Exchange Database
January 1, 1944
In 1944 President Roosevelt asked Vice President Wallace to make an ambitious and dangerous trip to China and the Soviet Union. FDR asked him to foster greater cooperation between Chiang Kai-shek and the Communist forces in China and to prod the Nationalists into stepping up their campaign against the Japanese.
July 1, 1947
President Truman sent General Wedemeyer back to China on a special mission to assess the current conditions in China’s civil war.
January 1, 1954
In spite of Dulles’s snub of Zhou, the U.S. and PRC Ambassadors in Geneva began a long-standing tradition of holding occasional, highly formalized talks.The talks shifted location to Warsaw in 1958.
August 1, 1957
A group of 41 U.S. students who had been participating in the 6th World Festival of Youth and Students decided to journey to the People’s Republic of China. Most of the group stayed into October, touring Beijing and other cities in the country.
June 1, 1960
President Dwight Eisenhower met with Jiang Jieshi in Taiwan in June of 1960.
April 6, 1971
While at an international table tennis competition in Japan, a U.S. player ended up riding on the Chinese team bus. Shortly thereafter, the Chinese invited the U.S. team to visit Beijing, and the U.S. Government approved.
July 9, 1971
After several rounds of backdoor diplomacy through go-betweens, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger made a secret trip to the PRC in order to meet with Zhou Enlai and other senior Chinese leaders to pave the way for a visit by President Nixon.
February 21, 1972
President Nixon arrived in Beijing as the first American head of state ever to set foot on the Chinese Mainland. Nixon, Kissinger, and others met with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai, and at the end of the weeklong visit the two sides issued the Shanghai Communiqué. In this document the United States and China stated their positions on a number of issues, including joint opposition to the Soviet Union, the U.S. intention to withdraw its military from Taiwan, and U.S. support for a “peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves.”
January 1, 1973
The United States and China established Liaison Offices in Beijing and Washington.
June 23, 1972
Building upon President Nixon’s trip to the People’s Republic of China in February 1972, Ford and Congressman Hale Boggs of Louisiana visit and meet with Premier Chou En-Lai (Zhou Enlai).