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China’s Years of Humiliation and Salvation

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China’s Years of Humiliation and Salvation
A woman holds up ping-pong paddles with U.S. President Richard Nixon and Chinese leader Mao Zedong caricatures on them, as a reference to Nixon’s “ping-pong diplomacy” with the Chinese Communist Party, in Dortmund, Germany, on Nov. 5, 1971. AP Photo
Clyde Prestowitz
Updated:
Commentary

In any discussion of China and its global relationships, reference to “100 years” or “150 years of humiliation” of China by the West is bound to be made. Never mentioned are the 50 to 100 years of “salvation” from the West without which there would be no China today.

Clyde Prestowitz
Clyde Prestowitz
Author
Clyde Prestowitz is an Asia and globalization expert, a veteran U.S. trade negotiator, and presidential adviser. He was the leader of the first U.S. trade mission to China in 1982 and has served as an adviser to Presidents Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Clinton, and Obama. As counselor to the secretary of commerce in the Reagan administration, Prestowitz headed negotiations with Japan, South Korea, and China. His newest book is "The World Turned Upside Down: America, China, and the Struggle for Global Leadership," which was published in January 2021.
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