The Great Wall

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Archive on 4: The Great Wall

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Rana Mitter traces the story of US-China relations in the 50 years since Nixon's visit.

50 years on from US President Richard Nixon's historic visit to China, historian Rana Mitter rediscovers how the US-China relationship blossomed - and withered.

50 years on from US President Nixon's historic visit to China, historian Rana Mitter rediscovers how the relationship blossomed - and withered. 

That visit is commemorated in the opera Nixon in China. But Rana mines the archives to recover the importance of what happened next - like Deng Xiaoping's visit to America in 1979, culminating in a trip to a rodeo in Texas and the establishment of diplomatic ties. He traces the relationship through the visits that followed Nixon's - Ford in China, Reagan in China, Clinton in China. He talks to key players about the encounters that ensued, from anticommunist protestors throwing dead mice to Chinese visitors' enthusiasm for Disneyland - but horror at its haunted house.

The warming-up in relations took place in the shadow of the perceived threat of the Soviet Union; even the 1989 massacre of pro-democracy protestors in Beijing's Tiananmen Square did not bring it to an end. Rana explores how the US moved secretly to preserve its relationship with China, and how this led to an astonishing 1998 debate about the nature of democracy between Bill Clinton and Jiang Zemin, broadcast live on Chinese TV. He talks to Robert Zoellick, who played a key role in talks which brought China into the WTO.

Finally, we trace how China's rising economic power and its increasingly assertive geopolitical presence have led US administrations, under Trump and Biden alike, to question the Nixon project - even as Nixon himself remains highly-regarded in China. Rana asks General H.R. McMaster, US National Security Advisor 2017-18, why the Trump administration decided the whole engagement process was a mistake.

With: Jan Berris, General H.R. McMaster, Orville Schell, Susan Shirk, Wang Huiyao, Yu Jie, Robert Zoellick

Producer: Phil Tinline

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