Tuesday, April 23, 2019

Richard Nixon: Opening Up China

I have been enjoying the 54321 projects so far.

One of the key figures, as we saw today, in ending our involvement in the Vietnam War was Richard Nixon. As I mentioned in class..."he brought our boys home".

Another pivotal role Nixon played in Cold War foreign policy was with China.

Do some research on the following topics: "Nixon Visits China" and "Ping Pong Diplomacy".

For the comment section, write 200 words on what you learned AND why Nixon would willingly visit a major communist nation at the height of the Cold War.

9 comments:

  1. President Richard Nixon took a first step toward trying to get standard relations with China by traveling to Beijing for a week of talks. Still down from the loss in the Vietnam war in 1971, President Nixson shocked everyone by announcing his plan of a trip to Communist China. China and U.S. troops fought in Korea during the Korean war, and Chinese aid and advisors supported North Vietnam in its battle against the United States. During the Cold war, Nixson was one of the people angry about losing China to Communism. Nixon was scheduled to travel to meet Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev after his visit to China. The United States could use strategic relations with China as support in dealing with the Soviets, particularly on the issue of Vietnam. The United States wanted to be able to make use of Chinese as a balance to North Vietnam. Nixson used China as a way to contain North Vietnam. Nixson was very smart for this because China was a communist nation allegedly allies with North Vietnam. This lead to the U.S. and China possibility in increased trade. This also led to some tense relation with China and the Soviet Union. (Word Count: EXACTLY 200)

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  2. President Richard Nixon went to visit China and shocked many Americans. His intentions were to make relations and see Chinas view of things. China is a communist country. Making this decision seemed risky during the time of war. The United States had just lost during Vietnam. His trip was from February 21st to February 28th, 1972. Nixon was able to meet and have discussions with some of China’s great leaders. He was in China for a week but only had a meeting with China’s top leader for one day. America was finally able to see images of China in over 2 decades. He called this trip, “the week that changed the world.” This trip sparked a new relationship between the U.S. and China. America was finally able to see images of China in over 2 decades. Nixon made the decision to visit because he wanted to use China to help keep North Vietnam limited. He wanted to convince China to stop aiding North Vietnam so much during the war. He also reached out to use China as leverage during the time of war. This trip was so important because the relationship between China and the U.S. still plays a huge role in our world today. (205 words)

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  3. With Nixson’s visit to China, he became the first US president to visit the PRC in 1972. Look at America go! Apparently, his visit “ended 25 years of no communication or diplomatic ties between the two countries and was the key step in normalizing relations between the U.S. and China.” That’s phenomenal. Truth be told, he also wanted to get an upper hand with the Soviet Union!! He was in China for a solid week. Throughout his journey he was able to meet with the chairman, Mao Zedong. To conclude: “The relationship between China and the U.S. is now one of the most important bilateral relationships in the world, and every successive U.S. president, with the exception of Jimmy Carter, has visited China.” (126)
    I bet you’re wondering about the Ping Pong Diplomacy? Well, the wait is over! The whole ordeal was an invitation by China. The people involved, mainly, weren’t Chinese, aha! They were really from Nagoya, Japan. President Nixon said this: “We simply cannot afford to leave China outside the family of nations." We can’t leave China alone. Lastly: “Never before in history has a sport been used so effectively as a tool of international diplomacy," said Chinese Premier Chou En-lai. For Nixon, it was "the week that changed the world." Stuff can happen in the blink of an eye. (99)
    Altogether, both events became shifts and trump cards in history. (236)

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  4. President Richard Nixon decided to take the first steps in normalizing relations with the communist People’s Republic of China. He decided to travel to Beijing for a week and throughout this week he said “this is the week that change the world forever”. Nixon historic visit began the process, very slow process, of re-establishing diplomatic relations between the communist in China and the United States. He wanted to see how China did things in other words. When Prime minister, Zhou Enlai, met with Nixon he urged that peace be made with Vietnam, but did not endorse North Vietnam’s political demands. Nixon’s trip to China was a move to drive a wedge between the two most significant communist powers.
    In April 1971, the Cold War era, a group of ping pong players were the first American’s to visit Communist China. The two countries hadn’t been in contact on over 22 years and this successful trip is usually credited for reviving diplomatic relations between the two countries. Less then a year after the outbreak of “ping pong diplomacy” Richard Nixon took his trip to Beijing as the first US President to visit the People’s Republic of China. Altogether Nixon’s trip helped in many ways of soothing some burned bridges that had been made in the past. (214)

