Nixon, Kissinger, and the Opening to China

Abstract The opening of relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China in 1972 was one of those startling changes that seem inevitable once they have occurred. True, the two countries had been divided by the Cold War and by actual fighting in Korea, but there were several good reasons why, at the very least, they should be in contact with each other. Both countries had a strong interest in stability in the Northeast Pacific and in Asia more generally, and both regarded the Soviet Union with suspicion and even fear.

Although it was impossible to gauge public opinion in Mao’s China, it is clear that among the elites in the party, the military, and the government, there were those who would have welcomed an end to the long freeze in Sino-American relations, and did so when it finally came about.