Nixon and China, what purpose?

Left - Mao Zedong | Right - Richard Nixon

Yesterday Father Orthoduck asked the question about what President Nixon was trying to accomplish in China. Well, there were several policy initiatives that he wanted to see put into place.

Remember that President Nixon knew that he had to finish the Viet Nam conflict. China is on the border with what was then North Viet Nam. President Nixon needed China to put pressure on the north to settle with the USA and allow us to pull out with “honor.” Negotiations with North Viet Nam had been going on since 1968. The climate in the USA had become toxic. Though President Nixon would end up being elected to a second term by a landslide, he also knew that the country was pulling itself apart, and that the conflict that had thrown the Democrats out of office could easily throw the Republicans out of office. When Nixon took office an average of 300 American soldiers were dying every week over there. In a bit of history that should give the readers a strong sense of déjà vu, he had been elected on a campaign to pull us out of Viet Nam.

By late 1969, he had begun to pull out American troops. From 1969 to 1972, American troop strength was reduced by 405,000 troops under a policy to turn the fight over to the South Vietnamese. But, in April of 1970, he announced the incursion of American troops into Cambodia to disrupt North Vietnamese sanctuaries there. This was seen as a violation of his promises so strong that massive protests broke out across the USA and around 536 colleges and universities were shut down. Four students were killed in Ohio at Kent State University by National Guard troops.  This began to raise the specter of the dreaded Democratic victory in the 1972 elections. Eventually this led to President Nixon’s stray into criminal activity, the Watergate crimes. So he felt he needed to have pressure put on the North Vietnamese to settle. And, China was their next door neighbor.

But certainly another reason was the Soviet Union. In August of 1968, the Soviet Union had invaded Czechoslovakia, effectively cutting off democratic reforms. Though it is little remembered now, troops from member states of the Warsaw Pact were present in that country until 1990. However, that invasion began a hardening of Soviet attitudes that were not to fully loosen until almost 1992. [By 1978 the Soviet Union invades Afghanistan.] Eventually President Reagan tackles the Soviet Union even more directly. However, President Nixon’s approach was to approach China, with the hope that improved relations with China would help him check the Soviet Union. It is obvious that the Soviet Union understood the gambit, as by mid 1972, President Nixon is invited to Moscow. Both the SALT I and the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaties were the results of that visit. The Soviet Union clearly understood that they needed to be cautious about President Nixon’s intentions.

Finally, President Nixon was well aware of the possible economic profits to be made in China. Everyone could tell that the Chinese economy was strengthening and that whomever was able to “open” the China market might well become a very rich country. This, of course, was a copy of what happened in the 1800’s with Europe and China. The difference was that there would be no occupying colonial powers this time. So, part of President Nixon’s visit was also to assure the Chinese that they would be very welcome as customers of the USA and to see what possibilities there were to opening the market. In this he was eminently successful.

So, what were the results of these initiatives?

===MORE TO COME===