A fascinating account of what must have been a thrilling time in history for those involved. It's particularly pertinent in the growing tensions over the South China Sea, China's economy and the pending trade war that would accompany a Donald Trump presidency. Nixon comes over similarly to Clinton: someone more suited to foreign policy than domestic wrangling. Eventually, his same indifference to and succumbing to local pettiness was what brought him down. It's a case of what might have been really: perhaps the countries were not ready for a proper relationship... they were too different at a time when difference was treated with utmost suspicion. This is well-written and entertaining and though it's ten years old, hasn't suffered from the great changes that have befallen both China and America in the intervening decade.

In February 1972, American president Richard Nixon, became the first American president to visit China. This visit was the beginning of China opening up again in some ways to the rest of the world and shifted some focus from their internal things to also being engaged with the rest of the world. It was a significant event in the Cold War as it made the USSR and other communist nations nervous that the USA and China began to get along so well.

For Nixon, the move made sense. He cared very deeply about foreign affairs and longed to do something significant in a positive way in that arena (finishing the Vietnam war was another effort that was taking much of his time and attention, he ran his first campaign on a promise to get the USA out of Vietnam). For China, they were nervous about their relations with the USSR and the border violence they were engaged in on multiple occasions. Both the USSR, China, and America saw themselves as world leaders. The book gives a brief biography of Nixon, Mao, Kissinger (the president's advisor) and Chou (the acting Prime Minister/Secretary of State of China) and a few other players. One of the fascinating things about the process is how little Nixon involved and trusted the American State Department. He kept the plan to go to China a secret from them and the nation and sent Kissinger to negotiate the visit and begin working on what they wanted to accomplish with the visit in secret.

A couple things from the biographies that stood out. First on Nixon, "He (Nixon) was generous to his staff but he seems to not have known how to treat them as human beings. He never thought for example, to ask Haldeman how many children he had. And though his Chief of Staff spent hours with him every day, the president only once invited him and his wife to a purely social dinner. Haldeman, who tried to anticipate everything, once tried to find a friend for Nixon, someone he could confide in. Nixon was astonished. In any case, he already had the perfect friend in Bebe Reboso, "a genial, discreet sponge, who sat silently for hours while Nixon held forth. Otherwise it is difficult to know who Nixon was close to. His daughters, certainly; his wife, Pat, although he rarely showed any interest in her after their first few years of marriage. He had thousands of acquaintances but very few close friends. He often talked about his mother , who was widely held to be a saintly figure who had suffered the early deaths of two of her children. She was a cold saint, however, doing her duty uncomplainingly but never showing her children any open affection or warmth. Nixon told his sympathetic biographer, Jonathan Aitken, that his mother never kissed him. When Aitken seemed surprised, Nixon grew angry. Aitken's reaction, Nixon felt, was like something from "one of those rather pathetic Freudian psychiatrists." Yet he wept in Billy Graham's arms when his mother died. Henry Kissinger, who could be so cruel about Nixon, once said, "He would have been a great man had somebody loved him."

"Although he (Mao) wrote one of his most lovely poems about her and in his old age described her as the love of his life, Mao abandoned his first wife and their young sons in the turbulent days of the late 1920s without any apparent regret. Yang Kaihui moved back to Changsha to be near her family, and Mao made no attempt to keep in touch with her. In a series of letters that miraculously survived, she wrote with increasing desperation of her continuing love for Mao, her misery at being abandoned, and her fears for herself and her children as the Guuomindang tightened its grip. In 1930, in retaliation for Communist attacks on Changsha, the local nationalist general her executed. She was only 29.
In 1928, while Yang was still alive, Moa got married again, to a young girl from the countryside, He Zizhen, who agreed, rather reluctantly, to become his "revolutionary companion." She was to pay a heavy price, suffering through the Long March and repeated pregnancies and miscarriages until Mao, in turn, abandoned her for a younger, more glamorous woman. His last and final marriage was to the Shanghai actress, Jiang Quing. When that marriage, in turn, soured, he preferred to avoid the divorce and simply took mistresses, sometimes several at once. It was easy enough for Mao to get them from among his nurses and assistants or from a special army company of dancers and singers. "Selecting imperial concubines" was how a senior general described it. Mao preferred young, simple, girls who felt deeply honored to be chosen by this great man, even to the point of catching a venereal disease from him. When his doctors suggested that the chairman might want to stop his sexual activities while the disease was being treated, Mao refused. "If it's not hurting me," he said airily "then it doesn't matter." As far as hygiene was concerned, Mao's solution was more sex: "I wash myself inside the bodies of my women."

