![]() ![]() Most likely, Zhou En-lai had to check with Mao Zedong.įinally, the Chinese came back, and we resumed the discussion and worked this issue out. The Chinese were probably trying to keep us off balance and were probably working out their own position. Who knows? I remember that we waited for hours and hours. Kissinger and I and the others walked around outside, because we knew that we were being bugged, and we couldn’t discuss strategy and tactics unless we walked outside. We thought that the Chinese were coming back to the negotiations within a couple of hours. At one point we broke off the negotiation, not in a huff, but just recognizing that we were at an impasse. So we went through our first, agonizing process of negotiation on that issue. The Chinese essentially wanted to make it look as if Nixon wanted to come to China and that the Chinese were gracious enough to invite him. ![]() However, the real negotiating, and this went on for hours, was about the following: we wanted to make it look essentially that the Chinese wanted President Nixon to come to China. ![]() We agreed in principle that there would be just a brief announcement, which both sides would issue simultaneously, after we got back to Washington. The major challenge, of course, was to work out an agreement that President Nixon would visit China and to develop some rough sense of what the agenda would be. Indeed, by their willingness to engage in summit meetings with us, with Nixon going to China in February, 1972, and to Moscow in May, 1972, the Russians and Chinese were beginning to place a higher priority on their bilateral relations with us than on their dealings with their friends in Hanoi… More realistically and at a minimum, we sought to persuade Russia and China to encourage Hanoi to make a deal with the United States and give Hanoi a sense of isolation because their two, big patrons were dealing with us. At a maximum, we tried to get Russia and China to slow down the provision of aid to North Vietnam somewhat. By dealing with Russia and with China we hoped to put pressure on Hanoi to negotiate seriously. Thirdly, Kissinger and Nixon wanted to get help in resolving the Vietnam War. This effort, in fact, worked dramatically after Kissinger’s secret trip to China. The idea would be to improve relations with Moscow, hoping to stir a little bit of its paranoia by dealing with China, never getting so engaged with China that we would turn Russia into a hostile enemy but enough to get the attention of the Russians. Secondly, by opening relations with China we would catch Russia’s attention and get more leverage on them through playing this obvious, China card. Kissinger wanted more flexibility, generally. We could deal with Eastern Europe, of course, and we could deal with China, because the former Communist Bloc was no longer a bloc. First, an opening to China would give us more flexibility on the world scene generally. Kissinger’s rationale, and Nixon’s, included the following. Kissinger felt the same way, primarily because of the Soviet dimension, but for a variety of other reasons. We know, in retrospect, that he felt that this was a high priority. Nixon had indicated this in his article in Foreign Affairs. They had independently come to this conclusion. LORD: Nixon and Kissinger each came into office placing a high priority on making an opening to China. Learn about ping pong diplomacy, which helped pave the way for Nixon’s historic trip. You can read Lord’s account of Kissinger’s secret negotiations with Peking and Chas Freeman’s experiences as interpreter during the trip. In these excerpts from his oral history, Lord discusses the geopolitical rationale for the trip, working with Nixon and Kissinger, meeting Mao Zedong, and negotiating the Shanghai Communiqué over concerns regarding Taiwan. He later became a top policy advisor on China, Ambassador to China, and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asian and Pacific Affairs. Winston Lord was a member of the National Security Council’s planning staff and accompanied Nixon on his visit to China. Not only did this visit strengthen Chinese-American relations, but it also served to encourage progress with the USSR. After more than two decades of icy relations, Nixon embarked on a trip to China starting on February 22, 1972. In 1971, National Security Advisor and future Secretary of State Henry Kissinger took two trips to China – the first made in secret – to consult with Premier Zhou Enlai. “There is no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able people to live in angry isolation.” Richard Nixon, after his election in 1968, pushed for better relations with China despite historical tensions and hostilities. ![]()
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