Nixon Visits China: Cold War Balance Shifts

Richard Nixon stepped off Air Force One in Beijing and extended his hand to Premier Zhou Enlai, a calculated gesture meant to erase a fifteen-year-old diplomatic snub. When Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had refused to shake Zhou's hand at the 1954 Geneva Conference, it became a symbol of American contempt for Communist China. Nixon, the Cold War hardliner who had built his career on anti-communism, was now reversing course. The visit had been two years in the making. Secret back-channel communications through Pakistan and Romania preceded Henry Kissinger's covert trip to Beijing in July 1971, which shocked the world when announced. Nixon saw an opportunity to exploit the Sino-Soviet split — China and the Soviet Union had nearly gone to war in 1969 over border disputes — and use improved relations with Beijing as leverage against Moscow. Nixon spent a week in China, meeting with an aging Mao Zedong for just over an hour and holding extensive talks with Zhou Enlai. The conversations ranged from Taiwan to Vietnam to the balance of power in Asia. American television cameras broadcast images of Nixon at the Great Wall and attending a performance of the revolutionary ballet "The Red Detachment of Women." The trip produced the Shanghai Communique, in which both nations acknowledged their differences while agreeing to work toward normalized relations. The geopolitical consequences were enormous. The visit fundamentally altered the Cold War triangle, giving both Washington and Beijing new leverage against Moscow. It accelerated detente with the Soviet Union, contributed to arms control agreements, and laid the groundwork for formal diplomatic recognition in 1979. The phrase "Nixon goes to China" entered the political lexicon as shorthand for a leader doing what only their ideological credentials allow.