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Originally published in July 2011 and updated in February 2022.

As a candidate and in press conferences as president, Richard Nixon argued that the United States and the world would benefit from engaging China. He felt this was intrinsicly important because of China's size and inevitable importance. Nixon also saw China as a useful counterbalance to the Soviet Union. From the first days of his presidency he sought to signal China's leaders that he was willing to talk. The Americans sent private signals through Paris, Warsaw, and via the leaders of Romania and Pakistan. The documents summarized and linked to below detail these efforts which ultimately produced Henry Kissinger's secret trip to Beijing July 9-11, 1971. Kissinger, Nixon's National Security Advisor, flew to Beijing from Pakistan. His meetings there produced an agreement that President Nixon would visit China. Nixon went in February 1972.

These documents are part of the USC U.S.-China Institute's collection of speeches, reports, memos, and images relating to U.S.-China ties. Click here to see other materials. Most of these documents have been declassified over the past decade ( click here for National Archives press release). The Kissinger trip was discussed in the institute's Talking Points newsletter.This compilation is by Clayton Dube. Another compilation (" Getting to Know You ") covers preparations for the Nixon trip, the trip itself, and follow-up exchanges.

The Aim | Sending Signals | China Accepts | Kissinger-Zhou Meetings | Nixon Announcement

October 1967

Candidate Richard Nixon wrote in Foreign Affairs , "we simply cannot afford to leave China forever outside the family of nations, there to nurture its fantasies, cherish its hates, and threaten its neighbors. There is no place on this small planet for a billion of its potentially most able people to live in angry isolation."

January 20-21, 1969

During one of his many meetings during his first two days as president, Richard Nixon wrote this note: “Chinese Communists: Short range—no change. Long range—we do not want 800,000,000 living in angry isolation. We want contact ... [want] China—cooperative member of international community and member of Pacific community.” ( State Department, Office of the Historian )

February 1, 1969

President Nixon wrote to Henry Kissinger, his National Security Advisor. He wrote that Kissinger's report the day before mentioned "interesting comments" on China from a Polish source, Nixon wrote, "I think we should give every encouragement to the attitude that this Administration is 'exploring possibilities of raprochement with the Chinese.' This, of course, should be done privately and should under no circumstances get into the public prints from this direction. However, in contacts with your friends, and particularly in any ways you might have to get to this Polish source, I would continue to plant that idea." ( State Department, Office of the Historian )

February 5, 1969

Henry Kissinger notified the State and Defense departments and the Central Intelligence Agency that the National Security Council has been directed to prepare a study on U.S. relations with China, to include alternative approaches and risks. ( State Department, Office of the Historian )

August 21, 1969

President Nixon visited Pakistan in July 1969. He met with President Yahya Khan. This memorandum from National Security Council staffers Lindsey Grant and Hal Saunders to Henry Kissinger addresses efforts to reach the Chinese through Pakistan. They passed along word from an American diplomat in Pakistan that, "The Pakistanis are working in the belief that President Nixon told President Yahya that the US wished to seek an accommodation with Communist China and would appreciate the Pakistani's passing this word to Chou En-lai and using their influence to promote this. Yahya is apparently debating whether to call in the Chicom Ambassador to convey the message or whether to wait until he sees Chou Enlai, probably some months hence." Kissinger wrote on the memo, “This is to be strictly WH matter. I want no discussion outside our bldg." ( State Dept. memo on Khan's conversation with Zhou Enlai, State Department, Office of the Historian )

August 27, 1969

CIA Director Richard Helms told the press that Soviet officials were approaching foreign governments to ask how they would respond to a preemptive strike against China's nuclear forces. In fact, Boris Davydov, Second Secretary at the Soviet Embassy met on August 18 in Washington with William Stearman, a member of the White House National Security Council staff. Stearman reported "Davydov asked point blank what the US would do if, the Soviet Union attacked and destroyed China's nuclear installations... He then rephrased his original question by asking: 'What would the US do if Peking called for US assistance in the event Chinese nuclear installations were attacked by us? Wouldn't the US try to take advantage of this situation?'" ( Click here to read Stearman's report .) The threats ultimately caused China to negotiate with Moscow and to continue to look to forge connections to Washington.

August 28, 1969

National Security Council staffer Hal Saunders reported on his meeting with Pakistan's Ambassador to the U.S. Agha Hilaly. Saunders wrote to Henry Kissinger that he met Hilaly in order to clarify two points: "a. The President did not have in mind that passing this word was urgent or that it required any immediate or dramatic Pakistani effort. He regards this as important but not as something that needs to be done immediately.... b. What President Nixon had in mind was that President Yahya might at some natural and appropriate time convey this statement of the U.S. position in a low-key factual way." He reported he told Hilaly that Kissinger was to be the point of contact on this matter (meaning there should be no contact with the State Department or others). ( State Department, Office of the Historian )

September 9, 1969

Walter Stoessel, U.S. Ambassador to Poland, summarized a meeting he had at the White House with President Nixon and Henry Kissinger. Stoessel wrote that Nixon asked how he was able to reach out privately to Chinese officials in Warsaw. He noted that Nixon directed him to make contact with a top Chinese representative at a reception somewhere. Stoessel wrote that he was to "say that I had seen the President in Washington and that he was seriously interested in concrete discussions with China." Stoessel had trouble actually meeting the Chinese Chargé until December. ( State Department, Office of the Historian )

October 16, 1969

Henry Kissinger reported to President Nixon on a meeting he had with Pakistan's Ambassador Hilaly. Hilaly told him that Pakistani President Yahya Khan would meet with Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai early in 1970. Hilaly asked if there was something specific Yahya could tell Zhou. Kissinger wrote that he told Hilaly he needed to check with you, but also "[I]f President Yahya were communicating with the Communist Chinese Ambassador, he might say confidentially that the United States is removing two of its destroyers from the Formosa Straits.( State Department, Office of the Historian )

December 2, 1969

Secretary of State William Rogers wrote to President Nixon to advocate for continued relaxation of measures against China. He thought this might be helpful as a wedge between the Soviet Union and China.Rogers reported that "there have been signs of moderation in Peking's foreign policy stance including—in private encounters—toward the U.S." Rogers listed a number of measures that could be taken to send positive signals to China's leaders. These included loosening economic restrictions, including the purchase of American farm products.Nixon accepted the recommendations and changes were announced on December 19. ( State Department, Office of the Historian )

February 20, 1970

National Security Council staffer Alexander Haig wrote on behalf of Henry Kissinger to President Nixon that Chinese representatives at the Warsaw talks said "that if we wished to send a representative of “ministerial rank or a special Presidential envoy to Peking for the further exploration of fundamental principles of relations” between the US and China, they would be prepared to receive him." ( State Department, Office of the Historian )

February 23, 1970

Henry Kissinger wrote to President Nixon to report an exchange with Pakistan's President Yahya via Ambassador Hilaly. Yahya told Kissinger that the Chinese were encouraged by U.S. initiatives, but they did not want discussions to signal Chinese weakness or fear. Kissinger told Yahya to tell the Chinese that press and other speculation could be avoided by working directly with the White House, Kissinger wrote, When matters are in formal diplomatic channels, it is not so easy for us to maintain total discretion because too many people see what is happening. We would therefore be prepared to open a direct White House channel to Peking which would not be known outside the White House and on which we could guarantee total security," ( State Department, Office of the Historian )

March 7, 1970

Henry Kissinger reported that Taiwan President Chiang Kai-shek had written to President Nixon to oppose the approach the U.S. had taken towards China in the Warsaw talks. ( Click here for Kissinger's report.) Nixon's March 27 response to Chiang's letter began, "... I know of your deep distrust of Communist China's motives. In my own evaluation of Communist China, I do not ignore the legacy of the past, nor do I ignore the threat which the Chinese Communist regime may pose in the future." At the same time, Nixon told Chiang, "I would be remiss in my duty to the American people if I did not attempt to discover whether a basis may not exist for reducing the risk of a conflict between the United States and Communist China...." ( State Department, Office of the Historian ) In April, Chiang's son, Chiang Ching-kuo met with Kissinger and others to discuss the situation. Chiang Ching-kuo was at the time Taiwan's vice-premier.The Warsaw talks sputtered out due to scheduling problems, issues related to the Vietnam War, and the opening of other channels of communication (via Paris and Pakistan).

July 9, 1970

Henry Kissinger reported to President Nixon that the Chinese military tried to intercept an American aircraft gathering intelligence 100 miles off the China coast. This, Kissinger noted, came as a surprise. He wrote, "Had they succeeded, they would have finished off the slight movement toward a Sino-U.S. thaw. In doing so, they would have nullified the 'U.S. option' which they have been developing since their confrontation with the U.S.S.R. began." Kissinger speculated that someone in the Chinese leadership did want to damage the nascent relationship. He wrote that intelligence efforts should continue or the Chinese would learn that "a hard line works best with us." ( State Department, Office of the Historian ) On July 31, Kissinger was told there were ongoing struggles within the Chinese leadership and that it was unclear who was rising or falling. ( State Department, Office of the Historian )

Ca. September 12, 1970

This is a memorandum from Henry Kissinger to President Nixon responding to comments President Nixon made on a September 9 memo. Nixon asked Kissinger to try again to reach Chinese officials . Kissinger confirmed that in June 1970 the U.S. had prepared an offer to meet with Chinese officials. He wrote, though, that while General Vernon Walters had told Chinese contacts that he had a message to convey, he had not yet been able to actually convey the message. The document includes the September 9 briefing with Nixon's handwritten comments. Click here to read the document .

October 1, 1970

American journalist Edgar Snow and his wife joined Chairman Mao Zedong atop Tiananmen during the National Day parade. Snow had interviewed Mao in Shaanxi in 1936 and published what Mao told him about himself and the Communist Party's aims in Red Star Over China in 1937. Snow had reported on 1960, 1964 and 1965 as well ( click here to see a clip of him speaking with Zhou Enlai about U.S.-China relations).

October 25, 1970

Henry Kissinger summarized of a meeting between President Nixon and President Yahya Khan of Pakistan. Nixon asked about Yahya's plans to visit Beijing. He told Yahya that he was willing to send a representative to some third party capital to open communications with Beijing. Click here to read the document.

October 31, 1970

Henry Kissinger reported to President Nixon on a meeting he had with Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu in Washington. Kissinger said he told Ceausescu that the U.S. wanted to open communications with China and that the U.S. government did not believe it had "long-term clashing interests." Ceausescu said he would pass this along to the Chinese. Click here to read the document.

December 10, 1970

Henry Kissinger provided President Nixon with a summary of the status of "Chinese Communist Initiative." It included a report from the Pakistani ambassador that Pakistan's president had conveyed Nixon's message during his visit to China. It said that Zhou told Yahya that his response had the support of Chairman Mao and Vice Chairman Lin Biao. Zhou told Yahya that the Taiwan question was central and that no progress had been made in resolving it. He said China's leaders welcomed Nixon's envoy to Beijing to discuss the removal of U.S. troops from Taiwan. Kissinger included a draft response that would be given verbally. It proposed a high-level meeting in Beijing to discuss a variety of issues, including Taiwan. It notes that the U.S. planned to gradually reduce its military presence in East Asia as regional tensions are diminished. Kissinger reported that the message. Click here to read the document.

At a press conference the same day, Nixon said, "[W]e are going to continue the initiative that I have begun, an initiative of relaxing trade restrictions and travel restrictions and attempting to open channels of communication with Communist China, having in mind the fact that looking long toward the future we must have some communication and eventually relations with Communist China ."

December 25, 1970

People's Daily published a front page photo (see above) of Chairman Mao Zedong standing with Edgar Snow atop Tiananmen during the October 1, 1970 national day parade. On December 18, 1970, Snow interviewed Mao. Mao said, " if Nixon wished to come, I was willing to talk to him. It does not matter whether the talks go smoothly or not; he could come either as a tourist or as the president." Snow's interview was not published until April 1971 when the American table tennis team was invited to China. Click here to see the front page.

January 12, 1971

Memoradum on a meeting Henry Kissinger had with Corneliu Bogdan, the Romanian ambassador to Washington. Prepared by Kissinger for President Nixon. Kissinger reported that Romanian President Ceausecu had sent his vice-premier to Beijing. Chinese Premier Zhou gave the Romanian a note saying the key issue with the U.S. was the American "occupation of Taiwan." Zhou said the U.S. President would be welcome to discuss this issue in Beijing. Nixon wrote on the memo that he worried the U.S. appeared "too eager" to meet with the Chinese. Click here to read the document .

January 18, 1971

W. Richard Smyser, a member of Henry Kissinger's National Security Council staff, reported to him on a letter he had received from Jean Sainteny, a former French official who facilitated Kissinger's secret talks in 1969 with North Vietnamese officials. Sainteny was one of the conduits by which the U.S. was reaching out to China, via China's ambassador to France. A handwritten note on the document indicates that Kissinger wanted such information right away, as he put it, "It is as important as anything we might do." Click here to read the document.

February 25, 1971

Nixon released his second annual report on foreign policy to the U.S. Congress and discussed it in a radio address. He noted that "We have relaxed trade and travel restrictions to underline our readiness for greater contact with Communist China" and said,

"We will search for consecutive discussions with Communist China while maintaining our defense commitment to Taiwan. When the Government of the People's Republic of China is ready to engage in talks, it will find us receptive to agreements that further the legitimate national interests of China and its neighbors." Click here for the full radio address.

March 4, 1971

Asked at a press conference about how efforts to improve relations with China could affect Taiwan, Nixon replied, "I understand the apprehension in Taiwan, but I believe that that apprehension, insofar as Taiwan's continued existence and as its continued membership in the United Nations, is not justified.... I said that we stood by our defense commitments to Taiwan; that Taiwan, which has a larger population than two-thirds of all of the United Nations, could not and would not be expelled from the United Nations as long as we had anything to say about it; and that as far as our attitude toward Communist China was concerned that that would be governed by Communist China's attitude toward us."

Nixon went on to signal that he was waiting to hear from China: "[W]e would like to normalize relations with all nations in the world. There has, however, been no receptivity on the part of Communist China. But under no circumstances will we proceed with a policy of normalizing relations with Communist China if the cost of that policy is to expel Taiwan from the family of nations."

