Towards Rapprochement (1969-1972)

1969-1972is an important historical period in the history of Sino-US relations.After more than20years’ hostility, the United States and China finally achievedreconciliation. When Nixon took office in1969, he began to seek a rapprochementwith China in order to change the disadvantageous position in US-Soviet competition,get out from the Vietnam War as soon as possible, and to seek a favorable position inthe international pattern in the near future. Meanwhile China, which was incontinuouspolitical turmoil caused by the Cultural Revolution at home and under the increasingthreat from the Soviet Union, tried to use the US to balance against the Soviet threatand improve China’s security situation. Under this background, China and the USrestarted a20years frozen relations.During the Sino-US rapprochement, besides the existing open Warsaw Talks, theNixon administration also tried to contact with Chinese supreme leaders by secretPakistan, Romania, Paris, Norway, Afghanistan, Netherland diplomatic channels, andfinally reached an important agreement through Pakistan channel and laid a solidfoundation for Nixon’s visit to China. Thus Sino-US relations opened up a new stage.This paper mainly use the recently declassified documents of Foreign Relationsof the United States (FRUS), analyzed how two hostile nations to use the secretchannels to achieve diplomatic breakthrough, tried to make a deep and comprehensiveresearch on the driving forces of Sino-US rapprochement, the reasons Nixonadministration abandon the Warsaw open channel to seek other secret channels, aswell as the details of the establishment of the backchannels and the effect andinfluencing factors of the secret channels. This article represents an effort to helpdevelop a deeper understanding of the backchannels of the Chinese-Americanrapprochement in the late1960s and early1970s. And provide some references forhostile states to seek a diplomatic breakthrough in the future.