Two things that we didn't see a lot of discussion on that I would have been interested in, Eisenhower's success in foreign policy and how Nixon never gained Eisenhower's respect and trust like Nixon wanted. Did that impact Nixon and his desire to do something significant in foreign policy? Second, a bit more explanation on how things shifted, if at all, for the military with the China visit. Interestingly, while the State Department was left in the dark, the Joint Chiefs of Staff knew what was going on with the China visit. Not because Nixon told them or wanted them to know, but because they had a spy who reported the developments with China back to the Joint Chiefs.

Overall a well written account of the meeting and fallout from the China visit by Nixon. In the polls Nixon, running for his second term, rose significantly to a 56% approval rating nationwide. Nearly 70% of those polled believed his trip had been useful. The trip in China was frequently carefully orchestrated for lots of pictures and video. It was estimated that 98% of the nation saw press coverage of the meeting with China, a massive PR victory for Nixon. However, there were some negative consequences too. Nixon by making his trip a secret until it was happening, avoided negative press inside America. But, he also offended allies who blindsided by the visit. England's Prime Minister was personally offended, thinking he had been friends with Nixon he never forgave him for not bothering to tell him about the China trip and as a result focused more on building ties with Europe and moving England away from a close relationship with America. Several other nations expressed their shock and dismay on not being brought into the loop until after the trip and agreement between the USA and China, among them: New Zealand, Australia, the Philippians, Japan and especially Taiwan. This weakened the trust between the USA and many allies. The meeting helped open the doors for China to begin becoming the economic powerhouse it grew to be. Overall, while the meeting between Nixon and Mao personally profited Nixon, and it was what he felt was his greatest accomplishment, it's not clear (to me) it was the right thing and the world is a better place for it.

The Candian-born Historian and an expert on international relations Margaret Macmillan published a 2007 book, Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed The World. Macmillan’s book focuses on Richard M. Nixon and Mao Tse-tung’s diplomatic exchange that led to diplomatic relations between China and the United States in February 1972. Macmillan uses the pinyin system of Chinese transliteration into English. Macmillan writes that “I have kept the older system only for names that are very well known already: Mao Tse-tung (in pinyin Mao Zedong); Chou En-lai (Zhou Enlai); Chiang Kai-shek (Jiang Jieshi); and Sun Yat-sen (Sun Yixian)” (Macmillan 11). I read the book on Kindle. Macmillan’s book is in-depth for a layperson about establishing diplomatic relations between the United States and communist China in 1972. Throughout Macmillan’s narrative, she inweaves biographical sketches of the people involved, such as Mao Tse-tung, Chou En-lai, Chiang Kai-shek, Richard M. Nixon, Henry Kissinger, Pat Nixon, and other historical figures. Macmillan’s book also contains a history of the international relations between the United States and China. Macmillan’s book contains a section of black and white photos of Nixon’s trip to China in 1972. Macmillan’s book, Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed The World is a wonderful study of Nixon’s trip to China in 1972.
Works Cited:
Drew, Elizabeth. 2007. Richard M. Nixon. New York: Henry Holt and Company. Kindle edition.

