The Creation of the .Shock Myth.: Japan's Reactions to American Rapprochement with China, 1971–1972

President Richard M. Nixon's July 1971 announcement of his visit to China is remembered in Japan as a policy that “shocked” the Japanese and almost universally cited as the “Nixon Shock”. To be accurate, there were actually two “shocking” announcements that summer.

The second came in August 1971, just one month later, when the dollar was devalued after the U.S. currency was taken off the gold standard. Since plural and single nouns are indistinct in the Japanese language, both these events are discussed under the same term, “Nixon Shock”.