potentially most able people to live in angry isolation.”[11] Nixon, as a firm and well-known anti-communist, was one of the only people who could reconcile with China without being called a communist.
B1. EARLY MESSAGES
Nixon was interested in changing the US’s relationship with China since before his presidency in 1969, but it took time for his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, to approach China.[12] This was increasingly difficult as the US didn’t recognize the PRC as the real China and didn’t have any diplomats in Beijing (then: Peking), forcing them to send messages through China’s allies. In April 1971, Zhou Enlai, the premier of China, realized the American and Chinese Ping-Pong teams would meet at a tournament in Japan. Zhou sent a message to Mao, the leader of the PRC, who invited the American team to China on April 14th, 1971. Ping-Pong diplomacy publically committed China to reconciliation. Later that month, the US received a message from China through Pakistan that invited an emissary to China.[13]
B2. KISSINGER’S SECRET TRIP
Nixon decided for a mission to China to work, it would have to be in secret as he didn’t want people or members of the government to oppose it and have Congress kill the plan. [14] He had Henry Kissinger leave in mid-1971 on a supposed “fact-finding journey,” to Pakistan. While in Pakistan, Kissinger claimed to have an upset stomach. However, at three in the morning, he left on a plane to China, unbeknownst to the press. Kissinger met with Zhou Enlai, who, during a meeting, brought forward the idea of a trip to China for President Nixon. Their announcement stated, “Zhou, knowing of President Nixon’s expressed desire to visit the People’s Republic of China, extended an invitation,” which Nixon had accepted “with pleasure.”[15] Immediately after Kissinger came back to the US, he went to see Nixon who then requested time on NBC to “address a very important matter.”[16] On July 15th, 1971, Nixon announced the acceptation of his invitation to China with a goal to “seek normalization of relations between the two countries.”[17] This announcement shocked the world.[18]
B3. FINAL PREPARATIONS
Originally, Nixon planned to take a Military Jet-Star with 13 people, but the event became so big he ended up taking Air Force One and roughly 354 people including members of the press. The American people were very interested in this topic and it became a very coveted assignment for a journalist. [19] The American media was very new to China and the Chinese were hesitant to let the press in. After much negotiation, China agreed to visas for 87 members of the press.[20] The American media became the medium through which the rest of the world would see China, a country the Western world had not seen in over twenty years.
Kissinger was sent to Beijing again in October 1971 to begin drafting the Shanghai Communiqué about the relations between the two countries to be finished during Nixon’s trip. He showed Zhou a copy Nixon had approved, but with the section on Taiwan blank. Zhou then proposed a different kind of communiqué with the opinions of China and the US, but focusing on where the two countries agreed.[21] Things began changing worldwide for China as well when the People’s Republic of China joined the United Nations in October 1971, taking Taiwan’s seat and making Taiwan one of the three countries not in the United Nations.
C1. GETTING THERE
On February 19th, Nixon left on Air Force One and flew into Beijing, arriving on February 21st, where Zhou Enlai greeted him with a rather low-key welcome.[22]The Americans, accompanied by Zhou Enlai, drove from the airport to Beijing, waiting for crowds that never appeared. The Chinese kept their people carefully controlled, and the lack of people shocked the Americans. Larry Higby, Assistant White House Chief-Of-Staff recalls,
“We kept waiting for crowds. And there were no crowd. And all of our cars, they had curtains on the sides so we couldn’t see out. Well, after awhile, I started getting curious so I pulled the curtain back and looked a little bit and people were staring. They all had to stay five or six blocks back from the main route but they were staring out and peering out from their houses to see what was going on. Because you would have though no one lived in Peking if you looked at the road going into but in fact there were people staring everywhere, wondering what was going on.”
