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Was Nixon Wrong About China? It might be time to question the conventional wisdom.
Foundation for Defense of Democracies ^ | July 29, 2020 | Thomas Joscelyn

Posted on 07/06/2021 8:47:44 PM PDT by eekitsagreek

Speaking at the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum in Yorba Linda, California, on July 23, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo attempted a difficult balancing act. On the one hand, Pompeo repudiated more than four decades of American policy toward China. Pompeo argued that the days of the U.S. holding out hope for political liberalization was over. And he called on free nations around the world to lock arms against the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) various schemes and threats.

On the other hand, Pompeo said he did not want to “seem too eager to tear down President Nixon’s legacy.” While Nixon’s presidency ended in disgrace, he is still widely considered something of a foreign policy success—the man who initiated America’s great opening to China. Pompeo didn’t want to directly undermine Nixon’s supposed accomplishment. “I want to be clear that he did what he believed was best for the American people at the time, and he may well have been right,” Pompeo said of Nixon’s diplomacy with the Chinese.

Pompeo’s use of the word “may” was telling. Maybe Nixon was right—or maybe he wasn’t. Given the substance of his speech, it is quite possible that Pompeo thinks Nixon was wrong.

(Excerpt) Read more at fdd.org ...


TOPICS: Chit/Chat; Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: 2020; asia; chicoms; china; nixon; oldnews; us
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To: Williams

China still had blood on their hands for killing or helping to kill our boys in Korea and Vietnam. Nixon is up there with Newt in selling out America.


21 posted on 07/06/2021 9:52:23 PM PDT by Theoria
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To: eekitsagreek

I still remember the vote to give China the permanent preferred trading status. Sometimes in nineties.
It was actually bipartisan vote - patriots, unionist and human rights congressmen (Va congressman Wolf and NJ Smith, as well as Dick Gephardt MI, were most vocal.) on both sides against, vs. free traders for. That was when US lost everything!
They argued that giving China free access to markets will eventually make China like America, free.
It looks like it is more making America like China!

Nixon was (maybe) right to do some agreement with China against Soviets. But that was it. They should stick with limited opening.
Instead, it snowballed to present day situation, when we cannot make anything in the USA!


22 posted on 07/06/2021 9:52:37 PM PDT by AZJeep (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0AHGreco RomNQkryIIs)
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To: devere

We can thank Nixon for the EPA and asset forfeiture as well.


23 posted on 07/06/2021 10:00:29 PM PDT by Ken H (Trump won.)
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To: Williams

“Nixon went to China as a counter weight to Russia.”

No one can be that naive and gullible.

Kissinger’s career and the industry he began shows it was corruption from day one.


24 posted on 07/06/2021 10:01:57 PM PDT by ifinnegan ( Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: Renfrew

You believe in magic fairies, too?


25 posted on 07/06/2021 10:03:54 PM PDT by ifinnegan ( Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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To: eekitsagreek

Nixon had to know it was wrong but somewhere, somehow the myth of the Red Chinese being agrarian reformers fit in with Nixon’s Quaker worldview


26 posted on 07/06/2021 10:13:00 PM PDT by fso301
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To: Renfrew

The entrepreneurial Cantonese in Southern China who aren’t too fond of the northern Han. Inside job.


27 posted on 07/06/2021 10:25:19 PM PDT by ameribbean expat (Don't blame others for the road you're on. That's your own asphalt.)
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To: ifinnegan

According to Mr. Spock, the Vulcans in 2550 considered Nixon’s China policy to be genius, because it split the communist alliance.


28 posted on 07/06/2021 10:26:31 PM PDT by enumerated
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To: Renfrew

Nope. Allying with Red China did not help us defeat the USSR. And it was us who actually (unfortunately) saved the USSR because having them fall to the Nazis would have put that enemy on our back doorstep.

Please think about what you’re saying. Echoing leftist propaganda does not go down well here.


29 posted on 07/06/2021 10:27:02 PM PDT by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
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To: AZJeep

Patriots? Unlikely.

And “bipartisan” does not mean they do not share the same ideology.

Don’t forget it was Karl Marx that was all for free trade because he believed it would “hasten the social revolution”.


30 posted on 07/06/2021 10:30:10 PM PDT by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
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To: eekitsagreek

Nixon opened China politically, which was a good move. Clinton opened China economically to our markets, which destroyed American manufacturing.


31 posted on 07/06/2021 10:32:09 PM PDT by Fido969 ( Sc)
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To: Olog-hai
Nope. Allying with Red China did not help us defeat the USSR. And it was us who actually (unfortunately) saved the USSR because having them fall to the Nazis would have put that enemy on our back doorstep.

We also saved China from the Japs. No good deed goes unpunished.

32 posted on 07/06/2021 10:33:13 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: dfwgator

It wasn’t Mao’s China, though. That came to be shortly after the war.

And big mistake firing MacArthur during the Korean War.


33 posted on 07/06/2021 10:36:26 PM PDT by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
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To: Fido969

No; that was not a good idea. It allowed a greater flood of ideological spies and propagandists behind our borders than even the Soviets could dream of.


34 posted on 07/06/2021 10:37:31 PM PDT by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
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To: Olog-hai

We gave Mao plenty of help, we basically sided with him against Chiang Kai-Shek.


35 posted on 07/06/2021 10:40:33 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: dfwgator

“We” as in . . . ?

“We” also gave the European Union its start, never mind the fact that “we” (in the form of Alger Hiss) wrote the UN Charter as a clone of the 1936 USSR constitution.

There is a lot of damage after WWII (and during, frankly) that the left did to the USA on “our” behalf.


36 posted on 07/06/2021 10:42:51 PM PDT by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
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To: nickcarraway

President Nixon’s legacy is Linebacker 2. It depends on where you are sitting.


37 posted on 07/06/2021 10:51:58 PM PDT by Laslo Fripp (5The Sybil of Free Republic)
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To: ifinnegan

> “Nixon went to China as a counter weight to Russia.”

Absolutely. At the time, the USSR was close to nuking the Chinese. And it worked out pretty well with the collapse of the USSR. But, times and situations change. Policies should also change.


38 posted on 07/06/2021 10:53:53 PM PDT by glorgau
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To: eekitsagreek

Everything is unfolding exactly as it is supposed to be.

Like parents who try to control and manipulate their children as adults, the Chinese people are growing and will rebel against their controlling parent.


39 posted on 07/06/2021 10:57:04 PM PDT by tired&retired (Blessings )
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To: glorgau

You’re delusional.

Not that crap like this wasn’t said but it was never true or rational.


40 posted on 07/06/2021 10:57:56 PM PDT by ifinnegan ( Democrats kill babies and harvest their organs to sell)
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