[00:00.00]Thawing of the Cold War
[00:02.51]—the 1970's to 2001
[00:05.14]American Cold War policy ensued
[00:09.08]until the early 1970's,
[00:11.15]when some major changes
[00:12.58]in thinking were inaugurated.
[00:14.11]Communist China's entry to the United Nations
[00:16.95]was a setback for the United States.
[00:19.47]The Vietnam War was not going well.
[00:22.07]In the early 70s, American President Nixon,
[00:26.56]the arch?conservative and anti-communist president,
[00:29.40]up to that point,
[00:31.48]was preparing to visit China
[00:32.79]and the Soviet Union.
[00:33.88]Why would an American president visit these enemies?
[00:36.84]The Americans came to the realization
[00:39.46]that the development of good relations
[00:41.98]with its counterparts in the communist
[00:43.73]world was necessary.
[00:45.59]A forthcoming, more pragmatic approach to
[00:48.65]foreign policy with China was to be
[00:49.07]a departure from the adverse ideological approach.
[00:54.00]The United States had lost solid backing
[00:56.85]from traditional supporters,
[00:58.26]as illustrated by Communist China's
[01:00.46]entry into the United Nations.
[01:02.21]The question as to whether
[01:04.61]Nationalist China or the People's Republic of China
[01:07.24]should hold China's permanent Security Council seat,
[01:10.41]was a topic of much discussion
[01:12.82]and debate for years.
[01:14.35]For many countries,
[01:16.21]the idea of ignoring
[01:17.74]one third of the world's population
[01:19.38]at the UN was difficult to rationalize.
[01:21.79]This debate ensued until 1971,
[01:25.62]when the People?s Republic of China
[01:28.02]finally displaced Nationalist China
[01:30.32]at the United Nations,
[01:31.64]including the permanent seat,
[01:33.16]originally held by Nationalist China
[01:35.35]in the Security Council.
[01:36.89]A baffled United States
[01:38.97]could no longer persuade nor
[01:40.93]intimidate the majority of the countries
[01:43.01]in the UN General Assembly to
[01:45.10]keep Communist China out of the UN.
[01:47.17]The United States had little choice
[01:49.69]but to eventually extend official recognition
[01:52.75]to the People?s Republic of China.
[01:54.61]The war-weary American people
[01:57.35]were no longer supporting the war
[01:59.31]in Vietnam and no longer eagerly supporting
[02:01.94]traditional foreign policy.
[02:03.69]A major scandal(Watergate),
[02:06.86]that would rock the Nixon Administration
[02:08.94]to the resultant resignation of the president,
[02:11.02]was about to be disclosed.
[02:12.66]Practical solutions were needed
[02:14.74]for practical problems.
[02:16.27]Peaceful coexistence meant
[02:18.79]finding some common ground
[02:20.54]on which to activate
[02:21.63]international trust and cooperation.
[02:23.82]Nixon's consecutive predecessors,
[02:26.44]Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy,
[02:28.97]and Johnson would have rolled over
[02:31.37]in their graves if they
[02:32.90]could have seen these changes.
[02:33.43]These changes would have appeared alien,
[02:36.39]contradictory or even contrived,
[02:38.68]to them and their contemporaries.
[02:40.87]Presidents Ford, Reagan, Bush,
[02:44.48]and Clinton saw the need to keep
[02:46.88]communication channels open with China.
[02:48.96]Americans finally realized that
[02:51.22]they could no longer
[02:52.54]keep down a sleeping giant.
[02:54.18]No longer a Paper Tiger,
[02:56.04]China was a reality,
[02:57.57]and was entitled to an important place
[02:59.97]in world decision?making venues.
[03:02.16]In the 1980's following the Cultural Revolution
[03:06.21]and the death of Mao Tsetung,
[03:08.40]China's outlook on the world changed dramatically.
[03:11.02]Deng Xiaopeng's reforms were
[03:13.65]to bring China closer to being
[03:15.07]a major world partner in international trade
[03:17.48]and the development of world markets.
[03:19.67]This was capped with its admission
[03:22.18]to the World Trade Organization (WTO) in December 2001.
[03:26.89]China has been most willing to comply
[03:29.51]with all of the regulations of the WTO.
[03:31.92]Americans have only
[03:33.78]half-heartedly opposed China's entry,
[03:35.42]by unfairly using “human rights”
[03:37.72]as a distraction to perhaps disguise
[03:40.13]other international pressures.
[03:41.88]However, the United States,
[03:44.62]for a couple of decades,
[03:46.14]already had major, politically discreet,
[03:48.99]vested economic interests in China
[03:51.07]that it could not afford
[03:52.71]to deny or jeopardize.
[03:54.13]In 1998, China signed
[03:56.98]a Permanent Normal Trading Relations agreement
[03:59.71]with the United States,
[04:03.43]the prelude to the former's entry into the WTO.
[04:03.97]President Clinton, who visited China in 1998,
[04:08.01]had essentially paid lip service
[04:09.87]to Congressional pressure to push
[04:11.41]the human rights issues with China.
[04:13.15]Except for the occasional irritating crisis
[04:16.10]in recent years, such as
[04:17.86]the spy plane incident off the island
[04:19.61]of Hainan in April 2001,
[04:22.02]Sino-American relations have been cordial
[04:24.53]but cautious. The consensus seems to be,
[04:27.38]that China's destiny as a major international force
[04:30.77]in the 21th century, seems reasonably assured.
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