Nixon and Mao provides a great look at how these two enemies came together to begin a rapprochement that would change the dynamic of modern world history and begin to crumble the traditional roles of the Cold War. It would bring a president whose paranoia matched those of the people he negotiated with. Margaret MacMIllain does a superb job of blending together the complex array of issues facing a negotiation with the Chinese. From Kissinger's secret visit via Pakistan to the handshake that changed modern times all of the events are explained succinctly and in very thoughtful detail throughout the book.

While this trip was not heavy on substance or details it provided the symbolic importance of establishing Nixon as a premier foreign policy president and delivered a setback against the Russians. While the Japanese and the Taiwanese were scared at a possible rapprochement between the United States and China they were reassured by Kissinger and Nixon that this thaw was for the better. It did not lead to a solution in Vietnam but did contribute to a commercial opportunity for American markets (and some might argue for our eventual economic downfall and rise of Chinese prominence.) By meeting Mao in person and working through Chou (Chinese foreign minister) Nixon and Kissinger were able to pull of a diplomatic coup d'état that few thought possible at that time in world history.

For those who want to read a top notch diplomatic history that covers the political, economic and social ramifications in a succinct and thoughtful manner than this is the book for you. With just the right amount of detail MacMillian delivers another historical blockbuster that is well worth the time to read.

Interesting and engaging account of one of the positive things that Nixon accomplished.

Margaret Macmillan brings us an entertaining and very well written book that details the Nixon opening to China, and how the visit in and of itself changed the world in substantive ways that we are still feeling today. The book title implies a focus on the actual Nixon-Mao meeting, but it brings us so much more than that. The Nixon-Mao meeting ended up being a bit of a substantive disappointment for Nixon. Mao, even in poor health, was simply too cagey to allow the conversation to get into specifics. He outsourced all of the detail work to Premier Zhou en-Lai, and did so, in part, for domestic political reasons. Although not covered in this book Mao would, at a later time, use the Nixon trip as one of several battering rams against Zhou.

Macmillan brings us the back story to the opening, covering the Nixon views on China as he took office after winning the 1968 election. The selection of Henry Kissinger as National Security Advisor brought Nixon together with an individual that is renowned for foreign policy brilliance, but is also renowned for being as much of a publicity seeker as Nixon. While the impetus for the opening came from Nixon it was Kissinger who executed the strategy through negotiations with Premier Zhou en-Lai. The detail work was handled by those two immense personalities, with that interaction providing much of the basis for the summit ending Shanghai Communique.

The book brings us some historical perspective on China, with a strong look at the events leading to the Chinese Communist Party winning the civil war with the Nationalist forces of Chiang Kai-shek, and the follow up to that victory leading to decades of diplomatic isolation between China and the U.S., including the hot war on the Korean peninsula. Without some understanding of that history the significance of the Nixon trip would be a little harder to understand.

For me the star of the show has always been Zhou, who would have to be considered one of the major figures of the 20th century. Zhou was still working one of the greatest high wire acts in political history, navigating through the horrid excesses of the Cultural Revolution, when this diplomatic break through was engineered. Kissinger, in his memoirs, called Zhou one of the most impressive men he had ever met.

“Foreigners who met him generally found him delightful and deeply civilized. Dag Hammarskjöld, the Swedish diplomat who had been the U.N.’s second secretary-general, thought he had “the most superior brain I have so far met in the field of foreign politics.”17 Henry Kissinger, usually quite critical, was completely entranced. “He moved gracefully,” said Kissinger of their first meeting, “and with dignity, filling a room not by his physical dominance (as did Mao or de Gaulle) but by his air of controlled tension, steely discipline, and self-control, as if he were a coiled spring.” Kissinger, who was to have many hours of hard negotiations with Chou, found him “one of the two or three most impressive men I have ever met”—and a worthy adversary. “He was a figure out of history. He was equally at home in philosophy, reminiscence, historical analysis, tactical probes, humorous repartee.” Kindness, compassion, moderation—these were qualities both Chinese and foreigners saw in Chou."

