In 1633, Zheng Zhilong, one of the Ming dynasty’s leading admirals, commanded a large pirate fleet. His ships were microcosms of globalism, manned by sailors from Africa to Japan. And in this newly interconnected world, he found himself up against a great foreign power: the Dutch.
On October 16, 1964, "Miss Qiu" exploded atop a 102-meter-tall "dressing table" in Xinjiang. And just like that, China became a nuclear-weapon state.
The Chinese and Dutch in Java (now part of Indonesia) co-existed as long as the sugar economy thrived. But once global prices fell, troubles arose, culminating in a conflict that left more than 10,000 Chinese dead.
Britain's *other* Opium War possession.
Jiang Zemin, who succeeded Deng Xiaoping and was the first PRC leader who was not of the Long March generation, proved to be more formidable than anyone anticipated.
Though not as well remembered as Nixon's trip or ping-pong diplomacy, the “music diplomacy” carried out by the Philadelphia Orchestra was a key aspect in China’s attempts to re-engage with the world as the Cultural Revolution wound down.
The attitudes that shaped the Open Door Notes remain visible in the ways the two nations view one another: China bristling at affronts to its sovereignty, America imagining itself as able to transcend the rivalries and arrangements of other nations.
In 1885, a mob of about 150 people attacked random Chinese people on the streets of Rock Springs, Wyoming, killing more than two dozen and laying waste to the local Chinatown. And then came the outrageous diplomatic response.
Mao Zedong and Chiang Kai-shek held nine private meetings in Chongqing, brokered by an American diplomat, following the conclusion of the Second World War. The two were civil to one another, even as each likely knew that a resumption of fighting was inevitable.