April 12, 1971

Nixon and Kissinger met with the new Republic of China (Taiwan) Foreign Minister Chow Shu-kai 周書楷. Chow had been serving as ambassador to the U.S. since 1965. They discussed the challenges of keeping Taiwan in the United Nations, including the possibility of having separate representation for Taiwan and for China. Nixon told Chow that he would be sending Amb. Robert Murphey as his personal emissary to Taipei to meet with Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek to discuss the situation. Click here to read the summary of the meeting and the memorandum Kissinger prepared authorizing the Murphey trip.

April 14, 1971

During the table tennis championships in Japan, American Glenn Cowan accidentally boarded the Chinese team bus. Three-time world champion Zhuang Zedong 庄则栋 presented him with a gift and the two were photographed when the bus reached the hotel. Two days later, the U.S. team was formally invited to visit China following the championships. In 2007, Zhuang visited USC and spoke about what is now known as "ping pong diplomacy" ( click here to watch his talk ).

  Time , April 26, 1971  

During the team's visit to China, President Nixon announced that Chinese could get visas to the US and that currency controls would be relaxed so that China could more readily use dollars. Imports from China would be permitted as well as exports. Click here to read the document.

That evening, Nixon spoke with Kissinger by phone. They discuss reaction to Nixon's announcement. Nixon told Kissinger, "Now on the China thing that we have to realize, Henry, is that in terms of the American public opinion, it is still against Communist China..." They also discussed reactions in Taiwan. Kissinger said, "[I]t's a tragedy that it has to happen to Chiang at the end of his life but we have to be cold about it." Nixon responded, "We have to do what's best for us." Kissinger made a re-election related comment, and Nixon agreed, saying that Chiang would have "an Administration [here] that is not going to just stand by and let Taiwan go down the drain..." Click here to read the document.

April 16, 1971

During a meeting with representatives from the American Society of Newspaper Editors, President Nixon addressed questions about policies toward China. He asserted that "The long-range goal of this administration and of the next one, whatever it may be, must be two things: one, a normalization of the relations between the Government of the United States and the Government of the People's Republic of China, and two, the ending of the isolation of Mainland China from the world community." He indicated that his administration had relaxed travel and trade restrictions and "[n]ow it's up to them. If they want to have trade in these many areas that we have opened up, we are ready. If they want to have Chinese come to the United States, we are ready. We are also ready for Americans to go there, Americans in all walks of life."

And then Nixon explained, "[b]ut it takes two, of course. We have taken several steps. They have taken one [inviting the ping pong team to China]."

April 21, 1971

Pakistani President Yahya conveyed a response from Premier Zhou Enlai to President Nixon. It was received by Kissinger on April 27. Zhou said that China's government would welcome publicly Nixon or Nixon's envoy to advance discussions between the two governments. Click here to read the document.

April 27, 1971

Record of a phone conversation Henry Kissinger had with President Nixon regarding who should be sent to meet with the Chinese. Nixon mentioned New York Governor Nelson Rockefeller, U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations George H.W. Bush, and U.S. Ambassador to France David Bruce as possibilities. Nixon regreted that Thomas Dewey, the former New York governor and Republican presidential candidate had passed away and couldn't be sent. The two concluded that Bush was not "tough" enough for the task. Kissinger tells Nixon, "[I]f we get this thing working, we will end Vietnam this year." Nixon has a press conference coming up and tells Kissinger he's not going to say anything about China. Nixon tells Kissinger to tell the Chinese not to invite any other American politicians to China.  Click here to see the document.

April 29, 1971

Asked about China at a press conference, President Nixon said, “ I hope and, as a matter of fact, I expect to visit Mainland China sometime in some capacity – I don’t know what capacity. But that indicates what I hope for the long term." He also said, that the U.S. "is seeking to in a very measured way, while maintaining our treaty commitments to Taiwan – we are seeking a more normal relationship with the People’s Republic of China." He also responded to a question about the views expressed by Vice President Spiro Agnew. Nixon said Agnew thought he was off-the-record in making those comments and that he expected Agnew to support whatever decisions end up being made with regard to China.

May 29, 1971

Premier Zhou Enlai wrote to President Nixon. He told Nixon that Chairman Mao looked forward to having Nixon visit and that either side could raise whatever issues it wanted. Zhou wrote that removing U.S. forces from Taiwan was the first question to address. Zhou welcomed Kissinger's secret visit to prepare for the eventual Nixon visit. He mentioned that it might be better to make the visit a public one, but that if secrecy was desired the Chinese side would maintain it. Click here to read Zhou's note in Chinese. Click here to read Pakistani Ambassador Hilaly's version.

June 4, 1971

President Nixon responded to Premier Zhou's invitation to visit China and as a preliminary step to send Henry Kissinger to Beijing. Nixon told Zhou that Kissinger was authorized to discuss all issues pertaining to Nixon's own visit. Nixon told Zhou that strict secrecy was essential. He wrote that Kissinger would be able to discuss a joint communique about the Nixon visit. Click here to read the document.

June 30, 1971

President Nixon spoke by phone with Walter McConaughy, Jr., U.S. Ambassador to Taiwan. Nixon told McConaughy to, "Just say that we, that our—as far as the Republic of China is concerned that we have—we know who our friends are. And we are continuing to continue our close, friendly relations with them." Nixon explained that the U.S. would not support throwing Taiwan out of the United Nations, but he said there was no way to prevent Taiwan from losing the Security Council seat. At the same time, Nixon stressed, "But we must have in mind, and they must be prepared for the fact, that there will continue to be a step-by-step, a more normal relationship with the other—the Chinese mainland. Because our interests require it. Not because we love them, but because they're there. " Nixon noted the Taiwan government had just sent a nice wedding gift for his daughter. He said that if he were in their situation, he wouldn't worry about staying in the UN: "I would just say the hell with the UN. What is it anyway? It's a damn debating society. What good does it do?" Nixon went on to say that the Chinese, if they had a decent system of government, would be an economic powerhouse. ( State Department, Office of the Historian )

July 1, 1971

President Nixon met with Henry Kissinger and Alexander Haig to go over plans for Kissinger's meetings with Chinese leaders. Nixon told Kissinger to be stronger and "not to indicate a willingness to abandon much of our support for Taiwan until it was necessary to do so." Nixon said that "discussions with the Chinese cannot look like a sellout of Taiwan." Nixon wanted Kissinger to convey the utility of the U.S. remaining in Japan and Asia. He wanted Kissinger to emphasize the Soviet threat more. Nixon listed some "accomplishments" should be agreed prior to his going to China. Finally, Nixon said Kissinger must make it clear to the Chinese that they should not meet with other U.S. political figures before meeting with him.  Click here to read the document.

Records of the actual meetings

Winston Lord, one of Henry Kissinger's aides, worked with other aides to prepare these reports on the meetings with Chinese leaders. Lord later became U.S. Ambassador to China (1985-89) and Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia (1993-97). Click here to see an interview he gave the USC U.S.-China Institute in November 2010.

Henry Kissinger and Winston Lord, aboard a plane in 1973 (White House photo)

Several Chinese arrived in Pakistan and were waiting on the Pakistani plane for Kissinger's group. They included Huang Hua ( 黄华 who had translated for Edgar Snow when he interviewed Mao Zedong in Yan'an in 1936, in 1971 he was ambassador to Canada, he would later be China's foreign minister), Ji Chaozhu (冀朝铸 a high level interpreter who later served in Washington and as ambassador to the United Kingdom), Zhang Wenjin ( 章文晉 later an ambassador to the U.S.), and Tang Wenshang (唐闻生 Nancy Tang, who was born in New York and went to China with her mother in 1953, translated for high level meetings throughout this period, she later served in the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference).

July 29, 1971

Memorandum regarding a draft transcript of the July 9, 1971 meetings between Henry Kissinger and Premier Zhou Enlai. The memo includes a note that from 1940 to 1948, the U.S. provided China with more than $48 billion in lend-lease support. Zhou began the meeting by discovering the Americans were non-smokers. Zhou reasserted that Chairman Mao had said they'd welcome Nixon as President or as a private person. Kissinger told Zhou, "It is the conviction of President Nixon that a strong and developing People's Republic of China poses no threat to any essential U.S. interest. It is no accident that our two countries have had such a long history of friendship." Nixon, Kissinger said, would make no major move that would affect China's interests without discussing it with China's leaders ahead of time. Kissinger noted that China was a mysterious land. Zhou said that as Kissinger became more familiar with Chinese he would not find China so mysterious.Zhou complained that for years the American representatives have wanted to focus on small questions first and save fundatmental ones for later. Zhou was happy that Nixon was ready to talk about fundamental questions. Zhou focused on Taiwan, noting that a State Department official had said that the status of Taiwan was still undetermined. Kissinger quickly replied, "He hasn't repeated it!" Kissinger said that without the Korean War, Taiwan would probably have been brought under Beijing's control. Zhou insisted that U.S. recognition of Taiwan as a part of China was a precondition for normalization of relations. Kissinger said that China needed to recognize U.S. necessities, namely that the U.S. would not publicly state that eventually Taiwan would be under Beijing's authority. Kissinger told Zhou that he'd made a secret trip to Paris to meet North Vietnamese representatives and that the U.S. was prepared to withdraw from Vietnam. Zhou mentioned that two Vietnamese women had led resistance to a Chinese invasion 2,000 years before. Kissinger joked that "Women in politics can be ferocious." Kissinger articulated Nixon's view that the U.S. would not reflexively fight communism but would deal with communist states on a case by case basis. Zhou claimed that while China supported North Vietnam, it had not sent soldiers to fight there. Kissinger explained that including Japan under the U.S. defense umbrella meant that Japan did not feel it needed to build up its own defense capabilities.He said that this was in both American and Chinese interests. Click here to read the document.

August 6, 1971

Memorandum regarding a draft transcript of the July 10, 1971 afternoon meetings between Henry Kissinger and Premier Zhou Enlai and others.The group had spent the morning touring the Imperial Palace. Again, the focus was on Taiwan. Zhou asked that if the Nixon visit were set, there should be progress in resolving Taiwan questions ahead of his arrival, though he said such progress was not a precondition for the visit. He said that if the Americans only removed forces from Taiwan and did not extend diplomatic recognition, that it was an incomplete effort. Zhou also said they worried that as the U.S. withdraws forces from Taiwan and elsewhere, that Japanese forces would move in. Kissinger said that since the Chinese leaders first offered the idea of the Nixon visit, it was up to them to suggest a time. He further said that in making public references to the People's Republic of China, the U.S. was signalling its intentions, namely to normalize relations with China.Kissinger said that a visit by Nixon would have "symbolic significance because it would make clear that normal relations were inevitable." Kissinger said the U.S. did not support Taiwan independence or one China, one Taiwan or two Chinas.Diplomatic recognition, Kissinger said, would have to wait until Nixon's second term.The U.S., Kissinger said, would not block China's entry into the United Nations. Kissinger warned Zhou that only Nixon could establish relations with China. Others "would be destroyed by what is called the China lobby" (pro-Taiwan). Kissinger asked that Zhou not repeat this to the New York Times correspondent James Reston when he visited. Zhou told him that many American politicians had asked for invitations to visit. Nixon was happy, Kissinger said, that Zhou had not obliged any of them.Kissinger further said that it was important that the Chinese continue to work with him rather than through other channels (meaning the State Department). Zhou concluded by running through a list of former CCP leaders who tried to steer the party astray (Chen Duxiu, Wang Ming, Zhang Guotao, and Liu Shaoqi) and explaining that Mao was continuing to lead China with strength. They agreed to aim for the spring of 1971 for Nixon's visit. Click here to read the document.

August 12, 1971

Memorandum regarding a draft transcript of the final meeting Kissinger had with Zhou Enlai and others on the late night meeting on July 10, 1971 . The memo highlights themes from all the discussions. The transcript shows Zhou and Kissinger focused on Taiwan, on ongoing US-Soviet Union talks, and on China-India and China-Soviet Union disputes. Click here to read the document.

Kissinger Reports

July 11, 1971

Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger on the South Lawn of the White House, August 10, 1971.(White House photo)

Henry Kissinger sent a brief cable to Alexander Haig at the White House. He reported that he'd gotten what President Nixon wanted - a big welcome. Kissinger told Haig to tell Nixon that nothing should be said to anyone prior to his return. He wrote that even a minor leak would offend the Chinese. Click here to read the document.

July 14, 1971

Henry Kissinger reports on his talks with Zhou Enlai. He begins by writing that the talks were "the most searching, sweeping and significant discussions I have ever had in government." He stressed that dealing with the Chinese required nuance and style and said a grasp of the "intangibles" was crucial if the U.S. was to "deal effectively with these tough, idealistic, fanatical, single-minded and remarkable people and thus transform the very framework of global relationships." Kissinger felt that the Chinese were struggling with philosophic contradictions, by dealing with "arch capitalists." "The moral ambivalence of this encounter for them was relected in a certain brooding quality, in the occasional schizophrenia of Chou's presentations....," he wrote. Kissinger was quite taken with Zhou, ranking him with Charles De Gualle as the most impressive statesman he'd met. Kissinger wrote that the Chinese "pretended that they had responded to your [Nixon's] request" to go to China. He noted that extensive discussions were necessary in determining the text of the announcement of the Nixon visit. The Chinese wanted to have seeking normalization of relations as the purpose, Kissinger insisted on discussions of mutual interest. Both are in the final announcement. Kissinger told Nixon he'd gotten "precisely what you wished." Those wishes included a pledge that the Chinese would not host other American political figures before Nixon's arrival. Zhou's requirements for diplomatic relations were listed. Kissinger said he told Zhou he hoped that the polticial evolution between Beijing and Taipei would be peaceful. Kissinger reported that to advance negotiations on the summit details and other matters that he and Zhou had agreed to work through their respective representatives in Paris (General Vernon Walters and the Chinese ambassador). Kissinger said that at the end of their talks, he brought up the matter of four Americans held in Chinese jails. He said that the U.S. would not requesting their release but would consider such a release as an act of mercy. Kissinger concluded by writing, "We have laid the groundwork for you and Mao to turn a page in history. But we should have no illusions about the future. Profound differences and years of isolation yawn between us and the Chinese." Beyond this he noted, "the process we have now started will send enormous shock waves around the world." The joint announcement is appended to the document. Click here to read the document.

The Announcement: July 15, 1971

President Nixon announced that he'd sent Henry Kissinger to China and that the result of these meetings was an agreement for a presidential trip to China. The announcement finessed the desire by both sides to signal the other initiated the move. Kissinger reported earlier on discussions regarding the announcement and shared the draft announcement. The joint announcement begins, "Knowing of President Nixon's expressed desire to visit the People's Republic of China, Premier Chou En-lai, on behalf of the Government of the People's Republic of China, has extended an invitation to President Nixon to visit China at an appropriate date before May 1972." Nixon said the visit was not intended to harm the interests of others. He concluded, "I have taken this action because of my profound conviction that all nations will gain from a reduction of tensions and a better relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Click here to read the statement. Video of the announcement is available on the USC U.S.-China Institute's YouTube channel .

