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While in China, President Nixon gave a speech in the Great Hall of the People in Beijing.

This was the first time a U.S. president had visited the People’s Republic of China (PRC), and China was considered one of America’s greatest enemies.

While in China, Nixon would meet with Zhou Enlai, who was the first Premier of the PRC. Zhou Enlai (along with Deng Xiaoping) played an important role in the future development of the Chinese economy and restructuring Chinese society leading to today’s China.

In fact, Zhou Enlai not only avoided the purges of high-level Chinese Communist Party officials during the Cultural Revolution, but he also attempted to contain the damage caused by the teenage Red Guard and to protect others from them. This made him very popular with the people near the end of the Cultural Revolution.

Zhou Enlai supported peaceful coexistence with the West.  He would die eight months before Mao.

It is ironic that one of the main reasons Richard Nixon became the vice-president of President Eisenhower was due to his strong anti-communist stance.

If you listen to Nixon’s speech in Beijing carefully, you will hear how he managed to slip in a veiled criticism of the fact that the media was free to report what they wanted in the US.

Nixon says of his visit to the Great Wall, “As I walked along the Wall, I saw the sacrifices that went into building it. I saw what is showed about the determination of the Chinese people to retain their independence throughout their long history. I thought about the fact that the Wall tells us that China has a great history and that the people who built this wonder of the world also have a great future.”

I wonder if Nixon realized how true his statement was.

Is it possible that Nixon’s trip to China provided Deng Xiaoping the support needed to reject revolutionary Maoism and launch China’s capitalist revolution a few years later?

Return to Part 2 or start with Part 1

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______________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

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China’s Holistic Historical Timeline

When President Nixon went to China, he met with Chairman Mao, and at the time, Mao was already suffering from poor health. In four years, he would be dead and Nixon would be the only president in US history to resign while in office due to the Watergate Scandal.

After Nixon resigned as the US president, the Chinese offered him a home in China where he would be allowed to live in peace away from his political enemies.

Two months before his meeting with Mao in Beijing, Nixon had approved a bombing operation in North Vietnam.

Many called it the Christmas bombings since it took place over the holidays. It was the first continuous bombing in Vietnam since President Lyndon Johnson had halted bombing in 1968.

Over 20 thousand tons of bombs were dropped during the campaign. That’s forty million pounds of explosives.

Ironically, Nixon ran for election as the “Peace Candidate” in 1968. Can you think of other US politicians that have used similar promises (to be broken) to win an election?

Because of Nixon’s record of being anticommunist, no one would have thought that he would have unexpectedly gone to China to meet with Mao and the Communist Party’s top leaders.

“Newly released audiotapes and secret documents from the Richard Nixon Presidential Library show a president obsessed with controlling the media and his public persona during the latter stages of his doomed administration.”

I find it ironic that this comes from a former president of a country that often criticizes China’s control of its media. Is it possible that US politicians are jealous of the power that the CCP has over its own media?

Part 3 continues on June 11, 2015 or start with Part 1

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 ______________________________

Lloyd Lofthouse is the award-winning author of My Splendid Concubine [3rd edition]. When you love a Chinese woman, you marry her family and culture too. This is the lusty love story Sir Robert Hart did not want the world to discover.

Subscribe to “iLook China”!
Sign up for an E-mail Subscription at the top of this page, or click on the “Following” tab in the WordPress toolbar at the top of the screen.

About iLook China

China’s Holistic Historical Timeline