This is absolutely the right way to view the #Nixon/#Kissinger policy towarda #China.
Correct in the Cold War context with the Soviet Union as the great power competitor.
Bad after the Soviet Union collapsed & that strategic rationale evaporated, our academic, business, & political elites should have changed the policy.
They did not & welcomed China with open arms into the global economy even though China remained an obvious, & dangerous, geopolitical competitor rather than shifting to become like the United States.
#History
Only Nixon could have gone to China. A Cold War diplomatic masterstroke that helped reset the global balance of power in America’s favor and started the clock on the Soviet Union’s ultimate defeat. That we didn’t change our China policy after 1989 is a different matter for which Nixon can’t be blamed.
Nov 11, 2026 · 12:45 PM UTC
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