President Reagan visits China, April 26, 1984

On this day in 1984, President Ronald Reagan arrived in Beijing to start a six-day state visit — the first by an American president since Richard Nixon in 1972. (President Gerald Ford had made an official visit in 1975.)

There was a welcoming ceremony in Tiananmen Square, where he was greeted by Chinese President Li Xiannian with a 21-gun salute. Reagan then attended a banquet given in his honor by Li at the Great Hall of the People, which flanks the square. In his televised speech, he spoke about the need for “mutual respect and mutual benefit” between China and the United States and tried out, with mixed success, a few phrases in Mandarin.


The presidential party had taken its time crossing the Pacific; as a consequence, Reagan was well rested when he arrived. After vacationing briefly at his ranch near Santa Barbara, California, Reagan flew on Air Force One to Honolulu for a series of meetings with U.S. military leaders. From there, the presidential plane went to Guam, where Reagan spent the night. It then took him to Bali, Indonesia, for a few days before finally touching down in Beijing.

As Reagan’s reelection bid approached, the president sought to highlight his desire to improve the diplomatic relationship with Chinese leadership at a time of growing trade between the two nations. Other topics that came up included U.S. help to China to develop commercial nuclear power and China’s displeasure with continuing U.S. support for nationalists in Taiwan. The two nations ratified four documents on avoiding double taxation and tax evasion.

Hours after Reagan’s departure on May 1, the official New China News Agency said the visit marked a “significant step forward” in relations between the two countries, although Taiwan "remains a major obstacle.”

The agency said the visit produced concrete results, “the most important of which, as both sides noted repeatedly, was the direct contact and dialogue between leaders of the two countries.” It also noted that both nations had demanded that Vietnamese forces in Cambodia and Soviet forces in Afghanistan be withdrawn.

SOURCE: WWW.HISTORY.COM

