The Real Reason America Saved China in 1972 | Prof. Jiang Xueqin

Added: 2026-05-24

[00:00:00]All right, let's continue.

[00:00:02]Okay, so in the geopolitical landscape um it seems as though America is trying to contain China. So, uh this is Tehran and this is what China's trying to do.

[00:00:19]China's trying to build a high-speed rail network from Beijing all the way across Central Asia and into Europe, okay? This is a land route that Beijing wants to take in order to maintain trade with Europe. As you can tell from this map, Tehran is the pivot or the hub of this trade network, okay?

[00:00:42]Without Tehran Beijing could not access Europe.

[00:00:48]Um it And then Moscow also sees Tehran as very important as well for its north-south trade axis.

[00:00:56]Without Tehran, Beijing is completely reliant on Russia. Beijing does not want to become reliant on Russia.

[00:01:04]Beijing sees itself as the third axis of power in the world.

[00:01:08]All right, you have the United States, you have Russia, and then you have China.

[00:01:11]From a geopolitical perspective China doesn't want to become partners with either the United States or or or Russia. It It wants to become independent. It wants to create its own sphere of influence, okay? And that's why Iran is very very important. So, a lot of geopolitical geopolitical analysts believe that Beijing is forced to support Iran in this war. And what I want to show you is that's not actually the case.

[00:01:42]All right? China's China's may want to become independent of the United States and Russia, but it cannot actually.

[00:01:50]All right. Um Now, there's a rumor a couple of ago that one deal that Trump and Xi will will sign in Beijing is >> [snorts] >> Xi Jinping will commit $1 trillion dollars.

[00:02:11]$1 trillion investment into America. Primarily factories that manufacture EV cars. This is a huge deal.

[00:02:21]Okay?

[00:02:22]And Laura Laura Ingraham who works at Fox News, she thinks it's a bad thing. She thinks that this is about uh China coming in and trying to buy out the uh United States.

[00:02:36]As I'll show you later, this is Okay? I think this deal will happen, but this is a deal that shows that China is is ultimately dependent on America as opposed to China wants to take over America.

[00:02:51]Okay?

[00:02:53]All right.

[00:02:54]So, um how can we understand the Trump visit? Well, again, in this class, what I want to show you is that historical analogies is a really powerful way to understand the present.

[00:03:07]So, the Trump visit today is analogous to Nixon's visit in 1972.

[00:03:18]Okay?

[00:03:19]So, you you you don't know this, but before 1972, America was hostile towards China primarily because of Taiwan.

[00:03:31]Where during the Chinese Civil War, the Americans were were supportive of uh Chiang Kai-shek and the KMT. They lost, they went to Taiwan.

[00:03:40]And when that happened, America said that, "First of all, we will only recognize Taiwan as the official government of China. Second of all, we will refuse to any business with the PRC.

[00:03:56]And third of all, we will help Taiwan eventually try to take over uh uh China. 1972, when Nixon visited, this marked a radical departure from 20 years of um American foreign policy.

[00:04:18]Okay? And the question then is why would he do that? And the answer is in 1971, the Nixon shock.

[00:04:27]So, if you talk to historians, they'll give you lots and lots of different reasons as to why Nixon visited uh China. The main reason in their from their perspective is that um Henry Kissinger, who was national security advisor to uh Richard Nixon, he was trying to triangulate uh between China and the Soviet Union, right? He was trying to get China on the side of the United States in order to um defeat the Soviet Union. That's not true. That's something that historians made up. The real reason is that in 1971, Nixon removed the US dollar from the gold standard.

[00:05:11]And now the US dollar is worth nothing.

[00:05:14]Before you could take the US dollar and change it for gold, now it's worth nothing. If it's worth nothing, what you do now is create a demand for it. You basically have to create a Ponzi scheme.

[00:05:27]And so, Nixon did two things to resolve this issue and create the US dollar Ponzi scheme. The first thing he did was create something called the petrodollar.

[00:05:41]Okay?

[00:05:42]The petrodollar is where Saudi Arabia and other Middle East countries like Qatar, UAE, they only sell their oil in US dollars.

[00:05:56]So now, before the value of US dollars was pegged was tied to gold the gold standard, now the value of US dollars is tied to oil.

[00:06:07]Okay? If you want to buy oil and everyone wants to buy oil, you need US dollars. And it's something called a petrodollar.

[00:06:14]Okay, that's the first thing. Second thing, which is relevant to us, is China, okay? Opening.

[00:06:24]The strategy is to turn China into a manufacturing base for the global economy.

[00:06:33]Right? So, the Middle East sells oil to the world.

[00:06:40]But China now will sell manufactured goods to the world, and China will also do so using US dollars.

[00:06:49]And these two things together create um the current global economy.

[00:06:57]All right?

[00:06:58]Okay. So, what I'm going to do now is I'm going to explain to you um why America did this, okay?

[00:07:08]Um this is something called the Shanghai Communique.

[00:07:15]This is published in 1972.

[00:07:17]And this basically spells out the basic premise framework for all future US-China cooperation and dialogue.

[00:07:29]And the Shanghai framework basically resolves the Taiwan question.

[00:07:38]And with regard to Taiwan question, America practiced something called strategic ambiguity.

[00:07:46]Meaning the United States will not be clear about the issue of Taiwan with regard to China.

[00:07:57]So, what the United States has been saying for a long time is we do not support Taiwan independence.

[00:08:06]Okay, that's strategic ambiguity. China would prefer the United States to say, "We oppose Taiwan independence." In which case, the United States is obligated now to prevent Taiwan from becoming independent.

[00:08:22]Okay, that's what China would prefer, but the United States practices strategic ambiguity saying, "We do not support."

[00:08:29]I would not be surprised if over the next few months Trump radically changes this attitude and declares that the United States is opposed to Taiwan independence. In fact, the United States supports the unification of China and Taiwan.

[00:08:51]Okay? This would be a radical sea shift from previous administrations.

[00:08:56]And I'll explain why later on why Trump would do this and also why it's actually very strategic and smart for the United States to not support Taiwan and China reunification, okay?

[00:09:11]All right.