ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the atmosphere of fear that affected perceptions between the US and China. It also examines two articles published in Foreign Policy in 1975 and 1976. In the first article, Michael Pillsbury, an analyst from the Rand Corporation, attempted to interpret Richard Nixon’s visit by linking Sino-America relations with “military ties”. In the second article, Roger Glenn Brown argued that the facilitation of Sino-American normalization was influenced predominantly by the internal power struggle. The chapter attempts to provide an alternative by interpreting Nixon’s visit as the extemalization of the international political economy, with the market functioning as the central agency. It describes introduction of some other prevailing cold war arguments of the interpretation of the normalization. At last, Nixon’s trip in February 1972 to China clearly marked a tremendous catharsis in terms of human perspective toward the capitalist and communist camps.
