Middle America to Middle Kingdom

Two American Vice Presidents, John Nance Garner in 1935 and Henry Wallace in 1944, made trips to China during their terms in office. Ulysses S. Grant toured Peking, Shanghai and Canton in 1879, two years after he had left the presidency. But no incumbent U.S. President has ever set foot on Chinese soil. This time, the whole world will watch on the tube the beginning of a new era in Sino-American relations --and a triumph for Richard Nixon.

In preparation for the trip (see THE WORLD), the President has read voluminously about China. One book that he publicly praised was Anti-Memoirs, by France's brilliant literary hero Andre Malraux. The President invited Malraux to dine at the White House this week, presumably to draw upon his vast experience of China.

Earlier Malraux had suggested that Mao Tse-tung's first question to Nixon would concern economic aid from the "richest nation in the world" to one of the poorest. It did not seem like a very plausible prediction about the proud foe of capitalism. But it fitted in with

Malraux's notion of Mao as expressed in his book. He reminded Malraux both of the old Chinese emperors and "the Old Man of the Mountain." Malraux saw him as a romantic revolutionary talking about the "Sons of the People," much as the old China talked of the "Son of Heaven," yet at the same time as a pragmatist ready to do anything for the greatness of China. "He seems to be struggling simultaneously against the United States, against Russia--and against China," wrote Malraux. As a believer in the revolution, Mao "is more anxious to make China than to make war."

Richard Nixon is certainly not anxious to make war. He may well be ready to help make modern China, since in his perception of a new world balance, this may be both inevitable and in the interests of the U.S. All together, his visit is quite an occasion and quite an opportunity for the emissary of Middle America to the Middle Kingdom.

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