Nixon and Kissinger to the White House staff: July 19, 1971

The President and Dr. Kissinger spoke to the White House staff about their China initiative. Nixon began, "Let me put it in the context of the secrecy problem: Without secrecy, there would have been no invitation or acceptance to visit China. Without secrecy, there is no chance of success in it." He emphasized this point, saying "The China meeting will abort if there is not total secrecy." We have to deal with China, Nixon said. "They're not a military power now but 25 years from now they will be decisive. For us not to do now what what we can do to end this total isolation would leave things very dangerous." Kissinger echoed the need for secrecy, beginning, "The most impressive thing we can do as far as the Chinese are concerned is to shut up." Click here to read the document.

Now for the Nixon Trip The Nixon White House soon began preparing for the President's trip. You can watch Nixon aides Dwight Chapin, Larry Higby, and Jack Brennan discuss these preparations at the USC U.S.-China Institute website or at our YouTube channel .

UPDATED: July 7, 2021

• Richard Nixon
• Henry Kissinger
• ping pong diplomacy

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A secret trip by Henry Kissinger grew into a half-century-long relationship with China

FILE - Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, meets with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. Official China called Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been more often at odds over the decades than not. Kissinger, who died Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life.(Thomas Peter/Pool Photo via AP, File)

FILE - Chinese President Xi Jinping, left, shakes hands with former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, right, after Kissinger introduced him, Tuesday, Sept. 22, 2015, at a banquet in Seattle. Official China called Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been more often at odds over the decades than not. Kissinger, who died Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life.(AP Photo/Ted S. Warren, File)

FILE- Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger addresses a dinner, hosted by the National Committee on US-China Relations and the US-China Business Council, at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel Wednesday, Sept. 22, 2010, in New York. Official China called Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been more often at odds over the decades than not. Kissinger, who died Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life. (AP Photo/Jason DeCrow, File)

FILE - From left, then U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Chinese Deputy Prime Minister Deng Xiaoping and White House Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld react during a banquet at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing in Nov. 1974. Official China called Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been more often at odds over the decades than not. Kissinger, who died Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - Henry Kissinger, third from left walks behind then U.S. President Nixon and China’s Premier Chou En-Lai as they review troops at the Beijing Airport Saturday, Feb. 26, 1972. Official China called Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been more often at odds over the decades than not. Kissinger, who died Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life.(AP Photo, File)

FILE - Henry Kissinger, third from left sits in as then United States President Nixon third from right meets with Chinese Premier Chou En-Lai, second from right, in Beijing on Feb. 21, 1972. Official China called Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been more often at odds over the decades than not. Kissinger, who died Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life.(AP Photo, File)

FILE - Then Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping, right, listens as then U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger speaks during their meeting in Beijing, Nov. 27, 1974. Official China called Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been more often at odds over the decades than not. Kissinger, who died Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life. (AP Photo, File)

FILE - Then Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, center, uses chopsticks to dine at a welcoming banquet next to Chinese Premier Deng Xiaoping at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, on Nov. 27, 1974. Official China called Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been more often at odds over the decades than not. Kissinger, who died Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life.(AP Photo/BD, File)

FILE - Chairman Mao Zedong shakes hands with then United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in Beijing, Nov. 12, 1973. Official China called Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been more often at odds over the decades than not. Kissinger, who died Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life.(AP Photo, File)

FILE - Then Chinese Vice Premier Li Lanqing, left, plays table tennis with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, right, at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse in Beijing on Sunday, March 18, 2001. Official China called Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been more often at odds over the decades than not. Kissinger, who died Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life.(Yao Dawei, Xinhua via AP photo)

FILE - Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, left, poses with then Chinese President Jiang Zemin, right, in Beijing on Wednesday, June 18, 1997. Official China called Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been more often at odds over the decades than not. Kissinger, who died Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life. (Liu Shao-Shan, Xinhua/ via AP Photo, File)

FILE - Former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger introduces then China’s President Hu Jintao, to leaders from the private and public sectors, Thursday, Jan. 20, 2011 in Washington, at a luncheon co-hosted by the US-China Business Council. Official China called Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been more often at odds over the decades than not. Kissinger, who died Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life.(AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais, File)

FILE - In this photo released by China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, left, meets with Chinese State Councilor Wang Yi in Beijing, Wednesday, July 19, 2023. Official China called Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been more often at odds over the decades than not. Kissinger, who died Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life. (Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Republic of China via AP, File)

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BEIJING (AP) — Official China called Henry Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been at odds more often than not over the decades.

Kissinger, who died Wednesday , developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life. It started with a secret trip in 1971, when he feigned illness while at a meeting in Pakistan and flew undercover to Beijing for unprecedented talks that led to U.S. President Richard Nixon’s groundbreaking visit the next year.

For that act, he is remembered positively in China as an envoy who was willing to overlook ideological differences at the height of the Cold War and to engineer a rapprochement that over time brought communist-ruled China fully back into the family of nations. Many Chinese people mourned Kissinger’s death on social media.

“This is one of the main reasons for him to be revered,” Zhao Minghao, an international relations professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, said. “He helped Nixon open China’s door and promoted a thaw in China-U.S. relations.”

The willingness to overlook differences took on renewed importance in recent years as U.S.-China relations frayed and attacks on China mounted from both Democrats and Republicans in Washington. Kissinger made more than 100 trips to China, according to the Chinese government, and was welcomed as an American it could talk to; as recently as July, he was met by China’s leader Xi Jinping .

“At present, there is no one in the U.S. who can have frank, face-to-face talks with the highest Chinese leader, who understands China and who can be the next ‘giant panda,’” commentator Shi Shusi said, likening Kissinger to the animal that has become an international symbol of Chinese diplomacy.

“He was the giant panda the U.S. sent to China — rare and friendly,” Shi said. “Since the U.S. doesn’t have such an animal, Kissinger played giant panda.”

An editorial in the state-run Global Times newspaper called Kissinger’s death “a tremendous loss for China-U.S. relations.” It criticized the current direction of U.S. policy toward China under the headline: “May there be successors to Henry Kissinger in the U.S.”

Over the years, Kissinger met every top leader of communist China, from founder Mao Zedong to economic reformer Deng Xiaoping and Presidents Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Xi.

Following the Chinese military crackdown on democracy protests in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square , Kissinger met Jiang three times between 1989 and 1991 as China worked to mend its relations with the United States.

Wang Jisi, an international relations scholar, wrote last month that Kissinger had played a role in the release of Harry Wu , a Chinese American rights advocate detained by Beijing in 1995. According to Wang, Kissinger downplayed Wu’s importance and said it would not be worthwhile for U.S.-China relations to sour over one person. China deported Wu soon after.

“The role for people like Kissinger is not to advise the government but use their own wisdom, connections and experience to serve the long-term interests of their country by shuttling among the politicians and businesspeople of different countries,” Wang said in an article posted on the official news site of Peking University.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met Chinese officials in Beijing in June , said he sought Kissinger’s advice when he “was traveling to China more than 50 years after his transformative trip.”

Kissinger’s meetings with China’s leaders made the top headlines in state media, contributing to his fame among the general public, said Zhang Feng, a former journalist who is a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York.

His realpolitik approach resonated with many Chinese, who admired his ability to set aside values and negotiate back and forth among several countries with ease, Zhang said.

Then-Defense Minister Li Shangfu met with Kissinger on his July trip to Beijing — after turning down a request to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in the spring. Xi hosted the elder statesman at Villa No. 5 of the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, where Kissinger had met then-Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai more than 50 years ago.

The 1971 trip to Beijing was a risky one for both the Chinese and U.S. governments. They were on opposite sides of the Cold War, and the U.S. officially recognized a Taiwan-based administration as the government for all of China.

Kissinger, who was national security advisor at the time and later secretary of state, held ultimately successful talks with Zhou that paved the way for Nixon’s visit.

“We never forget our old friends, nor your historic contributions to promoting the growth of China-U.S. relations and enhancing friendship between the two peoples,” Xi told his 100-year-old friend.

Tang reported from Washington. Associated Press researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed to this report.

A Secret Trip by Henry Kissinger Grew Into a Half-Century-Long Relationship With China

Henry Kissinger is being remembered positively in China as an envoy who was willing to overlook ideological differences at the height of the Cold War and long after

Thomas Peter

FILE - Chinese President Xi Jinping, right, meets with former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at the Great Hall of the People in Beijing, China, Thursday, Nov. 8, 2018. Official China called Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been more often at odds over the decades than not. Kissinger, who died Wednesday, Nov. 29, 2023, developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life.(Thomas Peter/Pool Photo via AP, File)

BEIJING (AP) — Official China called Henry Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been at odds more often than not over the decades.

Kissinger, who died Wednesday , developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life. It started with a secret trip in 1971, when he feigned illness while at a meeting in Pakistan and flew undercover to Beijing for unprecedented talks that led to U.S. President Richard Nixon's groundbreaking visit the next year.

For that act, he is remembered positively in China as an envoy who was willing to overlook ideological differences at the height of the Cold War and to engineer a rapprochement that over time brought communist-ruled China fully back into the family of nations. Many Chinese people mourned Kissinger’s death on social media.

“This is one of the main reasons for him to be revered,” Zhao Minghao, an international relations professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, said. “He helped Nixon open China’s door and promoted a thaw in China-U.S. relations.”

The willingness to overlook differences took on renewed importance in recent years as U.S.-China relations frayed and attacks on China mounted from both Democrats and Republicans in Washington. Kissinger made more than 100 trips to China, according to the Chinese government, and was welcomed as an American it could talk to; as recently as July, he was met by China's leader Xi Jinping .

“At present, there is no one in the U.S. who can have frank, face-to-face talks with the highest Chinese leader, who understands China and who can be the next ‘giant panda,’” commentator Shi Shusi said, likening Kissinger to the animal that has become an international symbol of Chinese diplomacy.

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“He was the giant panda the U.S. sent to China — rare and friendly," Shi said. "Since the U.S. doesn’t have such an animal, Kissinger played giant panda.”

An editorial in the state-run Global Times newspaper called Kissinger's death “a tremendous loss for China-U.S. relations.” It criticized the current direction of U.S. policy toward China under the headline: “May there be successors to Henry Kissinger in the U.S.”

Over the years, Kissinger met every top leader of communist China, from founder Mao Zedong to economic reformer Deng Xiaoping and Presidents Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Xi.

Following the Chinese military crackdown on democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square , Kissinger met Jiang three times between 1989 and 1991 as China worked to mend its relations with the United States.

Wang Jisi, an international relations scholar, wrote last month that Kissinger had played a role in the release of Harry Wu , a Chinese American rights advocate detained by Beijing in 1995. According to Wang, Kissinger downplayed Wu’s importance and said it would not be worthwhile for U.S.-China relations to sour over one person. China deported Wu soon after.

“The role for people like Kissinger is not to advise the government but use their own wisdom, connections and experience to serve the long-term interests of their country by shuttling among the politicians and businesspeople of different countries,” Wang said in an article posted on the official news site of Peking University.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met Chinese officials in Beijing in June , said he sought Kissinger's advice when he “was traveling to China more than 50 years after his transformative trip.”

Kissinger's meetings with China's leaders made the top headlines in state media, contributing to his fame among the general public, said Zhang Feng, a former journalist who is a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York.

His realpolitik approach resonated with many Chinese, who admired his ability to set aside values and negotiate back and forth among several countries with ease, Zhang said.

Then-Defense Minister Li Shangfu met with Kissinger on his July trip to Beijing — after turning down a request to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in the spring. Xi hosted the elder statesman at Villa No. 5 of the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, where Kissinger had met then-Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai more than 50 years ago.

The 1971 trip to Beijing was a risky one for both the Chinese and U.S. governments. They were on opposite sides of the Cold War, and the U.S. officially recognized a Taiwan-based administration as the government for all of China.

Kissinger, who was national security advisor at the time and later secretary of state, held ultimately successful talks with Zhou that paved the way for Nixon's visit.

“We never forget our old friends, nor your historic contributions to promoting the growth of China-U.S. relations and enhancing friendship between the two peoples,” Xi told his 100-year-old friend.

Tang reported from Washington. Associated Press researcher Yu Bing in Beijing contributed to this report.

Copyright 2023 The  Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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• The Great Wager

Plots and private planes: How Henry Kissinger pulled off a secret trip to China

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• Jane Perlez
• Grace Tatter

This is Part II of The Great Wager. Click here for all five episodes.

When Jon Huntsman, Jr. was 11 years old, his father worked at the White House.

“It was a 24/7 job,” Huntsman recalls. “I had occasion to go see him, sometimes on weekends, sometimes during weekdays, because it was the only chance we had to connect.”

Huntsman would grow up to be the ambassador to Russia and China, but as a child, he was more interested in finding soda. He was on a mission to do just that when he walked into the office of Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s national security advisor.

“I walked into Henry Kissinger's office and there was busy work taking place. Bags were being packed,” Huntsman says. “Dr. Kissinger said, ‘Would you mind, young man, carrying my bag out to the driveway?’ ”

As they approached Kissinger’s car, Huntsman asked him where he was going. “Young man,” Kissinger answered, “don't tell anyone but I'm going to China.”

At 11, Huntsman couldn’t understand the import of Kissinger’s trip. Kissinger was the first American official to travel to China since the Communist Party took control two decades before.

Getting there

In order to secretly smuggle Kissinger into China, the Americans needed a friendly country to help them. They landed on Pakistan, a country congenial with both China and the United States.

For a year, the Nixon administration and China sent messages back and forth via Pakistan. But Nixon and Kissinger knew they needed an invitation to talk in person for the relationship to meaningfully move forward.

In April 1971, Nixon told Kissinger he was getting impatient. “We’re playing for very high stakes here,” Nixon said, “We have very little time left and we can’t diddle around.”

Finally, in May 1971, Nixon and Kissinger received an important letter via Pakistan inviting an American envoy to Beijing.

Kissinger was chosen to go because he and Nixon wanted very few people outside of their inner circle to know about the trip — a crucial first step in arranging a meeting between Nixon and China’s leader, Mao Zedong. But Kissinger was no China expert. He had spent most of his career at Harvard University concentrating on Europe.

He would later own up to this on a late-night television show with Dick Cavett.

