The document improved relations between the two countries, but it would still be years before they were normalized. Prior to that, American leaders viewed the government in Taipei, Taiwan, as the only legitimate one in China. It was the first time since the communist People’s Republic was founded in 1949 that a U.S. On February 27, Nixon issued the Shanghai Joint Communiqué that declared Taiwan part of China. Nixon met Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing and attended a banquet with Chou En-lai. The president and the first lady landed in Beijing on February 21, beginning an eight-day tour of the People’s Republic. This was not a new idea for Nixon: As early as 1967, the then-presidential candidate had written of his belief that the United States “must come urgently to grips with the reality of China.” On the heels of the table tennis team’s journey to China, President Richard Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger moved quickly to open up diplomatic channels with the communist nation. President Richard Nixon shares a meal with Premier Chou En-lai (left) and Shanghai Communist Party leader Chang Chun-chiao (right) on February 27, 1972. READ MORE: How Ping-Pong Diplomacy Thawed the Cold War Nixon Visits China, February 21-28, 1972 Shortly afterward, Time magazine called ping-pong “an apt metaphor for the relations between Washington and Peking as each nation signaled, in turn, its openness to change.”

Chinese Premier Chou En-lai addressed the guests at the feast: “I am confident that this beginning again of our friendship will certainly meet with majority support of our two peoples.” They even had a lavish dinner in the Great Hall of the People on Tiananmen Square in Beijing. While in Nagoya, Japan, for the World Table Tennis Championship, the team’s peers from China invited them for an all-expenses-paid trip to the People’s Republic, making them the very first Americans to be officially invited to China since the communist takeover in 1949.īetween exhibition matches, the athletes, along with a group of accompanying journalists, toured the Great Wall and the Summer Palace. The invitation to play in China came as a surprise to members of the U.S. Here are some major milestones in U.S.-China relations of the modern era. In the years since, the two nations have had something of a one-step-forward, two-steps-back relationship, marked by both promising agreements on climate and defense and bitter standoffs over trade and human rights issues. It wasn't until President Nixon's historic visit in 1972 that relations between the world's two largest economies began to thaw-slowly. refused to recognize the PRC and instead backed the exiled Nationalist Republic of China, based in Taiwan. Beginning with the birth of the People’s Republic of China in 1949, relations between the United States and China have been chilly.

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