U.S. President Richard Nixon paid an official visit to China from February 21 to 28, 1972. The two sides signed a Joint Communique in Shanghai, which declared that progress toward the normalization of relations between China and the United States was in the interests of all countries; the United States acknowledged that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China.

(Beijing Review: Joint Communique, No.9, 1972)