Power point

Nixon's trip to China in 1972 marked a radical shift in the political status quo

February 18, 2007|Paul Kennedy

Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World
By Margaret MacMillan
Random House, 404 pp., illustrated, $27.95

A "diplomatic revolution ," historians tell us, is an occasion when two states that were hitherto rivals establish a compact for mutual cooperation, to the shock of their respective competitors and allies. The term was first broadly used, for example, when in 1756 Britain and Prussia (who had fought against each other ) formed an alliance, provoking France and Austria (also traditional foes) to create their own coalition, as a precursor to the Seven Years War of 1756- 63.

This phenomenon of egoistical nation-states "changing sides" is not confined to the centuries of the old diplomacy -- the surprise Anglo-Japanese Alliance of 1902 and the astounding Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact of August 1939 are later examples. But in the past 50 years there is nothing in diplomatic history to compare with the truly revolutionary gesture made by President Nixon's visit to China in February 1972. Here was an event in the Washington-Beijing relationship that, like the Berlin-London event of 1756, not only altered the two players but also changed so much of the diplomatic chessboard.

This is a tale that is told with liveliness and panache in Margaret MacMillan's "Nixon and Mao." MacMillan, provost of Trinity College and a professor at the University of Toronto, garnered great praise with "Paris 1919 " (2002), thereby establishing a reputation as a scholar who likes to focus upon "turning points" in history.

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