![]() ![]() ![]() Now, only a few days later, they had inadvertently become the most important American diplomats on the planet. men’s team was ranked 24th in the world at the time-and most had been forced to beg or borrow the money to make it to the championships in Japan. None of the players were particularly accomplished at ping-pong-the U.S. team was diverse, including everyone from the hippie Glenn Cowan to a college professor to a Guyanese immigrant to a pair of high school-age girls. The historic visit began on April 10, 1971, when 15 American table tennis players, team officials and spouses crossed a bridge from Hong Kong into China. As historian Walter LaFeber said, “Instead of using Vietnam to contain China, Nixon concluded that he had better use China to contain Vietnam.” For its part, the PRC was desirous of another ally in its increasingly tense relationship with the Soviet Union and certainly welcomed the possibility of increased U.S.-China trade.An American tennis table player trains with a Chinese tennis table player, in April, 1971 in Beijing, China. Despite their claims of socialist solidarity, the PRC and North Vietnam were, at best, strongly suspicious allies. In addition, the United States might be able to make use of the Chinese as a counterweight to North Vietnam. The United States could use closer diplomatic relations with China as leverage in dealing with the Soviets, particularly on the issue of Vietnam. Nixon’s trip to China, therefore, was a move calculated to drive an even deeper wedge between the two most significant communist powers. In fact, Nixon was scheduled to travel to meet Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev shortly after completing his visit to China. ![]() policy requests (such as pressuring the North Vietnamese to sign a peace treaty acceptable to the United States). Nixon, and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger saw a unique opportunity in these circumstances-diplomatic overtures to the PRC might make the Soviet Union more malleable to U.S. The American fear of a monolithic communist bloc had been modified, as a war of words-and occasional border conflicts-erupted between the Soviet Union and the PRC in the 1960s. The American people were impatient for an end to the conflict, and it was becoming increasingly apparent that the United States might not be able to save its ally, South Vietnam, from its communist aggressors. And the war in Vietnam was not going well. In Vietnam, the Soviets, not the Chinese, had become the most significant supporters of the North Vietnamese regime. The situation had changed dramatically since that time, though. Truman for “losing” China to the communists in 1949. During the 1940s and 1950s, he had been a vocal cold warrior and had condemned the Democratic administration of Harry S. Nixon seemed an unlikely candidate to thaw those chilly relations. troops fought in Korea during the early-1950s, and Chinese aid and advisors supported North Vietnam in its war against the United States. In fact, the two nations had been bitter enemies. The United States had never stopped formally recognizing the PRC after Mao Zedong’s successful communist revolution of 1949. ![]() Still mired in the unpopular and frustrating Vietnam War in 1971, Nixon surprised the American people by announcing a planned trip to the PRC in 1972. READ MORE: How Nixon's 1972 Visit to China Changed the Balance of Cold War Power Nixon’s historic visit began the slow process of the re-establishing diplomatic relations between the United States and communist China. In an amazing turn of events, President Richard Nixon takes a dramatic first step toward normalizing relations with the communist People’s Republic of China (PRC) by traveling to Beijing for a week of talks. ![]()
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