MacMillan, Margaret. Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World (Kindle Locations 802-804). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition. MacMillan, Margaret. Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World (Kindle Locations 796-802). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The author brings us the complicated goals and objectives of each side, and a fair evaluation of how successful each was in achieving those goals. The clear “bear” in the room was the U.S.S.R., with both sides looking to strike a new equilibrium in world diplomacy by creating a check on Soviet influence and expansion via the new found friendship and joint antipathy towards nations that strove for “hegemony.” Nixon’s “triangulation,” was effective in creating some fear in the Soviet leadership, and without a doubt brought some short term political gains with the Soviets. Nixon was hoping for Chinese help with the intractable North Vietnamese, but on that score he came away disappointed. Zhou was not to be moved on that, but the Chinese, despite not giving Nixon the “help” he sought, took plenty of heat from the North Vietnamese for hosting Nixon while the United States was bombing their country. Zhou made clear that Nixon would leave empty handed on that issue:

“Chou, as he had with Kissinger, refused to commit himself to helping the United States. China, he repeated, when he and Nixon returned to the subject of Indochina
two days later, must support its friends, even—and this was a prescient observation on Chou’s part—if the peoples of Indochina embarked on wars among themselves after the Americans left. Whatever occurred would not be the fault of China, which only wanted peace and tranquillity in the region. If North Vietnam was expanding into Cambodia and Laos, he said, ignoring the long history of Vietnamese expansion into its neighbors’ territory, this was only because of its need to counter the United States.”

“We can only go so far,” he added. “We cannot meddle into their affairs.” China would not negotiate on behalf of the peoples of Indochina. Nixon was forced to recognize that, as with the Soviet Union, linkage did not always work: “What the Prime Minister is telling us is that he cannot help us in Vietnam.” Chou underlined the message on February 28 as Nixon was preparing to leave China: “We have no right to negotiate for them. This I have said repeatedly. This is our very serious stand.”


MacMillan, Margaret. Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World (Kindle Locations 4704-4708). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The big elephant in the room was the status of Taiwan, an issue that could have derailed the effort. On this matter both sides had serious political issues to solve, with limited room to maneuver. On the American side Richard Nixon’s long political history had helped to create, over the years, a poisonous atmosphere for any American diplomatic effort to deal with the issue of China, and Indo-China, in a pragmatic way. The “who lost China” attacks on the U.S. State Department and the scourge that was McCarthyism drove our best talent out of the State Department, and Nixon was a big part of that effort. He was considered to be a staunch ally of Taiwan, and I think it fair to say that any effort, before 1968, to normalize relations with “Communist China” would have been met with a vociferous attack by the GOP. President Kennedy had discussions with his foreign policy team about China, and came to the conclusion that it was a subject best left for a second term, with the potential backlash from the “China lobby” not worth the political lift. (John F. Kennedy: A Biography by Michael O’Brien)

“On the right, Senator McCarthy and his supporters, who included a young Richard Nixon, made much of the fact that many American diplomats in China had predicted the collapse of the Guomindang, evidence enough for conspiracy theorists that such men had actively worked for the Communist victory. The diplomats were summoned to congressional hearings, where their motives and loyalty were freely impugned.
The impact on the State Department and on the capacity of the United States to understand what was going on in Asia was huge. Seasoned and knowledgeable experts were driven out or resigned in disgust. Those who survived were kept away from anything to do with Asia; one of the department’s leading China specialists ended up as ambassador in Iceland. The department as a whole was shell-shocked and became increasingly timid in offering unpalatable advice to its political masters. A young man who started out as a junior diplomat in Hong Kong in the late 1950s remembered older colleagues who were careful about what they sent back to Washington. “I don’t think it meant not reporting facts,” he said; “it’s just that one was cautious.” On the other hand, the experience of being in Hong Kong tended to make the American China watchers more pragmatic than their superiors back in Washington. The lack of relations between two such big countries seemed absurd, an anomaly that they assumed must be temporary. “Well, you know,” said an American diplomat, “what the hell, China’s there, we’re going to have to recognize it. I mean, it was a fact of life. It wasn’t through admiration, it was just, well, let’s get on with it.”