“I knew nothing about China,” Kissinger said. “Not a great qualification for a secret mission but it’s absolutely true.”

To figure out his path to China via Pakistan, Kissinger called up Joseph S. Farland, a crusty former FBI agent who was serving as ambassador to Pakistan.

Kissinger ordered Farland to fly from Pakistan to Los Angeles and arranged for a private jet to take the ambassador to Palm Springs.

Being a former FBI agent, Farland tried to figure out where Kissinger got this jet. He noticed that the ashtrays had a familiar name on them: Frank Sinatra.

Kissinger greeted Farland on a Palm Springs patio, wearing short sleeves and with a drink in hand.

“I said, ‘Henry, I’ve come halfway around this damned Earth and I don’t know why,’ ”

Farland would later recall in an oral history :

“He said, ‘I want you to put me into China.’ ”

“I said, ‘I don’t think that’s very funny, Henry.’ ”

“He said, ‘It’s not funny.’ ”

However reluctantly, Farland helped Kissinger come up with a plan to sneak from Pakistan to China without alerting the press — with a flight over the Himalayas , just four and a half hours. Farland also helped Kissinger figure out a simple disguise: a fedora and sunglasses.

Farland was instructed not to tell anyone about the trip — not even his boss, the secretary of state. Kissinger and Nixon wanted the bare minimum amount of people to know.

“They were so damned secret, I don’t know whether they even talk to each other, sometimes!” Farland said.

And then, right before Kissinger was set to leave, there was a historic government leak: The Pentagon Papers, a detailed account exposing the secrets of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

The leak mostly implicated prior administrations. But a government leak was just what Kissinger and Nixon feared the most.

According to people in the Oval Office, Kissinger slammed his hand down on a table.

When Nixon was told about the leak, he said, “I’d just start right at the top and fire some people. I mean whoever, whatever department it came out of, I’d fire the top guy.”

To Kissinger and Nixon , the leak suggested that members of their own government couldn’t be trusted. And they worried that foreign governments, including China, would think America couldn’t be trusted at all.

After several weeks of intense studying and plotting, Kissinger was set to go. He told the press and other people in the White House that he was setting off on a routine tour to Asia.

When he landed in Pakistan, he feigned a stomach ache and claimed he needed a few days to recuperate — buying him the time he needed to get to China undetected.

A Pakistani diplomat drove Kissinger to the airport at 3:30 a.m. for the flight to Beijing. It was pitch dark. The diplomat didn’t even trust his own chauffeur to drive Kissinger, instead driving him personally in his teenage son’s Volkswagen Beetle with the national security adviser stuffed in the back seat.

When Kissinger’s security detail boarded the plane, there were four Chinese people in the front cabin. Not knowing where they were headed, the agents mistook them for enemies. One of the American Secret Service agents even went for his gun. But they avoided a shootout. Kissinger arrived in Beijing without incident or anyone from the media knowing.

‘The quality of childhood’

Kissinger was immediately taken with China.

“It’s one of those few experiences you have when you are an adult that has some of the quality of childhood of them, which is that everything is totally new,” he would later recall on “The Dick Cavett Show.” “And everything you saw was an experience you hadn’t had before.”

Kissinger was taken by the 600-year-old palaces and the perfectly symmetrical gardens. He was even served caviar for breakfast, he bragged to his colleagues.

At first, the Chinese were wary of Kissinger and his insistence on secrecy. Were the Americans embarrassed by the Chinese, they wondered? But Kissinger soon forged a rapport with Premier Zhou Enlai, who died a few years later from bladder cancer.

“In fact, Zhou Enlai was ideologically very hostile to us and had he lived, in the long evolution of history, in 20 years we might again find ourselves on opposite sides,” Kissinger told Dick Cavett. “At that particular moment, he was a man of extraordinary intelligence, one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met.”

The talks went surprisingly well. Kissinger enticed the Chinese with information about the Soviets that could help them with their border struggle.

But there were sticking points — namely Taiwan, the island off mainland China that the Communist Party claims as theirs. Kissinger and Zhou agreed to put Taiwan on the backburner, though Kissinger told him what he wanted to hear. Kissinger even suggested that history would be on the side of China's claim for the island, a position completely at odds with American policy. Kissinger also got nowhere on Vietnam: The Chinese would not help Nixon end the war.

But after 17 hours, the Chinese and the Americans agreed that Mao and Nixon would meet. Kissinger sent a message home from the plane: “Eureka!”

But not everyone was going to be happy to hear the news back home.

The Pentagon brass was skeptical about the new ties with China. Nixon and Kissinger largely shut the Pentagon and the State Department out of their planning. On Kissinger’s trip home, a Navy yeoman stole notes from Kissinger’s briefcase while he was sleeping to feed to the Pentagon.

When Nixon learned of the theft, he asked, “Can I ask how in the name of God do we have a yeoman having access to documents of that type?”

The content of what the yeoman stole never became public, but it highlighted disagreement in the American government about how to deal with China.

Still, Nixon was ready to let the world in on his plan. A few days after Kissinger’s meeting with Zhou, Nixon announced on live television from a California studio that he would travel to China within the next several months.

The news goes out simultaneously in very different contexts in China and in the U.S., where Americans see the president on color TV.

To Nixon, it was a huge win. After the announcement, he splurged on a rare French wine with his staff at a Hollywood restaurant. It was the kind of coup he hoped to go down into history for, and he was uncharacteristically elated.

Five decades later, Jon Huntsman, who saw Kissinger off to China as an 11-year-old, would reflect on that moment as an adult.

“In hindsight, as I learned more about the subject matter and lived it and breathed it, all I can say is 50 years ago, Nixon decided to fundamentally ignore Napoleon's advice to let China sleep,” he says, “for when it wakes, it will astonish the world.”

But in 1971, the deal wasn’t yet sealed. The Chinese and Americans still didn’t totally trust each other. And Nixon’s trip wasn’t scheduled for many months.

There was plenty of time for the Chinese to change their minds.

Want to know more? Here are some of the resources The Great Wager team consulted during reporting and production.

State Department memos

• Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XVII, China, 1969–1972

Oral histories

• Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training’s Oral History Collection
• Aijazuddin, F.S. “From a Head, Through a Head, To a Head: The Secret Channel between the US and China through Pakistan.” Oxford University Press, 2000.
• Feldstein, Mark. “Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington's Scandal Culture.” Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010.
• Hersh, Seymour M. “The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House.” Simon and Schuster, 1984.
• Isaacson, Walter. “Kissinger: A Biography.” Simon & Schuster, 1992.
• Kissinger, Henry. “White House Years.” Simon & Schuster, 2011.
• Khan, Sultan Mohammad. “Memories and Reflections of a Pakistani Diplomat.”
• London Center for Pakistani Studies." 1997.
• Macmillan, Margaret. “Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed The World.” Random House, 2008.
• Mann, James. “About Face: A History of America's Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton.” Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.
• Nixon, Richard. “RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon.” Grosset & Dunlap, 1978.
• Pomfret, John. “The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to Present.” Henry Holt and Co., 2016.
• Tofel, Richard. “‘A Federal Offense of the Highest Order’: The True Story of How the Joint Chiefs Spied on Nixon, and How He Covered It Up.” 2019.
• Tudda, Chris. “Cold War Turning Point. Nixon and China 1969 - 72.” Louisiana State University Press, 2012.
• Tyler, Patrick. “A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China.” Public Affairs, 2000.
• Xia, Yafeng. “Negotiating with the Enemy.” Indiana University Press, 2006.

Documentaries

• “History Declassified: Nixon in China.” National Security Archive, 2004
• “Nixon in China.” Compilation of Audiovisual Materials, Richard Nixon Presidential Library. 2012
• “Nixon’s China Game.” PBS. 2000.
• “Playing The China Card.” Brook Lapping TV Series. 1999.
• “Looking Back on 1972: The Diary of Nixon’s Visit to China.” Phoenix TV. 2012.

The Great Wager was reported by Jane Perlez and produced by Grace Tatter. Special thanks to The Belfer Center, The John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Luz Ding, researcher; William Burr and the National Security Archive; Susan R. Johnson, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training; Ryan Pettigrew, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library; Lucas Nichter, Texas A&M University; Roger Lewis at Ground Zero Books ; Jane Perlez’s colleagues in the Beijing bureau of The New York Times; Chas Freeman; Fredrik Logevall, Harvard University;  Amb. Winston Lord; Patrick Tyler, journalist and author; and author James Mann.

This project is funded in part by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.

The Great Wager series collage artwork is created by WBUR. Images used are from www.archives.gov, www.alamy.com and  www.istock.com .  Photo credits:  iStock.com: mphillips007/ Ensup / bndart / traveler1116 / sinopics / andDraw / Kateywhat.  alamy.com: The Color Archives / Shim Harno / 360b / INTERFOTO.  National Archives: 194412 / 194759

This segment aired on February 18, 2022.

• Ep. 1 Richard Nixon's 'crazy' idea: Make befriending the Chinese Communist Party his legacy
• Ep. 2 Plots and private planes: How Henry Kissinger pulled off a secret trip to China
• Ep. 3 Grip and grin: When Nixon met Mao
• Ep. 4 Shared secrets: How The U.S. and China worked together to spy on the Soviet Union
• Ep. 5 The break-up: Richard Nixon’s great wager reverberates from the '70s to today

Jane Perlez Host, The Great Wager Jane Perlez is the host of The Great Wager, a five-part podcast series on President Richard Nixon’s historic 1972 diplomatic trip to China.

Grace Tatter Producer, WBUR Podcasts Grace Tatter is a producer for WBUR Podcasts.

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In 1971, amid growing threats from the Soviet Union, both the U.S. and the People's Republic of China were interested in a strategic alliance. But before any public gestures could be made, both sides had to make sure, privately, the other was receptive.

This Week in China’s History : July 9, 1971

A principal adviser to the president of the United States, traveling abroad on a fact-finding mission overseas, falls ill, suddenly and unexpectedly, in the midst of a state dinner. Exhaustion and an unfamiliar diet is blamed. To recuperate, his hosts take him by motorcade to a remote villa in the hills, far from the city’s heat and from the relentlessly inquisitive press accompanying the mission. Two days later, the envoy emerges, well enough to continue his itinerary.

This is what was said to have happened in Pakistan on July 9 to 11, 1971. But that is not what happened, as was revealed soon after. The truth is, that envoy took a detour that changed the direction of many histories profoundly.

In 1971, there were no formal relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, founded in 1949. The Korean War had put soldiers of the two countries in combat against one another, and the enduring image of Sino-American relations during this era was American Secretary of State John Foster Dulles rejecting Chinese Premier Zhōu Ēnlái 周恩来’s outstretched hand at a 1954 peace conference in Geneva.

The United States perceived China and the Soviet Union as a unified bloc. Although the two Communist powers had been allies, their relationship had grown tense since the late 1950s. By the mid-1960s, amid the turmoil of the Cultural Revolution, Máo Zédōng 毛泽东 was considering how to improve relations between China and the United States to offset the increased threat of the Soviets. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in the summer of 1968 intensified ’s fear of Soviet expansionism.

That the so-called Communist World was not only divided, but deeply so, became apparent to U.S. observers in early 1969, when border disputes between China and the USSR came close to full-scale war. Dozens, at least, died on both sides in fighting over disputed islands in the Ussuri River . Soviet generals even considered launching a nuclear strike against China, according to the research of historian Chen Jian . The Chinese leadership was willing to compromise its ideological foundations to find a strategic partner.

The United States was in the same boat. Although it didn’t face hostile neighbors, a long and costly war in Vietnam had been just part of the global Cold War it waged with the USSR. An alliance, or at least a rapprochement, with China might break the Cold War stalemate.

But with no diplomatic ties, attempts to open communication were awkward, conducted through third parties like Pakistan, France, Poland, and Romania. The efforts were sometimes comical: American embassy officials in Warsaw, directed to communicate President Richard Nixon’s desire for further negotiations but not knowing for sure what their Chinese counterparts even looked like, tracked down Chinese diplomats as they exited a fashion show at the Yugoslavian embassy in Poland, shouting, in effect, “Call us!”

The ping-pong diplomacy of April 1971 was just the public tip of a diplomatic iceberg. More than 100 secret meetings had taken place between the two sides by the time the U.S. table tennis team went to China. “Yanks in Peking!” celebrated the cover of Time Magazine , but at the government level neither side wanted to risk public rebuke by extending its hand until it had confidence that the other would be receptive.

The breakthrough came in an April 1971 message from Zhou Enlai , which read in part, “The Chinese government reaffirms its willingness to receive publicly in Peking a special envoy of the U.S. (for instance, Mr Kissinger).”

Arrangements for Kissinger’s visit were completely secret. Even the American State Department was cut out of the loop after diplomats expressed concern about the repercussions of establishing relations with the PRC. Pakistan — itself embroiled in violent civil unrest that would split the country — was the medium.

The first part of the scheme was distraction. Kissinger left July 1 on a fact-finding tour of Asia, designed to be as dull and grueling as possible. A week of travel, including stops in Guam, Saigon, Bangkok, and New Delhi, preceded Kissinger’s arrival in Islamabad. By that time only one American reporter was left on the trip.

Pakistani President Yahya Khan had taken the lead in facilitating the connection between the Americans and Chinese, and he enabled “Operation Marco Polo” to be put into motion at a dinner welcoming Kissinger. During the dinner, overwhelmed by “the enervating heat of the subcontinent” and his grueling travel schedule, Kissinger took ill. Yahya Khan insisted that Kissinger be taken to a former British colonial hill station, now a government villa, called Nathia Gali, several hours’ drive from Islamabad. Some 8,000 feet in elevation, the cool climate would give Kissinger a chance to recuperate before resuming his trip.

Neither the international press, Nixon’s cabinet, nor the U.S. embassy staff that had joined Kissinger at dinner knew that the Pakistani government limousine that went to Nathia Gali was a decoy. The details of the “side trip” to China for a “principal traveler” were laid out in a secret memorandum, later declassified and published (along with many valuable documents) by the National Security Archive at George Washington University : “[B]e prepared to take steps to prevent embassy doctor from going to hill station, best way for that would probably be for Halperin to call Saunders from field station to effect that principal traveller is relaxing, feeling better, wishes to be left alone, will call doctor if needed.” The ruse was so thorough that Kissinger’s entourage kept three different calendars, to be shared with different members of the trip, to maintain the illusion.

