So what made this relatively forgotten visit that happened nearly 50 years ago so important?
American President Richard M. Nixon reviewing the honor guard at Beijing airport upon his arrival for his meeting with Chou En-Lai, China, 1972.. Photograph. Encyclopædia Britannica ImageQuest. Accessed Nov 21, 2019.
https://quest.eb.com/search/300_276578/1/300_276578/cite.
Author: Chris Koban
Interviewer: Todd Lloyd
So what made this relatively forgotten visit that happened nearly 50 years ago so important?
1972 was an extremely different era than the one we live in today. Cold War tensions were hot and Communism sounded like a real threat to Americans. When their President Richard Nixon, a hardline anti-Communist and Cold War warrior, dramatically announced to the world that he would visit Red China, he was met with criticism and then approval from usually diametrically opposed corners. Today, this meeting is considered one of Nixon’s finest moments of his entire political career. This paper goes in depth on Nixon’s motivations, his methods, and the results of Sino-American rapprochement after Nixon’s 1972 visit to China.