Biden’s China Policy Could Benefit From Reflecting on Nixon’s Historic Beijing Visit

A fifty-year anniversary is usually reason enough to throw a party. But this week, little champagne will be spilled to mark an event that changed the world – former President Richard Nixon’s historic trip to China in 1972.

Nixon became the first, but certainly not the last, U.S. president to visit the mainland while in office. His diplomatic gamble, one preceded by decades of little-to-no contact, ultimately set the stage for a resumption of diplomatic relations between the U.S. and China.

However, hindsight suggests that Nixon’s optimism about China was foolhardy, if not naïve. Some observers have since suggested that Nixon got conned by Mao Zedong. No doubt, Nixon’s China legacy remains mixed, just as many other China experts have misjudged Beijing’s intentions. That might explain why this momentous anniversary is unlikely to garner much attention.

Read more at The Daily Beast.