While secretly in China, Kissinger asked China to extend an invite for an official state visit–a wish that the Chinese leadership granted. That trip was designed to see whether there was a common ground to move ahead with this delicate minuet.' 'We took a public trip to South Asia to four countries before we got to Pakistan, and from there, we took a trip for 48 hours to Beijing on a Pakistani plane. 'The stakes were high,' Lord told Newsweek. Sitting alongside Kissinger aboard the private jet was Winston Lord, a Special Assistant to Kissinger at the time and would-be Ambassador to China and Assistant Secretary of State. President Richard Nixon meets with Communist Party Chairman Mao Tse-Tung in Beijing, during his 1972 visit to China. The defining moment came in early July 1971, when Henry Kissinger, Nixon's national security adviser at the time, feigned a stomach illness while on a trip to Pakistan in order to flee the country in a private jet bound for Beijing in the middle of the night.

He therefore sought less conventional channels to establish contact with China, and sent hidden contact requests via Paris and Warsaw, as well as through the leaders of Romania and Pakistan. Nixon was aware of the sensibility of arranging such a trip, as publicly disclosing his intentions and discussing the idea with his fellow Republicans would have likely been met with a severe backlash. On February 21, 1972, Nixon and his entourage touched down on the tarmac of a country they did not diplomatically recognize, and had had virtually no contact with for over two decades. 'I have taken this action because of my profound conviction that all nations will gain from a reduction of tensions and a better relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China,' Nixon said. In his televised address to the nation on July 15, 1971, Nixon revealed his plans to visit communist China. Nixon had revealed he was going to the moon, he could not have flabbergasted his world audience more.' Such was the surprise, that the Washington Post wrote: 'If Mr. It came at the height of the Cold War when an amicable visit to one of the country's fiercest and most direct ideological rivals at the time seemed inconceivable, especially from a staunch anti-Communist like Nixon.

The announcement of Nixon's trip was a bombshell. A trip that, he humbly claimed, 'changed the world.' president had gone before him and carried out a state visit to China. Fifty years ago this coming week, President Richard Nixon ventured where no U.S.

Nixon visits china