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  5. President Richard Nixon made his first presidential visit to China in February of 1972. Nixon met with China’s leaders Chairman Mao Zedong and Premier Zhou Enlai. While in China President Nixon and Enlai came to several agreements. One of the agreements were to lessen the risk of War. Also Another agreement was to expand cultural contacts between the two nations. And the last agreement that Nixon and Zhou Enlai both came to was to establish a permanent United States trade mission in China. They also discussed ways that they could cooperate with each other to check Soviet power growth in Asia as well as in other countries too. I thought that President Nixon going to visit the country of China was an extremely important event in United States history. President Nixon visiting China was obviously very successful considering how we agreed to so many different things. Another thing that was important to Nixon going to visit China was called the Ping Pong Dimplomacy. I also found that the Ping Pong Diplomacy was kind of strange it was basically a ping pong tournament that tried to get President Nixon to come over and visit the Chinese leaders and to have negotiations. (200)

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  6. The era of the Ping-Pong diplomacy began 12 months earlier when an American team was in Nagoya, Japan, for the World Table Tennis Championship but got a surprise invitation from their Chinese team to visit the People's Republic. The time magazine called it "The ping heard round the world." The Chinese felt that by inviting the United States, they could put their mostly hostile neighbors on notice about a possible alliances. The United States Excepted the invitation. President Richard Nixon wrote: "We simply cannot afford to leave China outside the family of nations." After the U.S. team's trip, Nixon sent the Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to arrange a Presidential visit to China. Nixon went to China seven months later in February 1972. It became one of the most important events in U.S. history. Chou En-lai said, "Never before in history has a sport been used so effectively as a tool of international diplomacy.” Nixon said that it was "the week that changed the world." On the second meeting to China, George W. Bush said to President Jiang Zemin, "Thirty years ago this week, President Richard Nixon showed the world that two vastly different governments could meet on the grounds of common interest and in a spirit of mutual respect."
    (226)

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  7. President Nixon pursued two important policies that both culminated in 1972. In February he visited Beijing, setting in motion normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China. In May, he traveled to the Soviet Union and signed agreements that contained the results of the first Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty talks (SALT I), and new negotiations were begun to extend further arms control and disarmament measures. The ping pong diplomacy also led to Nixon visiting Beijing China. It was an exchange of table tennis between the United States and the peoples republic of China. It was a break through in the relationship between the two countries. Nixon visited China mainly to gain leverage over relations with the Soviet Union and to resolve the Vietnam war. It also ended diplomatic isolation with China and opened up a whole economy of traded goods between countries after being banned. The United States became the second largest importer to China and was chinas 3rd over all partner in trade.

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  8. Nixon surprised the American people by announcing a planned trip to the PRC in 1972. The United States had never stopped formally recognizing the PRC after Mao Zedong’s successful communist revolution of 1949. The two nations had been bitter enemies. PRC and U.S. troops fought in Korea during the early-1950s, and Chinese aid and advisors supported North Vietnam in its war against the United States. Nixon’s trip to China, was a move calculated to drive an even deeper wedge between the two most significant communist powers. I honestly believe that as a president he was bold for doing this specially after having a war against them, it shows that he had a respect for the country and didn’t want to hold Grudges find a way to peace. Never before in history has a sport ping-pong, been used so effectively as a tool of international diplomacy," said Chinese Premier Chou En-lai. For Nixon, it was "the week that changed the world. The United States could use closer diplomatic relations with China as leverage in dealing with the Soviets, particularly on the issue of Vietnam. In February 2002, President George W. Bush, in his second trip to China, recalled the meeting that came out of Ping-Pong diplomacy, telling President Jiang Zemin: "Thirty years ago this week, President Richard Nixon showed the world that two vastly different governments could meet on the grounds of common interest and in a spirit of mutual respect." (241)

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  9. President Richard Nixon's 1972 visit to China was an important strategic and diplomatic overture that marked the culmination of the Nixon administration's resumption of harmonious relations between the United States and China after years of diplomatic isolation. The seven-day official visit to three Chinese cities was the first time a U.S. president had visited the PRC.Nixon dubbed his visit "the week that changed the world", a descriptor that continues to echo to this day.
    On April 5, 1971, the People’s Republic of China invited the United States table-tennis team to play their national team following a tournament that had ended in Nagoya, Japan. At the time, the Chinese were seeking to cool relations with the United States, and found that table tennis was the pretense that they were looking for opening diplomatic channels.As a result, the American team and a small group of American journalists traveled to China for the first time since 1949. Commenting on the arrival of the United States Table Tennis team, Premier En-lai said that the visit “opened a new page in the relations of our peoples.” Seeing this as an opportunity to open up political relations with the Red Giant, President Nixon secretly sent Henry Kissinger to Peking between July 9th and the 11th of that year in order to arrange a meeting between the Chinese Premier Chou En-lai and President Nixon. (230)

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