Meanwhile, Yahya Khan’s private driver took Kissinger, three top aides, and two secret service escorts to a military airfield. By the time the Americans arrived — delayed by some misplaced car keys — it was nearly 4 a.m. Kissinger wore a large hat and sunglasses as he exited the limousine and made his way to the waiting Pakistani Airlines 707.

As the Americans climbed the stairs onto the jet, they were surprised to find that the plane was not empty. Already seated were four Chinese representatives, who had been waiting aboard for many hours while the plan was put into effect. Once secret service fears of a kidnapping were allayed, the plane began its six-hour flight to Beijing.

Once in the air, a new crisis arose: amid the secrecy, Kissinger had forgotten his bag, leaving with no clothes except what he was wearing. Kissinger had no choice but to borrow a shirt from an aide, John Holdridge, who was six inches taller. Photos of the next two days show Kissinger wearing the shirt several sizes too large…and made in Taiwan to boot!

The plane touched down at Beijing’s Capital Airport at midday on July 9 and was met by General Yè Jiànyīng 叶剑英. Over the course of 48 hours, the two sides discussed the Soviet Union and  the war in Vietnam, but most crucially for Nixon’s planned visit to go forward, the American side affirmed that it “supported neither two Chinas, nor one China — one Taiwan, nor an independent Taiwan.”

Kissinger returned to Pakistan, driving back to Islamabad via a circuitous route to feign returning from the resort at Nathia Gali. Concluding his talks in Pakistan, Kissinger made a final stop in Paris before returning to Washington.

The meeting remained secret for just a few days. On July 15, Nixon announced on American television: “Knowing of President Nixon’s expressed desire to visit the People’s Republic of China, Premier Chou Enlai, on behalf of the government of the People’s Republic of China, has extended an invitation to President Nixon to visit China. President Nixon has accepted the invitation with pleasure.”

Nixon would arrive in China for his historic visit just seven months later.

Given the enormous impact of China’s rise, sometimes forgotten in this story was that the PRC’s gains were Taiwan’s loss. “No government ever less deserved what was about to happen to it than Taiwan,” Kissinger would write in his memoirs. In less than a decade, the Republic of China changed from being a world power and close treaty ally of the United States with a permanent seat on the United Nations Security Council to a territory in diplomatic limbo, neither a country nor not a country. Given the pace of change in the 1970s, few would have expected that nearly 50 years after Kissinger’s visit, Taiwan’s status would remain unresolved.

There’s no denying that relations between the United States and China today are bad. More and more frequently, commentators are describing them as at their “lowest point since Nixon went to China,” or words to that effect. So perhaps it is helpful to remember a time, 49 years ago this week, when the two countries managed to work together — in total secrecy — to ensure a history-making event. When Nixon landed in Beijing seven months later, it was the first time a sitting U.S. president had ever visited China, setting in motion the world as we know it today.

This Week in China’s History  is a weekly column. Last week:

Hong Kong and broken promises

James Carter is Professor of History and part of the Nealis Program in Asian Studies at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia. He is the author of three books on China’s modern history, most recently Champions Day: The End of Old Shanghai . Read more

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Washington, D.C. -- Today the National Security Archive publishes for the first time the verbatim transcripts of Henry Kissinger's secret trip to China in July 1971, as part of a world wide web briefing book of 41 recently declassified U.S. documents on Sino-American communications that led to Richard Nixon's historic visit to China in February 1972, 30 years ago.  The transcripts of meetings between Kissinger and premier Zhou Enlai contradict Kissinger's memoirs and show Kissinger readily acknowledging Beijing's position that Taiwan was part of China.  Kissinger declared that "we are not advocating a `two Chinas' solution' or a `one China, one Taiwan' solution."  Only after Kissinger had taken this position would Zhou declare that he was "hopeful" about prospects for U.S.-China diplomatic relations.  In other words, without conceding to Beijing's position on Taiwan's status, it would have been most difficult for substantive discussions to continue and a presidential visit would have been most unlikely.  Kissinger made other commitments on Taiwan, e.g., to withdraw two-thirds of U.S. forces from the island once the Vietnam War had ended, but nowhere in his memoirs does he discuss these dramatic concessions.  Instead, Kissinger wrote on p. 749 of White House Years (1979) that "Taiwan was mentioned only briefly during the first session." Besides the transcripts of the Kissinger-Zhou meetings (which covered a range of issues, including Vietnam, South Asia, and Japan), the briefing book includes the first publication of U.S. records of the secret channel that the Pakistani government to provided to expedite Sino-American communications during 1970-1971.  The briefing book also documents some of Kissinger's efforts to find other channels of communication with Beijing, such as the Romanian government and French contacts with the Chinese embassy in Paris.  A record of a conversation between Nixon and Kissinger on 1 July 1971, before the secret trip, shows the president urging Kissinger to press the Chinese to keep U.S. "political visitors"--Democratic senators--away from China until Nixon had made his trip (giving an ironic twist to the notion that "only Nixon could go to China").  Nixon is also shown urging Kissinger to manipulate Chinese fears of a "resurgent Japan" and the "Soviet threat on their flank." The documents in this briefing book were compiled by William Burr, editor, The Kissinger Transcripts: The Top Secret Talks with Beijing and Moscow (New Press, 1999), for a conference on the Sino-American rapprochement that was sponsored by the George Washington University Cold War Group of the Elliott School of International Affairs, on 8-9 February 2002.  Among the participants in the conference were three veterans of the Nixon National Security Council Staff, Winston Lord, William R. Smyser, and Helmut Sonnenfeldt.  Both Lord and Smyser accompanied Kissinger during the July 1971 secret trip. Today's posting includes an audio recording of their public discussion of their experience.

The Trip that Changed the World: Commemorating Kissinger’s 1971 Secret Visit to China

On  July 8, 2021 , The Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs (CPIFA), with assistance from the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, organized a multi-part event to commemorate the 50th anniversary of Dr. Henry Kissinger’s secret trip to China. The event took place at Beijing’s Diaoyutai State Guest House and featured live remarks by  Dr. Kissinger  and  Vice President Wang Qishan .

This podcast is an abridged version of the commemorative event, and includes the following components:

Keynote |  Dr. Kissinger  and  Vice President Wang Qishan  reflect on the significance of the July 1971 visit

Panel 1 |  Eye Witnesses to History:  Participants from the 1971 Kissinger secret trip and 1972 Nixon visit discuss the visit itself and its historical importance

• Chinese Panelists:  Ambassador Lian Zhengbao  and  Ms. Nancy Tang
• American Panelists:  Ambassadors Winston Lord  and  Chas Freeman
• Moderator:  Ms. Jan Berris

About the Program

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VIDEO: A multi-part commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Henry Kissinger’s secret trip to China.

A multi-part commemoration of the 50th anniversary of Henry Kissinger's secret trip to China.

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How Kissinger pulled off a secret trip to China; Anti-China sentiment in South Korea

President Nixon and his national security adviser Henry Kissinger make contact with China. But in the midst of the Cold War, they don't want anyone to know. Jane Perlez of the New York Times reports Episode 2 of The Great Wager podcast.

And, disputes over sports and culture at the recent Beijing Winter Olympics have increased anti-China sentiment in South Korea. NPR's Anthony Kuhn reports from Seoul.

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Henry Kissinger makes surprise visit to China, meets top diplomat

China’s top diplomat hinted Wednesday to former American secretary of state Henry Kissinger, the 100-year-old who was at the heart of the United States’ rapprochement with China half a century ago, that Beijing was nostalgic for the days he was running U.S. foreign policy.

Kissinger is on an unannounced visit to Beijing that coincides with that by another former American secretary of state: John F. Kerry , now the Biden administration’s climate envoy, is in Beijing for talks aimed at kick-starting cooperation between the world’s two biggest polluters.

It also comes on the heels of Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s trip to Beijing last month , when both sides projected positivity after six months of verbal confrontation and military near misses .

But neither has the stature of Kissinger, who remains revered in China for his efforts to forge diplomatic relations between the two countries.

Opinion | My father, Henry Kissinger, is turning 100. This is his guide to longevity.

Kissinger secretly visited Beijing in 1971 to lay the groundwork for President Richard M. Nixon’s historic trip the following year, which led to rapprochement with China. The two countries official recognized each other in 1979.

On Wednesday, Wang Yi, China’s former foreign minister and now its top diplomat, greeted Kissinger, who was using a cane, in Beijing.

“It is impossible to try to transform China, and it is even more impossible to contain China,” Wang told the American, according to a Chinese report of the meeting. “U.S. policy toward China requires the diplomatic wisdom of Kissinger and the political courage of Nixon,” Wang reportedly said.

This came a day after Kissinger met Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu, according to a report by the official Xinhua News Agency that was also posted on the ministry’s website.

Blinken, China’s top diplomat discuss rivalry in effort to bolster ties

Military communications in particular are so fraught that Li refused to meet with U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin at a regional security forum in Singapore last month.

Also in June, Blinken tried to get an agreement to resume direct military-to-military communications between the United States and China. But, he said, Beijing rejected the idea despite the recent dangerous near misses .

Yet in Beijing on Tuesday, Li told Kissinger that he hoped the United States will “work with China to implement the consensus reached by the leaders of the two countries and promote the healthy and stable development of relations between the two countries and their militaries,” Xinhua said.

Li has been under U.S. sanctions since 2018 over China’s purchase of combat aircraft and equipment from Russia’s main arms exporter.

Kissinger responded that both the United States and China should eliminate misunderstandings, Xinhua reported.

“History and practice have repeatedly proven that neither the U.S. nor China can afford the cost of treating each other as opponents,” Kissinger said, according to the Chinese account. “If the two countries go to war, it will not bring any meaningful results to the people of the two countries.”

John Kerry hails China’s ‘incredible job’ on renewables, warns on coal

The State Department was aware that Kissinger was traveling to China, spokesman Matthew Miller told reporters in Washington on Tuesday.

“It actually came up in the meetings that Secretary Blinken had when we were in China,” Miller said. “The Chinese officials mentioned that he was planning to come, as he has done a number of times over the years as a private citizen. I will say he was there under his own volition, not acting on behalf of the United States government.”

Plots and private planes: How Henry Kissinger pulled off a secret trip to China

This is Part II of The Great Wager. Click here for all five episodes.

When Jon Huntsman, Jr. was 11 years old, his father worked at the White House.

“It was a 24/7 job,” Huntsman recalls. “I had occasion to go see him, sometimes on weekends, sometimes during weekdays, because it was the only chance we had to connect.”

Huntsman would grow up to be the ambassador to Russia and China, but as a child, he was more interested in finding soda. He was on a mission to do just that when he walked into the office of Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s national security advisor.

“I walked into Henry Kissinger’s office and there was busy work taking place. Bags were being packed,” Huntsman says. “Dr. Kissinger said, ‘Would you mind, young man, carrying my bag out to the driveway?’ ”

As they approached Kissinger’s car, Huntsman asked him where he was going.

“Young man,” Kissinger answered, “don’t tell anyone but I’m going to China.”

At 11, Huntsman couldn’t understand the import of Kissinger’s trip. Kissinger was the first American official to travel to China since the Communist Party took control two decades before.

Getting there

In order to secretly smuggle Kissinger into China, the Americans needed a friendly country to help them. They landed on Pakistan, a country congenial with both China and the United States.

For a year, the Nixon administration and China sent messages back and forth via Pakistan. But Nixon and Kissinger knew they needed an invitation to talk in person for the relationship to meaningfully move forward.

In April 1971, Nixon told Kissinger he was getting impatient. “We’re playing for very high stakes here,” Nixon said, “We have very little time left and we can’t diddle around.”

Finally, in May 1971, Nixon and Kissinger received an important letter via Pakistan inviting an American envoy to Beijing.

Kissinger was chosen to go because he and Nixon wanted very few people outside of their inner circle to know about the trip — a crucial first step in arranging a meeting between Nixon and China’s leader, Mao Zedong. But Kissinger was no China expert. He had spent most of his career at Harvard University concentrating on Europe.

He would later own up to this on a late-night television show with Dick Cavett.

“I knew nothing about China,” Kissinger said. “Not a great qualification for a secret mission but it’s absolutely true.”

To figure out his path to China via Pakistan, Kissinger called up Joseph S. Farland, a crusty former FBI agent who was serving as ambassador to Pakistan.

Kissinger ordered Farland to fly from Pakistan to Los Angeles and arranged for a private jet to take the ambassador to Palm Springs.

Being a former FBI agent, Farland tried to figure out where Kissinger got this jet. He noticed that the ashtrays had a familiar name on them: Frank Sinatra.

Kissinger greeted Farland on a Palm Springs patio, wearing short sleeves and with a drink in hand.

“I said, ‘Henry, I’ve come halfway around this damned Earth and I don’t know why,’ ”

Farland would later recall in an oral history :

“He said, ‘I want you to put me into China.’ ”

“I said, ‘I don’t think that’s very funny, Henry.’ ”

“He said, ‘It’s not funny.’ ”

However reluctantly, Farland helped Kissinger come up with a plan to sneak from Pakistan to China without alerting the press — with a flight over the Himalayas , just four and a half hours. Farland also helped Kissinger figure out a simple disguise: a fedora and sunglasses.

Farland was instructed not to tell anyone about the trip — not even his boss, the secretary of state. Kissinger and Nixon wanted the bare minimum amount of people to know.

“They were so damned secret, I don’t know whether they even talk to each other, sometimes!” Farland said.

And then, right before Kissinger was set to leave, there was a historic government leak: The Pentagon Papers, a detailed account exposing the secrets of U.S. involvement in the Vietnam War.

The leak mostly implicated prior administrations. But a government leak was just what Kissinger and Nixon feared the most.

According to people in the Oval Office, Kissinger slammed his hand down on a table.

When Nixon was told about the leak, he said, “I’d just start right at the top and fire some people. I mean whoever, whatever department it came out of, I’d fire the top guy.”

To Kissinger and Nixon , the leak suggested that members of their own government couldn’t be trusted. And they worried that foreign governments, including China, would think America couldn’t be trusted at all.

After several weeks of intense studying and plotting, Kissinger was set to go.

He told the press and other people in the White House that he was setting off on a routine tour to Asia.

When he landed in Pakistan, he feigned a stomach ache and claimed he needed a few days to recuperate — buying him the time he needed to get to China undetected.

A Pakistani diplomat drove Kissinger to the airport at 3:30 a.m. for the flight to Beijing. It was pitch dark. The diplomat didn’t even trust his own chauffeur to drive Kissinger, instead driving him personally in his teenage son’s Volkswagen Beetle with the national security adviser stuffed in the back seat.

