Word: nixons
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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Little more than a week before the latest title shuffle, Deng and other officials met with one of modern China's closest American friends, Richard Nixon. During the visit, the former President told his hosts that "many in the U.S. believe the crackdown was excessive and unjustified . . . and damaged the respect and confidence which most Americans previously had for the leaders of China." Nonetheless, Nixon feels strongly that the U.S. must rebuild its relations with China. Last week TIME obtained a copy of a report Nixon sent to a bipartisan group of congressional leaders. Some excerpts...
During his 1988 presidential campaign, Sen. Paul Simon (D-III.) said, "Just as it took Nixon to go to China, it might take a liberal Democrat to change Social Security...
...began by taking on Premier Li Peng, whom he had pointedly not asked to meet. In a private session, Nixon reportedly deleted no vitriolics in expressing American outrage over the regime's crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators last June. To end the current impasse, he suggested, the two nations should halt their recriminations and propose mutual talking points. He threw out the first one: "When I go to the embassy, I hope there will not be guards with AK-47s outside." Li retorted that the troops had been posted there to prevent the escape of dissident Fang Lizhi...
...Nixon's suggestions for restoring the relationship fell on deaf ears. Deng was unyielding during his three hours of talks with Nixon. China, he contended, had not done "one thing harmful" to the U.S. "But the U.S. was involved too deeply in the turmoil and counterrevolutionary rebellion," he lectured. Although Deng expressed a strong desire to repair the damaged ties, he insisted "it is up to the U.S. to take the initiative...
...that attitude existed back in 1972, there would have been no embassy here," Nixon commented later. Echoing George Bush's announcement of a meeting with Mikhail Gorbachev, Nixon likened his discussions with China's leaders to "two ships passing in the night...