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Admin moved page How did Richard Nixon normalize diplomatic relations with China in 1972? to How did Richard Nixon normalize diplomatic relations with China in 1972
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[[File:Nixon_and_Zhou_toast.jpg|thumbnail|left|300px350px|US President Richard Nixon and Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai toastduring the week-long meeting that led to the Shanghai Communiqué, February 25, 1972]]In 1972, U.S. President Richard Nixon traveled to the People’s Republic of China (PRC) and met with Mao Zedong, the Chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party, and Zhou Enlai, the PRC Premier. Over the course of this visit, the two governments negotiated the Shanghai Communiqué, an important step toward improving relations between the United States and the PRC after many years of hostility.
Over the course of this visit, the two governments negotiated the Shanghai Communiqué, an important step toward improving relations between the United States and the PRC after many years of hostility. ====State of What was the relationship between the US/United States and China relationship after the Chinese Revolutionin 1949?====
The diplomatic estrangement between the two countries went back to the 1940s. After the Chinese civil war ended in 1949, the Communists established the People’s Republic of China on the Chinese mainland while many soldiers and officials of the defeated Republic of China (ROC) evacuated to the island of Taiwan. For the 30 years that followed, the United States recognized the Republic of China as the legitimate government of China and had no official diplomatic relations with Communist China.
In the late 1960s and early 1970s, there were indications that the United States and the People’s Republic of China were considering rapprochement. The escalating war in Vietnam led U.S. officials to look for ways to improve relations with Communist governments in Asia in the hopes that such a policy might lessen future conflict, undermine alliances between Communist countries, diplomatically isolate North Vietnam, and increase U.S. leverage against the Soviet Union.
====Soviet Why did tension with the Soviet Union encourage China encouraged it to reach out to the United States?====
Likewise, Sino-Soviet tension contributed to the Chinese leadership’s desire for a rapprochement with the United States. Nixon signaled his interest in improved relations by easing the travel and trade restrictions against China that dated from the Korean War in the early 1950s. Although the Sino-U.S. Ambassadorial Talks, which began in 1955 and continued intermittently over the years that followed, had reached a hiatus, the two sides agreed to reopen them in 1969. Of greater significance, Nixon established a secret channel to the PRC’s leadership through Pakistani President Yahya Khan. In Nixon’s view, Khan was an attractive intermediary since he had good relations with the leaders of both the United States and the PRC, and he also provided a means to circumvent the U.S. Department of State, which Nixon feared might oppose or publicize his initiative.
