Richard Nixon

理查德·尼克松

1913–1994

37th President of the United States (1969–1974)

Biography

Richard Milhous Nixon (1913–1994) was the 37th President of the United States (1969–1974), a Republican whose foreign policy was defined by a strategic realignment centred on engaging China as a counterweight to the Soviet Union. The 1972 visit to Beijing remains his most historically significant diplomatic legacy and launched the process of Sino-American normalisation. Nixon's reputation as a committed anti-communist made his handshake with Mao Zedong one of the great paradoxes of Cold War diplomacy, giving rise to the phrase 'only Nixon could go to China' — the observation that only someone whose ideological credentials are beyond question can afford to pursue policies that reverse their own previously stated positions. Nixon resigned the presidency in August 1974 before the House of Representatives could vote on his impeachment in the Watergate scandal, becoming the only sitting president in US history to have done so.

Related Events (1)

1972-02-21

Nixon Visits China

From 21 to 28 February 1972, US President Richard Nixon visited China, ending more than two decades of diplomatic estrangement and marking one of the most dramatic reversals of the Cold War era. The centrepiece of the visit was the Shanghai Communiqué, issued in Shanghai on 28 February, in which both sides candidly acknowledged disagreements on Taiwan, the Vietnam War, and global strategy while affirming their intention to advance normalisation. The opening fundamentally reshaped the Cold War triangular balance of power and paved the way for full diplomatic normalisation in 1979.

diplomatic