Remarks by Graham Metson

Abstract

Most people view our current relations with China as a sudden development but actually they were carefully planned and were one of the first orders of business when the Nixon Administration took office. The Administration considered various ways of establishing some mode for direct political contacts which would be more satisfactory than the Warsaw Talks. Those talks had been very productive; they were high-level negotiations. Although we had no diplomatic relations in a legal sense, we had more talks with the Chinese leadership over this ten-year period than did any other country. However, the talks had become stagnant and so we sought new modalities. Many small steps were taken in an effort to convince the Chinese that we were interested in establishing contacts with them, for example, allowing U.S. tourists to bring in more Chinese goods. At the time, only small steps were possible for during the crisis of the Cultural Revolution, with its attacks on foreign embassies, the Chinese were neither willing nor able to expand their foreign contacts. We have now reached the stage of establishing Liaison Offices in Washington and Peking, a step which would have been impossible four years ago.