When Kissinger’s security detail boarded the plane, there were four Chinese people in the front cabin. Not knowing where they were headed, the agents mistook them for enemies. One of the American Secret Service agents even went for his gun. But they avoided a shootout. Kissinger arrived in Beijing without incident or anyone from the media knowing.

‘The quality of childhood’

Kissinger was immediately taken with China.

“It’s one of those few experiences you have when you are an adult that has some of the quality of childhood of them, which is that everything is totally new,” he would later recall on “The Dick Cavett Show.” “And everything you saw was an experience you hadn’t had before.”

Kissinger was taken by the 600-year-old palaces and the perfectly symmetrical gardens. He was even served caviar for breakfast, he bragged to his colleagues.

At first, the Chinese were wary of Kissinger and his insistence on secrecy. Were the Americans embarrassed by the Chinese, they wondered? But Kissinger soon forged a rapport with Premier Zhou Enlai, who died a few years later from bladder cancer.

“In fact, Zhou Enlai was ideologically very hostile to us and had he lived, in the long evolution of history, in 20 years we might again find ourselves on opposite sides,” Kissinger told Dick Cavett. “At that particular moment, he was a man of extraordinary intelligence, one of the most intelligent people I’ve ever met.”

The talks went surprisingly well. Kissinger enticed the Chinese with information about the Soviets that could help them with their border struggle.

But there were sticking points — namely Taiwan, the island off mainland China that the Communist Party claims as theirs. Kissinger and Zhou agreed to put Taiwan on the backburner, though Kissinger told him what he wanted to hear. Kissinger even suggested that history would be on the side of China’s claim for the island, a position completely at odds with American policy. Kissinger also got nowhere on Vietnam: The Chinese would not help Nixon end the war.

But after 17 hours, the Chinese and the Americans agreed that Mao and Nixon would meet. Kissinger sent a message home from the plane: “Eureka!”

But not everyone was going to be happy to hear the news back home.

The Pentagon brass was skeptical about the new ties with China. Nixon and Kissinger largely shut the Pentagon and the State Department out of their planning. On Kissinger’s trip home, a Navy yeoman stole notes from Kissinger’s briefcase while he was sleeping to feed to the Pentagon.

When Nixon learned of the theft, he asked, “Can I ask how in the name of God do we have a yeoman having access to documents of that type?”

The content of what the yeoman stole never became public, but it highlighted disagreement in the American government about how to deal with China.

Still, Nixon was ready to let the world in on his plan. A few days after Kissinger’s meeting with Zhou, Nixon announced on live television from a California studio that he would travel to China within the next several months.

The news goes out simultaneously in very different contexts in China and in the U.S., where Americans see the president on color TV.

To Nixon, it was a huge win. After the announcement, he splurged on a rare French wine with his staff at a Hollywood restaurant. It was the kind of coup he hoped to go down into history for, and he was uncharacteristically elated.

Five decades later, Jon Huntsman, who saw Kissinger off to China as an 11-year-old, would reflect on that moment as an adult.

“In hindsight, as I learned more about the subject matter and lived it and breathed it, all I can say is 50 years ago, Nixon decided to fundamentally ignore Napoleon’s advice to let China sleep,” he says, “for when it wakes, it will astonish the world.”

But in 1971, the deal wasn’t yet sealed. The Chinese and Americans still didn’t totally trust each other. And Nixon’s trip wasn’t scheduled for many months.

There was plenty of time for the Chinese to change their minds.

Want to know more? Here are some of the resources The Great Wager team consulted during reporting and production.

State Department memos

• Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Volume XVII, China, 1969–1972

Oral histories

• Association for Diplomatic Studies & Training’s Oral History Collection
• Aijazuddin, F.S. “From a Head, Through a Head, To a Head: The Secret Channel between the US and China through Pakistan.” Oxford University Press, 2000.
• Feldstein, Mark. “Poisoning the Press: Richard Nixon, Jack Anderson, and the Rise of Washington’s Scandal Culture.” Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2010.
• Hersh, Seymour M. “The Price of Power: Kissinger in the Nixon White House.” Simon and Schuster, 1984.
• Isaacson, Walter. “Kissinger: A Biography.” Simon & Schuster, 1992.
• Kissinger, Henry. “White House Years.” Simon & Schuster, 2011.
• Khan, Sultan Mohammad. “Memories and Reflections of a Pakistani Diplomat.”
• London Center for Pakistani Studies.” 1997.
• Macmillan, Margaret. “Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed The World.” Random House, 2008.
• Mann, James. “About Face: A History of America’s Curious Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton.” Alfred A. Knopf, 2000.
• Nixon, Richard. “RN: The Memoirs of Richard Nixon.” Grosset & Dunlap, 1978.
• Pomfret, John. “The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to Present.” Henry Holt and Co., 2016.
• Tofel, Richard. “‘A Federal Offense of the Highest Order’: The True Story of How the Joint Chiefs Spied on Nixon, and How He Covered It Up.” 2019.
• Tudda, Chris. “Cold War Turning Point. Nixon and China 1969 – 72.” Louisiana State University Press, 2012.
• Tyler, Patrick. “A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China.” Public Affairs, 2000.
• Xia, Yafeng. “Negotiating with the Enemy.” Indiana University Press, 2006.

Documentaries

• “History Declassified: Nixon in China.” National Security Archive, 2004
• “Nixon in China.” Compilation of Audiovisual Materials, Richard Nixon Presidential Library. 2012
• “Nixon’s China Game.” PBS. 2000.
• “Playing The China Card.” Brook Lapping TV Series. 1999.
• “Looking Back on 1972: The Diary of Nixon’s Visit to China.” Phoenix TV. 2012.

The Great Wager was reported by Jane Perlez and produced by Grace Tatter. Special thanks to The Belfer Center, The John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University; Luz Ding, researcher; William Burr and the National Security Archive; Susan R. Johnson, Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training; Ryan Pettigrew, the Richard Nixon Presidential Library; Lucas Nichter, Texas A&M University; Roger Lewis at Ground Zero Books ; Jane Perlez’s colleagues in the Beijing bureau of The New York Times; Chas Freeman; Fredrik Logevall, Harvard University;  Amb. Winston Lord; Patrick Tyler, journalist and author; and author James Mann.

This project is funded in part by a grant from the Henry Luce Foundation.

The Great Wager series collage artwork is created by WBUR. Images used are from www.archives.gov, www.alamy.com and  www.istock.com .  Photo credits:  iStock.com: mphillips007/ Ensup / bndart / traveler1116 / sinopics / andDraw / Kateywhat.  alamy.com: The Color Archives / Shim Harno / 360b / INTERFOTO.  National Archives: 194412 / 194759

This article was originally published on WBUR.org.

Copyright 2022 NPR. To see more, visit https://www.npr.org.

China’s Xi Jinping meets with Henry Kissinger in Beijing

HONG KONG — Chin ese President Xi Jinping met with veteran U.S. diplomat Henry Kissinger in Beijing on Thursday, calling him an “old friend,” Chinese state media reported. 

Xi said the visit by Kissinger, who has been to China more than 100 times and recently turned 100, had special significance because of the two “hundreds.”

Kissinger, who was Richard Nixon’s national security adviser, made a secret trip to China to 1971 that laid the groundwork for a historic trip by the president the following year and the formalization of relations between the United States and China in 1979.

“It not only changed the two countries, but also changed the world,” Xi said, according to the state-run broadcaster CCTV.

Xi said the Chinese people value their country’s friendship with Kissinger and the U.S.

“We will never forget our old friend and your historic contribution to promoting the development of Sino-U.S. relations and enhancing the friendship between the Chinese and American peoples,” he said.

Kissinger said it was a “great honor” to visit China again, noting that his meeting with Xi at the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, where many important diplomatic events are held, was the same place where he met in 1971 with Zhou Enlai, the Chinese premier at the time.

“The relationship between the two countries is related to world peace and the progress of human society,” Kissinger said, according to CCTV.

The U.S. and China, now the world’s two largest economies, have recently experienced some of their worst relations since diplomatic ties were established amid disputes over trade, human rights and the status of Taiwan , a self-governing island that Beijing claims as its territory.

State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said this week that the Biden administration was aware of Kissinger’s visit to China but that he was acting “under his own volition, not acting on behalf of the United States government.”

Kissinger’s visit to Beijing coincided with one by John Kerry, the U.S. climate envoy , who met with senior Chinese officials but not Xi. Kerry, whose trip marked the first formal top-level climate diplomacy between the world’s two biggest carbon polluters since talks were suspended last year, ended his trip Wednesday without the two countries issuing a joint statement on climate cooperation.

Xi also did not meet with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen when she was in Beijing this month.

He did meet last month with Secretary of State Antony Blinken during his long-anticipated visit to China, which was postponed from February because of the Chin ese spy balloon incident.

Kissinger also met this week with China’s top diplomat , Wang Yi , and Defense Minister Li Shangfu , who is under U.S. sanctions and had rejected a request from the Pentagon for a meeting with Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in May on the sidelines of a security forum in Singapore. 

“U.S. policy towards China requires Kissinger-style diplomatic wisdom and Nixon-style political courage,” Wang told Kissinger during their meeting Wednesday, according to the official website of the Chinese Foreign Ministry.

Larissa Gao is a fellow on NBC’s Asia Desk, based in Hong Kong.

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Henry Kissinger's legacy: US diplomat's world changing secret trip to China

Henry kissinger, who died wednesday, developed a special relationship with china in the second half of his 100-year-long life..

Official China called Henry Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been at odds more often than not over the decades.

Kissinger, who died Wednesday, developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life. It started with a secret trip in 1971, when he feigned illness while at a meeting in Pakistan and flew undercover to Beijing for unprecedented talks that led to U.S. President Richard Nixon's groundbreaking visit the next year.

For that act, he is remembered positively in China as an envoy who was willing to overlook ideological differences at the height of the Cold War and to engineer a rapprochement that over time brought communist-ruled China fully back into the family of nations. Many Chinese people mourned Kissinger’s death on social media.

“This is one of the main reasons for him to be revered,” Zhao Minghao, an international relations professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, said. “He helped Nixon open China’s door and promoted a thaw in China-U.S. relations.”

The willingness to overlook differences took on renewed importance in recent years as U.S.-China relations frayed and attacks on China mounted from both Democrats and Republicans in Washington. Kissinger made more than 100 trips to China, according to the Chinese government, and was welcomed as an American it could talk to; as recently as July, he was met by China's leader Xi Jinping.

“At present, there is no one in the U.S. who can have frank, face-to-face talks with the highest Chinese leader, who understands China and who can be the next ‘giant panda,’” commentator Shi Shusi said, likening Kissinger to the animal that has become an international symbol of Chinese diplomacy.

“He was the giant panda the U.S. sent to China — rare and friendly," Shi said. "Since the U.S. doesn’t have such an animal, Kissinger played giant panda.”

An editorial in the state-run Global Times newspaper called Kissinger's death “a tremendous loss for China-U.S. relations.” It criticized the current direction of U.S. policy toward China under the headline: “May there be successors to Henry Kissinger in the U.S.”

Over the years, Kissinger met every top leader of communist China, from founder Mao Zedong to economic reformer Deng Xiaoping and Presidents Jiang Zemin, Hu Jintao and Xi.

Following the Chinese military crackdown on democracy protests in Beijing's Tiananmen Square, Kissinger met Jiang three times between 1989 and 1991 as China worked to mend its relations with the United States.

Wang Jisi, an international relations scholar, wrote last month that Kissinger had played a role in the release of Harry Wu, a Chinese American rights advocate detained by Beijing in 1995. According to Wang, Kissinger downplayed Wu’s importance and said it would not be worthwhile for U.S.-China relations to sour over one person. China deported Wu soon after.

ALSO READ| Video: German President made to wait for 30 minutes on aircraft after reaching Qatar

“The role for people like Kissinger is not to advise the government but use their own wisdom, connections and experience to serve the long-term interests of their country by shuttling among the politicians and businesspeople of different countries,” Wang said in an article posted on the official news site of Peking University.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who met Chinese officials in Beijing in June, said he sought Kissinger's advice when he “was traveling to China more than 50 years after his transformative trip.”

Kissinger's meetings with China's leaders made the top headlines in state media, contributing to his fame among the general public, said Zhang Feng, a former journalist who is a visiting scholar at Columbia University in New York.

His realpolitik approach resonated with many Chinese, who admired his ability to set aside values and negotiate back and forth among several countries with ease, Zhang said.

Then-Defense Minister Li Shangfu met with Kissinger on his July trip to Beijing — after turning down a request to meet with U.S. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin in the spring. Xi hosted the elder statesman at Villa No. 5 of the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse, where Kissinger had met then-Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai more than 50 years ago.

The 1971 trip to Beijing was a risky one for both the Chinese and U.S. governments. They were on opposite sides of the Cold War, and the U.S. officially recognized a Taiwan-based administration as the government for all of China.

Kissinger, who was national security advisor at the time and later secretary of state, held ultimately successful talks with Zhou that paved the way for Nixon's visit.

“We never forget our old friends, nor your historic contributions to promoting the growth of China-U.S. relations and enhancing friendship between the two peoples,” Xi told his 100-year-old friend.

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Henry Kissinger: tributes to ‘old friend’ and ‘giant of history’ mix with criticism of controversial legacy – as it happened

This live blog is now closed. For more of our reporting on Kissinger’s death, see the links below:

• ‘Towering figure’: world leaders pay tribute
• Obituary: peerless but ruthless diplomat
• Life in pictures
• 30 Nov 2023 'Sordid': a renewed look at Kissinger's interventions in Africa
• 30 Nov 2023 Peru, Pelé and Grimsby: Henry Kissinger and his curious football links
• 30 Nov 2023 Kissinger: a video obituary
• 30 Nov 2023 'Moral wretchedness': Latin America remembers his troubled legacy
• 30 Nov 2023 French and Italian leaders pay tribute to 'giant of history'
• 30 Nov 2023 Kissinger criticized over controversial legacy
• 30 Nov 2023 German chancellor says Kissinger 'remained close to his German homeland'
• 30 Nov 2023 China pays tribute to 'old friend' as Putin hails 'wise statesman'

Closing summary

Awestruck tributes and blistering takedowns: the world’s most famous diplomat drew them all out, as indeed he was able to do his entire life, commanding an audience of world leaders and the fury of civil society groups in dozens of countries who saw him as a war criminal.

