.
>> “Opening up China was reasoned.” <<
Opening up China was insane!
Red China was totally on the ropes and going down, and Nixon pulled their fat out of the fire.
It is one of the worst betrayals of the nation by a president in our history.
.
There are two periods associated with opening up China.
There was the period from 1973 to roughly 1992, and the period since 1992.
Nixon/Kissinger opened up China, but they did so because China was a nuclear power and it was a closed society. We needed to know what their thoughts were in real time, not 60 to 90 days later. It did not serve our interests to have China be a closed society in the middle of a Cold War with Russia. Would China jump in with Russia if a war started out with Russia? We didn’t know.
Developing a communications line with them, was not only reasoned, it was necessary.
Trade with China didn’t go south for twenty years after Nixon/Kissinger opened a line of communication with China.
Trying to blame them for the destruction twenty years later is like trying to blame Reagan for Obama.
Exactly! Nixon legitimized the world’s biggest murderer and aided a communist regime that was completely isolated and destined to fall.
Nixon was the worst president in modern history, and that and nothing to do with Watergate. He established the Imperial Presidency and set the stage for the decades of tyranny hat have followed. His resurrection as a diplomat has been driven by the Left’s appreciation of his propping up the communist regime.