The late statesman Henry Kissinger is famous for his secret diplomacy that led to President Richard Nixon’s visit to Beijing in 1972. The US-China rapprochement would blossom over the next decade, leading to the opening of formal diplomatic relations in 1979.
Kissinger’s diplomacy not only helped to widen the growing divide between China and the USSR but also succeeded in bringing about a favorable balance of power by facilitating Beijing’s two-decade brazen challenge to the Soviet Union’s eastern flank.
Today, many strategists in Washington are talking about Kissinger’s adroit diplomatic maneuver. administration supporters hope Donald Trump can orchestrate a so-called “reverse Kissinger,” wooing Russia away from China.
When asked explicitly about this possibility, Secretary of State Marco Rubio said he wasn’t sure the United States would “be successful at peeling [Russia] completely off a relationship with the Chinese.” Rubio went on to say he was concerned about “two nuclear powers aligned against the US” and observed that the “Russians have become increasingly dependent on the Chinese, and that’s not a good outcome…”
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