By John Mecklin, March 10, 2022

We of course are under no illusions that 20 years of hostility between the People’s Republic of China and the United States of America are going to be swept away by one week of talks that we will have there. We must recognize the government of the People’s Republic of China and the government of the United States have had great differences. We will have differences in the future. But what we must do is to find a way to see that we can have differences without being enemies in war. 

 —Then-US President Richard Nixon, on the White House South Lawn, February 18, 1972