Nixon's Foreign Policy - Establishing a connection to China

Abstract

In times of despair, people often seek a strong leader to take charge and guide them through struggles. When the Cold War began, people everywhere suffered from the Red Scare and threats of nuclear bombings. A pragmatic Richard Nixon rose to the occasion to relieve the world from the plight of communism. Nixon hoped to restore stability to the world through peaceful acts of diplomacy. In his 1972 visit to mainland China, President Nixon not only normalized relations with a once resented China, but also eased tensions with its communist rival, the Soviet Union.

Table of Contents

Introduction4

Discussion4

Historical Background of US-Sino Relationships4

The Shock9

Role of Nixon and his Foreign Policy Measures10

Conclusion15

End Notes17

Nixon's Foreign Policy - Establishing a connection to China

Introduction

Of course, China and the United States in the early 1970s to achieve reconciliation is not accidental. This is the inevitable result of the international situation and the development of U.S. domestic politics. This paper discusses the historical background of the situation and the role played by Richard Nixon in regulating the international relations between America and China.

Discussion

Historical Background of US-Sino Relationships

On 21 February 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon arrived in Beijing to end two decades of diplomatic silence between the United States and Mainland China: the relationship between the two countries had in fact gone through a period of deterioration from the end of World War II.

The United States, after trying to prevent civil war in China entrusted the task of mediating between the two parties to General George Marshall, who helplessly watched the victory of the communist forces of Mao Zedong on the Nationalist armies led by Chiang Kai-shek, and retired on the island of Taiwan in April 1949. In August 1949, the U.S. State Department published a White Paper entitled "U.S. relations with China with particular reference to the period 1944-1949”, in which Washington declined any responsibility for the outcome of the internal conflict and instead attributed the causes of the defeat to the negligence of the leader of the Nationalist Party.

On 1 October 1949, the birth of the Beijing People's Republic of China (PRC) was proclaimed, and a few months later, in December 1949, Taiwan became the seat of the Nationalist Republic of China, whose presidency was assumed by Chiang Kai-shek on 1 March 1950.

The subsequent U.S. decision, of not recognizing the new government in Beijing simply depicted a contravention of the same trend of U.S. foreign policy that was used to legitimize the de facto governments and was determined as much by considerations of international politics, as the internal political situation.

Since 1949, an anti-communist campaign known as McCarthyism, named after its main inspiration, Senator Joseph McCarthy, had spread within the American institutional bodies, resulting in the exclusion of the diplomatic and academic specialists in the Chinese policy, because they were accused of sympathizing with the Communists and as a result caused mainland China with detrimental damage.

The McCarthyite campaign also had a considerable influence on the so-called China Lobby, which was ...