MacMillan, Margaret. Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World (Kindle Locations 1937-1940). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

But Nixon was not about to let his past posturing on this issue prevent progress once he deemed it necessary. While the Shanghai Communique finessed the issue of Taiwan the U.S. concessions were clear, and Kissinger privately promised more to come in a Nixon second teem. (Even Nixon remained somewhat fearful of attacks from the right on this issue.) Despite that fear Nixon’s ruthless embrace of realpolitik, and his willingness to be less than honest with prior allies, drove him forward.

“Nevertheless, in his first years as president, even while he was re-thinking his China policy, Nixon continued to reassure Chiang of his support. “I will never sell you down the river,” he told Chiang’s son in the spring of 1970. As the secret channel to Beijing began to produce results, Nixon had to face doing just that. In April 1971, as they waited anxiously for Chou’s reply to one of Nixon’s messages, Nixon told Kissinger, “Well, Henry, the thing is the story change is going to take place, it has to take place, it better take place when they got a friend here rather than when they’ve got an enemy here.” Kissinger agreed: “No, it’s a tragedy that it has to happen to Chiang at the end of his life, but we have to be cold about it.” In the end, said Nixon, “We have to do what’s best for us.” As Kissinger prepared to leave for his secret trip to China, Nixon gave him some last instructions: “he wished him not to indicate a willingness to abandon much of our support for Taiwan until it was necessary to do so.”

MacMillan, Margaret. Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World (Kindle Locations 4457-4461). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

Yet the Chinese Communists had made it amply clear that without American concessions on Taiwan, they were not prepared to move forward to put Sino-American relations on a more normal footing. Moreover, as Chou, a master at diplomacy himself, well knew, negotiations proceed by a combination of clear statements, hints, and suggestions. Kissinger, when it was necessary, gave firm commitments to the Chinese, but he also hinted at more to come once Nixon had been reelected as president in the fall of1972. The United States, he said categorically, did not support the idea of two Chinas or of a mainland China and a Taiwan. The United States accepted the Chinese claim that Taiwan was a part of China, although here he expressed himself cautiously, saying that the United States would like to see a solution of the issue “within the framework of one China.” As he said to Chou, 'There’s no possibility in the next one and a half years for us to recognize the PRC as the sole government of China in a formal way.' Once Nixon had made a successful visit to China, Kissinger promised, and once he had been reelected for a second term, the United States would be able to move ahead rapidly to establish full and normal diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. 'Other political leaders,” he told Chou in what was a familiar theme, 'might use more honeyed words, but would be destroyed by what is called the China lobby in the U.S. if they ever tried to move even partially in the direction which I have described to you.' ”

MacMillan, Margaret. Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World (Kindle Locations 4489-4495). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The Chinese side, having the same desire for progress, took the long view on Taiwan, accepting a split view with the Americans on Taiwan, but pocketing the idea that Taiwan was part of China, and the creation of the “One China” policy, which remains U.S. policy to this day.

“Not all the concessions, by any means, came from the American side. The Chinese
accepted that the United States could not turn away from Taiwan overnight. Mao was particularly pleased, however, when Kissinger, on his first visit, promised that at least some of the American troops would be pulled out. The United States, Mao exclaimed to Chou, was evolving. Like an ape moving toward becoming a human being, its tail—its forces in Taiwan, in this case—was growing shorter. Armed with Mao’s approval, Chou talked in a friendly and positive way about the gradual lowering of tension over Taiwan and the normalization of relations between China and the United States. Although American troops were clearly going to remain in Taiwan for some time, he conceded that normalization of relations could proceed in parallel rather than, as the Chinese had first insisted, with the troop withdrawal as a precondition. In a chat that autumn of 1971 with Jack Service, a former American diplomat whom he had known during the Second World War, Chou made it clear he understood that American policy on Taiwan would have to evolve over time.”

