On October 25, 1970, Nixon asked President Yahya Khan of Pakistan at the White House to send an oral message to Chinese leaders that the United States had decided to normalize its relations with China and would dispatch a high-ranking official on a secret trip to China. On the next day, in his speech at a banquet in honour of the Romanian guest Ceaucescu, he used for the first time the name of "People's Republic of China."

In November, Yahya Khan forwarded Nixon's oral message to Premier Zhou Enlai on his visit to China. Zhou said that this was something very important and he would report it to Chairman Mao Zedong. A few days later, Zhou told the Pakistan president that Mao had agreed to the American proposal on principle, pending the solution of many details: Who would make the trip to China? When? Whether directly country? And so on and so forth.

On December 18, Chairman Mao Zedong had a five-hour talk with his old American friend Edgar Snow, mainly on the topic of Sino-U.S. relations. He said that if Nixon wanted to come to China, he might "come quietly in a plane, either as a tourist or a president¡­I don't think I'll wrangle with him, though I'll criticize him."

Editor: Wing