Dec 06 2020 30 mins
In our final episode of the season, we discuss a trip of great historical consequence: the weeklong tour of China that President Richard Nixon took in 1972. It was the first time that a sitting U.S. president had ever visited mainland China and followed over 25 years without any official diplomatic contact between the two countries. The trip initiated a new chapter in the political and economic relationship between them—it shifted Cold War power dynamics, improved the American public’s perception of China and the Chinese people, and led to the coining of a new phrase in our political lexicon: the “Nixon goes to China” moment.