If anything, when trying to read the legacy of this controversial herald of the world’s greatest democracy, perhaps it’s the gushing tributes from autocratic leaders such as Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin that speak loudest.

How the reaction played out:

Political leaders in western Europe took a careful tone , of respect for a consequential figure. The French president, Emmanuel Macron, posted: “Henry Kissinger was a giant of history. His century of ideas and of diplomacy had a lasting influence on his time and on our world.”

Widely reviled in Latin America his support of brutal rightwing dictatorships during the late 1960s and 70s, Kissinger was described by Juan Gabriel Valdés, Chile’s ambassador to the United States, as: “A man whose historical brilliance could never conceal his profound moral wretchedness.”

China paid tribute to an ‘old friend’ , as Kissinger was often described in the country. It was after a secret trip to China in 1971 to meet with the then-premier, Zhou Enlai that he started to cede rhetorical ground on the Taiwan issue, eventually leading to the US severing ties with Taiwan and formally recognising the government in Beijing instead.

In Taiwan, by contrast, some people there praised his death as “good news”. “Bless him for being Chinese in his next life,” one online commenter said.

Vladimir Putin hailed a ‘wise statesman’. In a message to Kissinger’s wife, the Russian leader said Kissinger’s name “is inextricably linked with a pragmatic foreign policy line, which at one time made it possible to achieve detente in international tensions and reach the most important Soviet-American agreements that contributed to the strengthening of global security”.

A (supportive? damning?) word from the former UK prime minister Tony Blair , whose invasion of Iraq was supported by Kissinger. Blair said Kissinger left him “in awe”:

Of course, like anyone who has confronted the most difficult problems of international politics, he was criticized at times, even denounced. But I believe he was always motivated not from a coarse ‘realpolitik’, but from a genuine love of the free world and the need to protect it. He was a problem solver, whether in respect of the cold war, the Middle East or China and its rise.”

But the last word, for now, to Rolling Stone’s headline – less for journalistic rigour than for pure heat:

Henry Kissinger, War Criminal Beloved by America’s Ruling Class, Finally Dies ”

Thank you for reading. Chris Michael, US editor (GMT)

I’ll say it again – Kissinger was the real-life Forrest Gump, present at so many key historical moments in the 20th century that he sometimes seemed like a svengali of world leaders.

Look back at 10 decades of life on the international stage – as captured by photographers:

'Sordid': a renewed look at Kissinger's interventions in Africa

The men who sat down for dinner at the Hotel Bodenmais in West Germany on 23 June 1976 were exclusively white, although the issue to be discussed was the path to majority black rule in Rhodesia , writes Peter Beaumont .

At the table was John Vorster, prime minister of apartheid South Africa. With him were ambassadors, diplomats and security officials. Pride of place, however, was reserved for the US secretary of state, Henry Kissinger , who opened the proceedings with a racially tinged joke.

It was a dinner that took place in the midst of a frantic two-year period when the world’s most high-profile diplomat – who had dismissively ignored Africa for much of his time in office in the Nixon and Ford administrations – was taken with a sudden interest in the continent.

Then, armed with a dangerous cold war logic, he applied himself to successive crises in Ethiopia, Angola and Rhodesia in the search of a quick fix to burnish a reputation that was beginning to be eclipsed. Now, his interventions in Africa are once again under the spotlight, not only for their multiple failures but for their long-lasting and dangerous consequences – in southern Africa in particular.

Read the full story:

Peru, Pelé and Grimsby: Henry Kissinger and his curious football links

Kissinger loved football and often attended games, writes Jonathan Wilson .

As a boy growing up in Bavaria, he had been a fan of his home-town club SpVgg Fürth, who were three times a German champion between 1916 and 1929. When he became security adviser to Richard Nixon in 1969, staff would include reports on the team’s games among his briefing papers on a Monday morning.

He played football as well, first as a goalkeeper and then, after breaking a bone in a hand, as an inside-forward. He devised new tactics which, in the account he gave to Brian Kilmeade in The Games Do Count, he claims were a forerunner of catenaccio , although it sounds more like just massing players behind the ball. “The system was to drive the other team nuts by not letting them score, by keeping so many people back as defenders,” he said. “It’s very hard to score when 10 players are lined up in front of goal.” That the ends were more important to him than the means comes as little surprise.

On the subject of Taiwan – and see below for our China correspondent Amy Hawkins’ reminder of the incredible fact that in 1979 Kissinger was a key figure in the US severing ties with Taiwan, and switching its formal recognition to the government in Beijing – some people there praised his death as “good news”.

“Bless him for being Chinese in his next life,” one said.

Foreign ministry officials in Taipei, however, described Kissinger as a “towering figure in the history of American diplomacy”.

The opposition Kuomintang party, which ruled the island as a Chinese government-in-exile at the time of the US switch, also offered its condolences to his family.

“We recognise Kissinger’s efforts to bring about peace and prosperity in the Indo Pacific throughout his career in and outside government,” it said in a tweet.

The message prompted incredulity and scorn from some users.

“He takes away your UNSC seat and you mourn his death. That’s … a choice,” said one.

Kissinger: a video obituary

The real-life Forrest Gump, Kissinger sometimes seemed to be involved in every major historical geopolitical event of the 1960s and 70s, and indeed his shadow stretched all the way to the presidency of Joe Biden.

Watch some of the highlights:

China’s president, Xi Jinping, expressed his condolences for the death of Kissinger, who was often described by Beijing as a “dear old friend” of China.

The foreign ministry said that China and the US should carry forward Kissinger’s “strategic vision and political courage”.

Kissinger made a secret trip to China in 1971 to meet with the then-premier, Zhou Enlai. It was on that visit that Kissinger started to cede rhetorical ground on the Taiwan issue, which was a major point of contention in establishing a rapprochement between Washington and Beijing.

At the time of Kissinger’s visit to China, the US still recognised the Republic of China, based in Taipei, as the sole government of China. Kissinger’s visit laid the groundwork for President Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing the following year, where he met Mao Zedong, China’s leader and the head of the Chinese Communist party. On Nixon’s visit, the two leaders signed the Shanghai Communique, in which both countries pledged to work towards the normalisation of diplomatic relations.

The US severed ties with Taiwan and formally recognised the government in Beijing in 1979, one of Kissinger’s most consequential legacies for China-Taiwan relations.

'Moral wretchedness': Latin America remembers his troubled legacy

In Latin America, where Kissinger is widely reviled for his support of brutal rightwing dictatorships during the late 1960s and 70s, the former US secretary of state was remembered in far harsher terms. Critics recalled the key role Kissinger had played in helping usher in 17 years of military dictatorship in Chile after the US-backed coup against Salvador Allende on 11 September 1973 brought Gen Augusto Pinochet to power. Kissinger later told Pinochet he had done “a great service to the west” by removing Chile’s democratically elected socialist president from power. “In the United States, as you know, we are sympathetic with what you are trying to do here,” Kissinger said.

Reacting to the news of Kissinger’s death, Juan Gabriel Valdés, Chile’s ambassador to the United States, tweeted: “A man whose historical brilliance could never conceal his profound moral wretchedness.”

“Another criminal who dies in total impunity,” tweeted Daniel Jadue, a prominent leftwing politician in Chile, calling Kissinger “an instigator and accomplice of slaughters in Asia, Africa and Latin America”.

Detractors also accused Kissinger of supporting Operation Condor, a vicious state campaign of torture, terror and assassination targeting opponents of the rightwing dictatorships that had seized control in South America during the 1960s, 70s and 80s in countries including Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Ecuador, Paraguay and Peru.

“Plan Condor and the war against the people of Vietnam are just two examples of Kissinger’s legacy,” Bolivia’s former ambassador to the UN, Sacha Llorenti, wrote on X.

In Brazil, whose 1964-85 dictatorship Kissinger also supported, critics remembered how the US diplomat had been forced to cancel a 1981 appearance at a university in the capital Brasília by student activists who accused him of murder.

French and Italian leaders pay tribute to 'giant of history'

Reaction from political leaders in western Europe was less negative, if not entirely gushing; the tone was one of respect for a consequential figure and a careful effort to avoid saying anything about his more controversial policies.

The French president, Emmanuel Macron, posted: “Henry Kissinger was a giant of history. His century of ideas and of diplomacy had a lasting influence on his time and on our world.”

Italy’s prime minister, Giorgia Meloni, described Henry Kissinger as a stalwart of strategic politics and world diplomacy, stating: “It has been a privilege to have recently engaged with him on various issues on the international agenda. His passing saddens us, and I express my personal condolences, as well as those of the Italian government, to his family and loved ones.”

One former leader did more directly address Kissinger’s moral legacy – the former British prime minister Tony Blair, whose invasion of Iraq in tandem with the US under George W Bush was supported by Kissinger. Blair said Kissinger left him “in awe”:

Kissinger criticized over controversial legacy

Criticism of Kissinger has flowed in equal measure. A Rolling Stone magazine headline said: “Henry Kissinger, war criminal beloved by America’s ruling class, finally dies.”

“Henry Kissinger’s bombing campaign likely killed hundreds of thousands of Cambodians — and set [a] path for the ravages of the Khmer Rouge,” Sophal Ear, a scholar at Arizona State University who studies Cambodia’s political economy, wrote on the Conversation.

“The cluster bombs dropped on Cambodia under Kissinger’s watch continue to destroy the lives of any man, woman or child who happens across them.”

The head of the independent Documentation Center of Cambodia, Youk Chhang, described Kissinger’s legacy as “controversial”.

Much more than half of the population had been born after the Khmer Rouge had been ousted in 1979 and Kissinger had left government, so there was not much awareness among Cambodians about his record, he said.

One of Kissinger’s arguably signature diplomatic accomplishments was laying the groundwork for the historic 1979 peace deal between Egypt and Israel, under Anwar Sadat and Menachem Begin respectively.

It was after the Yom Kippur War in 1973 that Kissinger popularised his “shuttle diplomacy”, acting as a jet-setting mediator to help advance incremental peace talks among the two bitter enemies. This process eventually led to the 12 days of secret talks at Camp David, the country retreat of the US president – Jimmy Carter at the time – though Kissinger was no longer in office by then to see the culmination of his efforts.

This morning in Tel Aviv, while meeting the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, the Israeli president, Isaac Herzog, said Kissinger “laid the cornerstone of the peace agreement, which [was] later signed with Egypt, and so many other processes around the world I admire.”

Blinken added that Kissinger “really set the standard for everyone who followed in this job” and that he was “very privileged to get his counsel many times, including as recently as about a month ago”.

“Few people were better students of history,” he said. “Even fewer people did more to shape history than Henry Kissinger .”

Not everyone has been nearly so effusive. On social media, some reaction to Kissinger’s passing on social media has tended more towards joyous celebration. Kissinger has often been described as a war criminal for his (frequently illegal) bombing campaigns and his history of overthrowing democratically elected governments in other countries, all the in the name of serving American interests.

In New York City last night at the corner of 5th Avenue and 53rd Street, at least some of the protesters gathered to protest against the Israel-Hamas war reacted with jubilation when an organiser announced Kissinger’s death, after declaring that the largest transfer of military assistance to Israel happened under his watch.

Protestors cheer upon learning Henry Kissinger died pic.twitter.com/lTkBuAJO0P — katie smith (@probablyreadit) November 30, 2023

German chancellor says Kissinger 'remained close to his German homeland'

As well as Putin, China and the US, leaders of Kissinger’s native Germany paid tribute. A Jew who fled Nazi rule with his family in his teens, Kissinger’s distinctive Bavarian accent made his pronouncements unmistakeable.

“His commitment to the transatlantic friendship between the USA and Germany was significant, and he always remained close to his German homeland,” Chancellor Olaf Scholz wrote on X.

In a message of condolences to Kissinger’s family, President Frank-Walter Steinmeier wrote that “with his détente and disarmament policy, Henry Kissinger laid the foundation for the end of the Cold War and the democratic transition in eastern Europe” which led to Germany’s reunification.

China pays tribute to 'old friend' as Putin hails 'wise statesman'

The death of former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger , the celebrity diplomat who popularised the concepts of realpolitik and shuttle diplomacy, has triggered a torrent of tributes and criticism alike for a record that is as outsized as the anger he still inspires.

The death at 100 of a diplomatic giant, who told the BBC that at the age of 10 years old he remembered hearing the news that Adolf Hitler had been elected and who went on to advise 12 presidents from John F Kennedy to Joe Biden, ended decades of influence long after his official service to US presidents Nixon and Ford through his unique geopolitical consulting firm, Kissinger Associates .

His complicated legacy was reflected by the range of glowing praise that spilled out after his death – not just from former US presidents, but from China and Vladimir Putin, the Russian president.

Praised for negotiating the US reopening to what was then a closed China, and securing the US exit from the punishing war in Vietnam – for which he jointly won the Nobel peace prize – Kissinger has also been called a war criminal. He supported Indonesia’s military dictator in the invasion of East Timor and backed the invasion of Angola by the apartheid regime in South Africa. Perhaps most notoriously, he worked with the CIA to overthrow the democratically elected president of Chile, Salvador Allende , in a coup that installed the brutal dictator Augusto Pinochet.

“America has lost one of the most dependable and distinctive voices” on foreign affairs, said former US president George W Bush. “I have long admired the man who fled the Nazis as a young boy from a Jewish family, then fought them in the United States army. When he later became secretary of state, his appointment as a former refugee said as much about his greatness as it did America’s greatness.”

In China, foreign ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin called Kissinger an “old friend and good friend of the Chinese people, and a pioneer and builder of China-US relations”.

Vladimir Putin, meanwhile, said in a message to Kissinger’s wife that he was “a wise and far-sighted statesman” and his name “is inextricably linked with a pragmatic foreign policy line, which at one time made it possible to achieve detente in international tensions and reach the most important Soviet-American agreements that contributed to the strengthening of global security”.

Good morning, I’m Chris Michael in London. We’ll bring you the latest reactions to Kissinger’s death as we get them.

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U.S.-China competition to build drone swarms could fuel global arms race, analysts say

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As their rivalry intensifies, U.S. and Chinese military planners are gearing up for a new kind of warfare in which squadrons of air and sea drones equipped with artificial intelligence work together like swarms of bees to overwhelm an enemy.

The planners envision a scenario in which hundreds, even thousands of the machines engage in coordinated battle. A single controller might oversee dozens of drones. Some would scout, others attack. Some would be able to pivot to new objectives in the middle of a mission based on prior programming rather than a direct order.

