| ID | 183786 |
| Title Proper | Nixon in China, February 1972 |
| Other Title Information | Revisiting the 'Week that Changed the World' |
| Language | ENG |
| Author | Harper, John L |
| Summary / Abstract (Note) | When Richard M. Nixon became president in 1969, US–China relations had been frozen for 20 years. Nixon was well positioned to transform those relations: he enjoyed the confidence of US conservatives, and no one could reasonably accuse him of sympathising with communism. He had developed a realist world view that minimised the importance of ideology and of a state’s domestic system. The time was right for a new approach because China and the Soviet Union had come to see each other as deadly enemies. The US was bogged down in Vietnam and urgently in need of a relaxation of external pressure. Nixon’s visit to China in February 1972 initiated a process of normalisation and a shift in the international power balance decisively in favour of the West. But Nixon did not foresee China’s transformation along democratic lines and considered it a greater threat than the Soviet Union over the long run. |
| `In' analytical Note | Survival : the IISS Quarterly Vol. 64, No.2; Apr-May 2022: p.45-51 |
| Journal Source | Survival : the IISS Quarterly Vol: 64 No 2 |
| Key Words | China ; Henry Kissinger ; Richard M. Nixon ; Cold War ; Leonid Brezhne ; February 1972 |