Baffled by China’s relationship with the United States? Here’s all you need to know …
From Mao Zedong’s groundbreaking meeting with Richard Nixon in 1972, to Xi Jinping’s tea room talks with Donald Trump in 2017, our potted guide has it all
United States President Donald Trump’s references to China as a competitor and challenger to American power in his national security strategy speech on Monday confirmed that in Washington’s eyes at least, Sino-US relations have entered a new era.
His allegations that China (and Russia) were “attempting to erode American security and prosperity” should come as little surprise, however. In the more than four decades since Chinese leader Mao Zedong and US President Richard Nixon re-established diplomatic relations between the two countries – after a 25-year hiatus caused by Washington’s support for Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalists during the Chinese Civil War – relations between the world’s most populous and most powerful nations have seesawed.
Here’s how Trump’s eight predecessors and the Chinese leaders they worked with regarded the relationship:
Richard Nixon (1969-74)
In February 1972, Nixon became the first US president to visit the People’s Republic of China after the Communist Party, under Mao Zedong, came to power in 1949. During his seven-day trip, the two countries signed the Shanghai Communique, which not only acknowledged the one-China principle – that mainland China and Taiwan are inalienable parts of the same country – but also saw the beginning of a normalisation of relations.
