This book presents a panorama of the history of China-U.S. relations from 1949 to 1972 and covers a wide range of topics in this significant period: China-U.S. Confrontation in the Korean War, American Containment of China from the 1950s to 1970s, Two Crises in the Taiwan Strait, China-U.S. Ambassadorial Talks, China-U.S. Confrontation in Indochina, and Rapprochement, and Dr. Kissinger and President Nixon's visit to China in 1971 and 1972. The transformation of U.S. policy toward China from containment to rapprochement indicated the attitudinal change of American decision-makers on China's role in U.S. grand strategy and their perception of bilateral relations. China's decision to seek reconciliation with the United States in the late 1960s and early 1970s also embodied its policy adjustment towards the United States. In the toughest moments of the Cold War, it took great courage, wisdom and leadership to open a new chapter in bilateral relations. History is a mirror that illuminates the present and the future. At a critical China-U.S. relations today, this timely publication of Professor Tao Wenzhao may enlighten us as to steering this vital relationship toward a healthy course in the world of enormous challenges.
Tao Wenzhao, born in China's Zhejiang Province in February 1943, is an Honorary Academician of the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences (CASS) and a senior fellow at the Institute of American Studies at CASS. He served as associate director of the Institute and as secretary-general of the Chinese Association for American Studies from 1994 to 2003.
From October 1982 to October 1984, Professor Tao Wenzhao was a government-sponsored visiting scholar in the United States, where he conducted research on China-U.S. relations at Georgetown University, Stanford University, and the U.S. National Archives. In the second half of 1993, supported by the K.C. Wong Education Foundation, he carried out research on China's foreign relations during the War of Resistance against Japanese Aggression at the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London, and the Public Record Office (the National Archives) of the United Kingdom. From September 1998 to February 1999, he was a visiting scholar at the American Studies Center of the University of Hong Kong, and in the summer of 2002, he did research as a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in the United States. Professor Tao's research focuses on China's modern foreign relations, U.S. foreign policy, and China-U.S. relations. His major independent works include A History of China-U.S. Relations (1784-2016) (four volumes, 2000, 2016, 2023), China and America-Destined for Conflict? (2017, 2020), U.S.-Russia Relations in the Post-Cold War Era (1991-2016) (2024), and The Evolution of American Conservatism Since the New Deal (two volumes) (2023). He has also served as chief editor of U.S. Policy Toward China After the Cold War (2006), U.S. Policy Toward China After the Cold War: The Role of Think Tanks (2014, 2018), Collected Documents on U.S. Policy Toward China, 1949-1972 (three volumes) (2003), China's Foreign Relations During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression (co-authored in 2015), etc.
