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Nixon-Mao at 50

The historic 1972 meeting between the US and Chinese leaders arguably indicated that there could be no permanent peace in the world unless the two countries were able to work together. At the same time, open societies must never forget that democratic values remain a better long-term bet than totalitarianism.

LONDON – In Seize the Hour, her excellent book about the first meeting between US President Richard Nixon and Communist Party of China Chairman Mao Zedong in Beijing, the historian Margaret MacMillan enumerated some of the profound implications of this extraordinary encounter. The meeting, which took place 50 years ago this month, ended a long political standoff between the United States and communist China, and marked the beginning of a new geopolitical era. And it indicated, perhaps, that there could be no permanent peace in the world unless China and America were able to work together.

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