The Chinese only knew they weren’t allowed to ride their bicycles that day; they had no newspapers or other forms of media to tell them anything else.[23]
C2. THE THINGS THEY DID AND THE PRESS
Later the day Nixon arrived, he met Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai, which showed the Chairman approved of the rapprochement. The media was very carefully monitored; they often focused on Mrs. Nixon because the press wasn’t allowed to see what was happening with Nixon and Mao, but the world had so little knowledge of how China functioned that it was informative just to watch that. However, the press became frustrated with not being able to report anything that had not been carefully planned in advance. In China, President Nixon attended the ballet, sporting events, ceremonies, and banquets in addition to the political meetings.[24] Nixon visited the Great Wall of China on February 24th, a symbol of new and old China.[25] At the wall, they saw many Chinese men, women, and children playing and taking pictures. When the reporters left the wall, a few stayed behind and watched the cameras and recording devices taken away from the people and the people being put on trucks. As it turned out, the Chinese government had staged the scene to make China seem less intimidating to the American people. Zhou Enlai later apologized for this.
C3. THE DISCUSSIONS
Nixon used his meetings with the Chinese Premier, Zhou Enlai, to explain future American policy; he wanted to figure out US-China relations and their impact on world affairs. At the same time, Henry Kissinger was trying to finish the Shanghai Communiqué, the official agreement on further relations between the two countries, with Qiao Guanhua, one of the people in charge of foreign ministry in China. Much of the communiqué had been written during Kissinger’s October trip, but they still needed a solution for Taiwan. Over the course of two nearly all-night meetings, Kissinger and Qiao wrote the Taiwan section of the Shanghai Communiqué:[26]
“The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves.”[27]
From this agreement, the US states the People’s Republic of China is the one and only China and Taiwan (Republic of China) is a part of China (the People’s Republic of China). This went against the US’s treaties with Taiwan.[28] The Shanghai Communiqué outlined the opinions of America and China and their plans for further reconciliation.
D1. SHORT TERM EFFECTS
This trip to China was one of the few times in history when a state trip changed international politics by returning a country to diplomacy with the rest of the world.[29] The trip was declared a success as the reconciliation between China and the United States began and the Shanghai Communiqué was finished.[30] Nixon called it, “the week that changed the world.”. Today, Taiwan is considered to be politically part of the PRC, but ruled by its own government, the Republic of China.[31] From 1972 to 1979, the US and China continued to communicate, eventually reestablishing formal relations in 1979. China received most favored nation status, meaning the US would treat China like any other trading partner from the US in 1980. [32]
D2. IMPACT ON CHINA
The reopening of China to the rest of the world greatly changed the lives of the people of the PRC. Clarice Chou, an 87-year-old woman who moved from her native home of Shanghai, China to Wisconsin in 1947, has gone to China 12 times since 1972. Chou explained that she went to China in 1973, her brother, still lived in their old house, however, now it was shared with different families iin every room. Her sister-in-law woke up at midnight and waited in line for three hours for chicken to make her chicken soup.[33] When Clarice’s son, Alex Chou went to China in the summer of 1980, trade was just starting between the US and China. He recalled streets filled with candy stores since Cuba was one of the only countries that traded with China prior to this time. Every other food was rationed.[34] Before Nixon’s trip to China, the majority of citizens of China lived in extreme poverty that gradually got better as time went on; today China’s middle class lives like the American middle class.
D3. IMPACT ON THE UNITED STATES
When China was reopened to the US, something began that would not have happened if Nixon had not gone to China in 1972: Americans invested in jobs and companies in China. Not only could goods be produced less expensively in China, but American companies hoped to sell their products to the world’s largest population. An unforeseen consequence was that China became expert at technology transfer while at the same time limiting purchasing by its citizens. As a result, China surpassed the US in steel production, cotton production, IPOs, car production, beer, high-technology exports, and coal production and caused an enormous trade deficit.[35] In 1985, five years after Chinese markets were opened to the US, the trade balance between the US and China was $-6,000,000 USD. The next year, 1986, the trade balance between the US and China was $-1,166,700,000 USD. In 2012, the trade balance between the US and China was $-290,600,400,000 USD. Imports from China are nearly four times the US exports to China.[36] From 2001 to 2011, this trade deficit eliminated or displaced more than 2.7 million US jobs, 76.9% of which were in manufacturing.[37] The biggest company in the US, Apple, makes their products in China. When President Obama asked former Apple CEO Steve Jobs if Apple would bring jobs back to the US, he was told, “Those jobs aren’t coming back.” It’s not even about the wages anymore; China can find more qualified engineers faster than the US could.[38] The reopening of China initiated economic growth in China that the US is struggling to match.