OpinionFrom Richard Nixon to Donald Trump, the US is still taking a healthy, personal approach to China relations

For decades, US presidents have sought to maintain stable bilateral relations through their personal ties with Chinese leaders. However, Chinese ambassadors today are neither close to their US counterparts nor to Beijing

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US President Donald Trump and Chinese President Xi Jinping at Mar-a-Lago, in Palm Beach, Florida on April 7, 2017. Photo: AP

Published: 10:00pm, 6 Nov 2019Updated: 3:50am, 7 Nov 2019

US President Donald Trump promised on Twitter last week that his planned meeting with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping to sign the “phase one” trade deal would still take place, despite the cancellation of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Chile where the two leaders had intended to meet.

Trump has largely maintained an amiable relationship with Xi, even as he has criticised China’s economic policy and the failure of past US presidents to address it.

Personal diplomacy is evidently important to the overall US-China relationship; through thick and thin, US presidents have sought to maintain stable bilateral relations through their personal ties with Chinese leaders. One important mechanism for fostering such personal diplomacy has been the choice of ambassadors sent to Beijing.

Richard Nixon set the standard when he chose David Bruce as the first head of the US liaison office in Beijing in 1973. Bruce was not a career diplomat, but had served as ambassador to two of the most important Western allies – France and Britain.

The choice of Bruce demonstrated the importance Nixon was placing on the fledgling relationship between Washington and Beijing in the 1970s.