MacMillan, Margaret. Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World (Kindle Locations 4514-4515). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

There is no question that Nixon and Mao painted the broad strokes on the canvas, but Kissinger and Zhou made this effort work. The Shanghai Communique was and is a testament to the essential brilliance and commitment to success that both had. This break-through was as much their achievement as it was their bosses. Kissinger, still alive, remains a subject of bitter controversy for some of the things he did while working for Nixon, but his work here, in my view, was first rate. Secretary of State William Rodgers was essentially ignored by Nixon and Kissinger on this initiative as well as generally. Kissinger expressed some regret over his treatment of Rodgers in his memoirs, and that dynamic is also covered here. With China now newly assertive, and becoming an economic behemoth the history of U.S.-China relations has never been more important. Did Nixon and Kissinger make the right move? There is no doubt that both believed they did, but MacMillan offers us a tidbit from Kissinger:

“In a discussion a few months later at the National Security Council, Kissinger wondered about the consequences of bringing China out of its isolation, “whether we really want China to be a world power like the Soviet Union, competing with us, rather than their present role which is limited to aiding certain insurgencies.”

MacMillan, Margaret. Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World (Kindle Locations 1053-1055). Random House Publishing Group. Kindle Edition.

The idea that China could be permanently “isolated” is of course ludicrous, but how we interact with them economically and militarily remains the subject of major debate in the United States. This book helps us to understand how that debate started.

Interesting book about President Nixon's 1972 trip to China, with extensive history about American relations with communist China, the history of China in the twentieth century, a fairly detailed portrait of Mao, (he was more or less another emperor of China, who was indifferent to the millions of people he forced to suffer during his long rule) and the Byzantine intrigues of the Nixon White House, with special attention to Henry Kissinger.

What a wild story. Nixon’s calculating mind trying to counter the Soviet influence takes him to China. Nixon’s ghost will long haunt American politics but his trip to China is so fascinating. It’s a tale that illustrates the thorough operation necessary to send the president and his men to China. But the trip would only be shadowed by Nixon’s greed and lust for power, as shortly after he and China created diplomacy relations, he would resign due to Watergate.

I wish there were more Mao and Nixon conversations though. Those guys were made for each other.

This is a great introduction to Nixon's trip to China, and MacMillan really goes out of her way to describe the main players and their personalities. True, this is not a "hard-core" read, but it gets you good and ready for further reading and branching out. Special props for the detail on Qiao Guanhua, a distant relative.

Nice summary with analysis of Nixon's breakthrough trip to China in February 1972, along with his historic meeting with Mao Tse-tung, the Chinese Communist dictator. Much of this is familiar right now to me as I recently read Volume I of Kissinger's memoirs, which covers this event, and the work and meetings leading up to it, in detail. But that is only one side of the story. MacMillan provides a much more unbiased approach. She is especially good at discussing how this impacted U.S. - Japanese relations, how it was viewed here in the U.S., and what has transpired between the two countries since then.

Narrated by Barbara Caruso. I enjoyed this book more than I expected to. I remember Nixon's big trip to China and how important it was, but was preoccupied with other things going on in my life during that time period. From this book I learned a few things about Nixon, Pat NIxon, Kissinger, Mao Tse-tung, Chou En-lai, and others involved with this period of history. The author did a nice job of describing the personalities involved during this time. She also gave a context to this time period by reviewing Chinese history.

While this book is about the event, and the events leading up to Nixon's visit to China, it gives a nice history of the politics of the region. The book gives you a big picture, as well as quite a lot of info on the people involved. The book is quite gentle in its treatment of people. This is an apolitical book. People who dislike Nixon, may feel that he is treated to well in descriptions of him in this book.