Well, what was it that Kissinger PROPOSED to China? I can bet it probably wasn’t “you ship us dolls, we ship you corn, and we are even steven.”
This was at the time when China got the notion that “it is glorious to grow rich.”
What said rich to them? American dollars. As many of these debt notes we issued, as possible.
More than anything else, in the 1973 time frame, was the inception of a dialogue with China.
At the time we wouldn’t hear about internal changes in leadership and policies for months or years. This was problematic.
If this were some plot, the opening up of China would have taken place one day, and within months or a year a massive sea change of policy would have become noticeable.
No other big policy changes did become noticeable other than a better communication between the two nations.
It was two decades later when our businesses went whole hog for China.