Nixon's second visit in early 1972, and meeting with the pivotal Premier Zhou Enlai in addition to Mao Zedong for a PR success on policy.
Four months later the Watergate scandal erupted, and by 1973 Nixon fell back on his PR successes to rehabilitate his reputation while never achieving the goal of the Visits to Communist china, which was to secure an agreement that China would no longer provide arms and all military supplies to North Vietnam.
Nixon got nothing but PR, and Communist China got access to the World and it's Money.
“Nixon’s first visit to Communist China in mid 1971...”
Wrong, son; Nixon first went to China in 1972.
“Nixon’s second visit in early 1972...”
Wrong again, son; Nixon’s FIRST visit to China was in early 1972 (specifically, February, 1972).
There is an old legal saying: Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus. In other words, false in one thing, false in everything. Thus, EVERYTHING you say is called into question. You see, saying Nixon’s first trip to China was in 1971 could have been a typo; but when you doubled down on it by saying he had a SECOND trip to China in early 1972 clearly shows the 1971 reference was no typo: It was your ignorance.
Nixon only made one visit to Red China during his presidency—in February, 1972.
It's doubtful that Nixon felt he could persuade the Chicoms to stop arming the North Vietnamese. But his visit improved relations between the US and Red China and put pressure on North Vietnam as well as the Soviet Union.
And Nixon continued to achieve diplomatic success in spite of Watergate. He held a summit meeting with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev at the Western White House in June, 1973, took decisions that arguably saved Israel during the Yom Kippur War, and visited Egypt in the summer of 1974.