The world’s only AI superpowers are engaged in an arms race for swarming drones that is reminiscent of the Cold War, except drone technology will be far more difficult to contain than nuclear weapons. Because software drives the drones’ swarming abilities, it could be relatively easy and cheap for rogue nations and militants to acquire their own fleets of killer robots.

The Pentagon is pushing urgent development of inexpensive, expendable drones as a deterrent against China acting on its territorial claim on Taiwan. Washington says it has no choice but to keep pace with Beijing. Chinese officials say AI-enabled weapons are inevitable, so they, too, must have them.

The unchecked spread of swarm technology “could lead to more instability and conflict around the world,” said Margarita Konaev, an analyst with Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

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As the undisputed leaders in the field, Washington and Beijing are best equipped to set an example by putting limits on military uses of drone swarms. But their intense competition, China’s military aggression in the South China Sea and persistent tensions over Taiwan make the prospect of cooperation look dim.

The idea is not new. The United Nations has tried for more than a decade to advance drone nonproliferation efforts that could include limits such as forbidding the targeting of civilians or banning the use of swarms for ethnic cleansing.

Drones have been a priority for both powers for years, and each side has kept its advances secret, so it’s unclear which country might have an edge.

It’s not clear how many drones a single person would control. A spokesman for the Defense secretary declined to say, but a recently published Pentagon-backed study offers a clue: A single operator supervised a swarm of more than 100 cheap air and land drones in late 2021 in an urban warfare exercise at an Army training site at Ft, Campbell, Tenn.

Not to be outdone, China’s military claimed last year that dozens of aerial drones “self-healed” after jamming cut their communications. An official documentary said they regrouped, switched to self-guidance and completed a search-and-destroy mission unaided, detonating explosive-laden drones on a target.

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A year ago, CIA Director William Burns said Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping had instructed his military to “be ready by 2027” to invade Taiwan. But that doesn’t mean an invasion is likely.

Just before he died last year, former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger urged Beijing and Washington to work together to discourage AI arms proliferation. They have “a narrow window of opportunity,” he said.

Xi and President Biden made a verbal agreement in November to set up working groups on AI safety, but that effort has so far taken a backseat to the arms race for autonomous drones.

The competition is not apt to build trust or reduce the risk of conflict, said William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

If the U.S. is “going full speed ahead, it’s most likely China will accelerate whatever it’s doing,” Hartung said.

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There’s a risk China could offer swarm technology to U.S. foes or repressive countries, analysts say. Or it could be stolen. Other countries developing the tech, such as Russia, Israel, Iran and Turkey, could also spread the know-how.

U.S. national security advisor Jake Sullivan said in January that U.S.-China talks set to begin sometime this spring will address AI safety. Neither the Defense secretary’s office nor the National Security Council would comment on whether the military use of drone swarms might be on the agenda.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Military analysts, drone makers and AI researchers don’t expect fully capable, combat-ready swarms to be fielded for five years or so, though big breakthroughs could happen sooner.

“The Chinese have an edge in hardware right now. I think we have an edge in software,” said Chief Executive Adam Bry of U.S. drone maker Skydio, which supplies the Army, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the State Department, among other agencies.

Chinese military analyst Song Zhongping said the U.S. has “stronger basic scientific and technological capabilities” but added that the American advantage is not “impossible to surpass.”

Paul Scharre, an AI expert at the Center for a New American Security think tank, believes the rivals are at rough parity.

“The bigger question for each country is about how do you use a drone swarm effectively?” he said.

That’s one reason attention is fixed on the war in Ukraine, where drones work as eyes in the sky to make undetected frontline maneuvers all but impossible. They also dispatch death from the sky and serve as sea-skimming ship killers.

Drones in Ukraine are often lost to jamming. Electronic interference is just one of multiple challenges for drone swarm development.

Researchers are also focused on the difficult logistics of marshaling hundreds of air and sea drones over vast expanses of the western Pacific for a potential war over Taiwan.

Julie Adams, an Oregon State University robotics professor, has collaborated with the U.S. military on drone-swarm research including the 2021 exercise at Ft. Campbell.

She said she was particularly impressed with a swarm commander in an exercise last year at Fort Moore, Ga., who single-handedly managed a 45-drone swarm over 2½ hours with just 20 minutes of training.

“It was a pleasant surprise,” she said.

Was he a video game player, she was asked.

Yes, she said. “And he had a VR headset at home.”

Bajak writes for the Associated Press. AP writer Zen Soo in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

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US-China competition to field military drone swarms could fuel global arms race

In this photo from the Defense Visual Information Distribution Service, British soldiers launch a drone during Project Convergence exercises at Fort Irwin, Calif., on Nov. 4, 2022. With tensions high over Taiwan, U.S. and Chinese military planners are readying themselves for a new kind of war where battleships, fighter jets and amphibious landings cede prevalence to squadrons of AI-enabled air and sea drones. (DVIDS via AP)

In this photo from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, drones and participants in a Defense Department urban warfare exercise pose at Fort Campbell, Tenn., on Nov., 2021. A single operator supervised a swarm of more than 100 cheap, unscrewed air and land drones at the exercise. With tensions high over Taiwan, U.S. and Chinese military planners are readying themselves for a new kind of war where battleships, fighter jets and amphibious landings cede prevalence to squadrons of AI-enabled air and sea drones. (DARPA via AP)

In this photo from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, drones fly in a Defense Department urban warfare exercise at Fort Campbell, Tenn., in Nov., 2021. A single operator supervised a swarm of more than 100 cheap, unscrewed air and land drones at the exercise. With tensions high over Taiwan, U.S. and Chinese military planners are readying themselves for a new kind of war where battleships, fighter jets and amphibious landings cede prevalence to squadrons of AI-enabled air and sea drones. (DARPA via AP)

By FRANK BAJAK (AP Technology Writer)

As their rivalry intensifies, U.S. and Chinese military planners are gearing up for a new kind of warfare in which squadrons of air and sea drones equipped with artificial intelligence work together like a swarm of bees to overwhelm an enemy.

The planners envision a scenario in which hundreds, even thousands of the machines engage in coordinated battle. A single controller might oversee dozens of drones. Some would scout, others attack. Some would be able to pivot to new objectives in the middle of a mission based on prior programming rather than a direct order.

The world’s only AI superpowers are engaged in an arms race for swarming drones that is reminiscent of the Cold War, except drone technology will be far more difficult to contain than nuclear weapons. Because software drives the drones’ swarming abilities, it could be relatively easy and cheap for rogue nations and militants to acquire their own fleets of killer robots.

The Pentagon is pushing urgent development of inexpensive, expendable drones as a deterrent against China acting on its territorial claim on Taiwan. Washington says it has no choice but to keep pace with Beijing. Chinese officials say AI-enabled weapons are inevitable so they, too, must have them.

The unchecked spread of swarm technology “could lead to more instability and conflict around the world,” said Margarita Konaev, an analyst with Georgetown University’s Center for Security and Emerging Technology.

As the undisputed leaders in the field, Washington and Beijing are best equipped to set an example by putting limits on military uses of drone swarms. But their intense competition, China’s military aggression in the South China Sea and persistent tensions over Taiwan make the prospect of cooperation look dim.

The idea is not new. The United Nations has tried for more than a decade to advance drone non-proliferation efforts that could include limits such as forbidding the targeting of civilians or banning the use of swarms for ethnic cleansing.

Drones have been a priority for both powers for years, and each side has kept its advances secret, so it’s unclear which country might have an edge.

It’s not clear how many drones a single person would control. A spokesman for the defense secretary declined to say, but a recently published Pentagon-backed study offers a clue: A single operator supervised a swarm of more than 100 cheap air and land drones in late 2021 in an urban warfare exercise at an Army training site at Fort Campbell, Tennessee.

Not to be outdone, China’s military claimed last year that dozens of aerial drones “self-healed” after jamming cut their communications. An official documentary said they regrouped, switched to self-guidance and completed a search-and-destroy mission unaided, detonating explosive-laden drones on a target.

A year ago , CIA Director William Burns said Chinese Communist Party leader Xi Jinping had instructed his military to “be ready by 2027” to invade Taiwan. But that doesn’t mean an invasion is likely.

Just before he died last year , former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger urged Beijing and Washington to work together to discourage AI arms proliferation. They have “a narrow window of opportunity,” he said.

Xi and President Joe Biden made a verbal agreement in November to set up working groups on AI safety, but that effort has so far taken a back seat to the arms race for autonomous drones.

The competition is not apt to build trust or reduce the risk of conflict, said William Hartung, a senior research fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft.

If the U.S. is “going full speed ahead, it’s most likely China will accelerate whatever it’s doing,” Hartung said.

There’s a risk China could offer swarm technology to U.S. foes or repressive countries, analysts say. Or it could be stolen. Other countries developing the tech, such as Russia, Israel, Iran and Turkey, could also spread the know-how.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan said in January that U.S.-China talks set to begin sometime this spring will address AI safety . Neither the defense secretary’s office nor the National Security Council would comment on whether the military use of drone swarms might be on the agenda.

The Chinese Foreign Ministry did not respond to a request for comment.

Military analysts, drone makers and AI researchers don’t expect fully capable, combat-ready swarms to be fielded for five years or so, though big breakthroughs could happen sooner.

“The Chinese have an edge in hardware right now. I think we have an edge in software,” said CEO Adam Bry of U.S. drone maker Skydio, which supplies the Army, the Drug Enforcement Agency and the State Department, among other agencies.

Chinese military analyst Song Zhongping said the U.S. has “stronger basic scientific and technological capabilities” but added that the American advantage is not “impossible to surpass.”

Paul Scharre, an AI expert at the Center for a New American Security think tank, believes the rivals are at rough parity.

“The bigger question for each country is about how do you use a drone swarm effectively?” he said.

That’s one reason attention is fixed on the war in Ukraine, where drones work as eyes in the sky to make undetected front-line maneuvers all but impossible. They also dispatch death from the sky and serve as sea-skimming ship killers.

Drones in Ukraine are often lost to jamming. Electronic interference is just one of multiple challenges for drone swarm development.

Researchers are also focused on the difficult logistics of marshaling hundreds of air and sea drones over vast expanses of the western Pacific for a potential war over Taiwan.

Julie Adams, an Oregon State University robotics professor, has collaborated with the U.S. military on drone-swarm research including the 2021 exercise at Fort Campbell.

She said she was particularly impressed with a swarm commander in an exercise last year at Fort Moore, Georgia, who single-handedly managed a 45-drone swarm over 2.5 hours with just 20 minutes of training.

“It was a pleasant surprise,” she said.

A reporter had to ask: Was he a video game player?

Yes, she said. “And he had a VR headset at home.”

Associated Press Writer Zen Soo in Hong Kong contributed to this report.

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Xi Meets With Russia’s Foreign Minister, Reaffirming Ties

The visit came days after the U.S. threatened new sanctions against Chinese companies if they aided Russia’s war in Ukraine.

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By David Pierson and Ivan Nechepurenko

China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey V. Lavrov, met in Beijing on Tuesday, in a session seen as laying the groundwork for an expected visit to China by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia and pushing back against mounting pressure from the United States and its allies.

Mr. Lavrov’s visit came just days after Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen warned of “significant consequences” if Chinese companies provided material support for Russia’s war in Ukraine. It also took place as President Biden was set to host the leaders of Japan and the Philippines on Wednesday to boost economic and security ties to counter China’s growing assertiveness in Asia.

Earlier in the day, Mr. Lavrov met with his Chinese counterpart, Wang Yi, and said the two sides had talked about deepening security ties to resist the West’s “anti-Chinese” and “anti-Russian orientation.” In a sign of the Kremlin’s continued deference to China, Mr. Lavrov reaffirmed Russia’s rejection of any “outside interference” over Beijing’s claims to the de facto independent island of Taiwan.

“There is no place for dictatorships, hegemony, neocolonial and colonial practices, which are now being widely used by the United States and the rest of the ‘collective West,’” Mr. Lavrov said.

Mr. Wang’s remarks were more measured — a reflection of China’s difficult balancing act in supporting Russia while also trying to avoid alienating important trading partners in Western Europe.

China’s top diplomat did not mention the United States by name, a common practice by Chinese officials, and instead called for Russia and China to “oppose all hegemonic and bullying behaviors” and “oppose the Cold War mentality.”

Mr. Xi and Mr. Putin declared a “no limits” partnership in February 2022, days before Russian forces invaded Ukraine. While China has cast itself as neutral, its tacit support for the war underscores how it still needs close ties with Russia to weaken the global dominance of its chief competitor, the United States.

Moscow, by aligning closely with Beijing, wants to demonstrate that it is not globally isolated despite its invasion of Ukraine. China provides Russia with diplomatic cover and an economic lifeline by purchasing Russian oil, gas and coal, and by selling Chinese consumer goods and technology to Russia.

Together, the two sides have tried to forge an alternative world order by marshaling support from the developing world through multilateral organizations like the Shanghai Cooperation Organization and BRICS , a group named for Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa that promotes economic and political ties.

Russia and China have also garnered support from countries such as Iran and North Korea which oppose the West and have a shared interest in weakening the power of U.S. sanctions and the role of human rights in global politics.

Mr. Putin is expected to visit China, perhaps as soon as next month. A date has yet to be confirmed, though the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, told journalists on Tuesday that Mr. Lavrov’s visit could be considered as “preparation for contacts at the highest level.”

David Pierson covers Chinese foreign policy and China’s economic and cultural engagement with the world. He has been a journalist for more than two decades. More about David Pierson

Ivan Nechepurenko covers Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the countries of the Caucasus, and Central Asia. He is based in Moscow. More about Ivan Nechepurenko

Our Coverage of the War in Ukraine

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The top American military commander in Europe warned that Ukraine could lose the war with Russia  if the United States did not send more ammunition to Ukrainian forces, and fast.

Ukrainian lawmakers passed a mobilization law aimed at replenishing the nation’s exhausted and depleted fighting forces .

China’s top leader, Xi Jinping, and Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, met in Beijing . The visit came days after the United States threatened new sanctions against Chinese companies if they aided Russia’s war in Ukraine.

Hollowing Out a Generation:  Ukraine desperately needs new recruits, but it is running up against a critical demographic constraint long in the making: It has very few young men .

Conditional Support: Ukraine wants a formal invitation to join NATO, but the alliance has no appetite for taking on a new member  that would draw it into the biggest land war in Europe since 1945.

‘Shell Hunger’: A desperate shortage of munitions in Ukraine  is warping tactics and the types of weapons employed, and what few munitions remain are often mismatched with battlefield needs.

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