The Most Respected Enemy: Mao Zedong's Perception of the United States

In: The China quarterly, Volume 137, p. 144-158

Abstract

Mao Zedong's key concern in his analysis of the United States was always how to estimate American influence on the survival and security of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and, after 1 October 1949, of the People's Republic of China (PRC). But on 21 February 1972, Richard Nixon, the first American president ever to set foot on Chinese soil, began what he called "the week that changed the world." This was also perhaps the most significant day in the 200-year history of Sino-U.S. relations. To prepare for it Nixon read extensive background materials on China, listened to specialists' advice on how to deal with his Chinese counterparts, and even practised eating with chopsticks. Nevertheless, he still felt nervous, fearing that he might be subjected to the humiliation previously encountered by Western barbarians who had journeyed to the court of the Chinese Emperor in an earlier age.