Playing the China Card (1999) Channel 4

Playing the China Card, Episode 1: Nixon and Mao

The President's groundbreaking visit to China came at the start of his re-election year, and was almost a disaster for him. For the first time, the Chinese diplomat who interpreted for Nixon on the trip reveals how she and the Chinese premier intervened to save the political fortunes of a Republican president, who sold out his closest political allies to woo Chairman Mao. Nixon arrived home to cheering crowds and won an election landslide but the Watergate scandal brought him down before he delivered his promises to China.



Part one of a two-part TV documentary about the relationship between the US presidency and China, revealing how US presidents have consistently misled Congress and the American people to please the communist regime. Clandestine Chinese footage - the only pictures of Dr Henry Kissinger's mission to China - are shown on television for the first time.

Material relating to the documentary film series Playing the China Card: Nixon and Mao, 1999, concerning the relationship between the USA and China since the end of World War Two, made by Brook Lapping Productions Ltd and broadcast on Channel 4 as two programmes in 1999, including interview transcripts with US, Chinese and Russian contributors, notably William Frank Buckley, General Alexander Meigs Haig, Henry Alfred Kissinger, James Addison Baker III, General Brent Scowcroft, Anatoly Fedorovich Dobrynin, Fang Lizhi and Ji Chaozhu; complete post-production scripts of the two programmes; a file of questions put to participants for filmed interviews; transcripts from sections of David Frost's interview with President Richard Nixon (1977), relating to US relations with China; books, articles, essays and pamphlets used as background material for the series; background documents, including transcripts of US government archive material, mainly relating to the Nixon administration, and pre-publication extracts from The Kissinger Transcripts (National Security Archives, 1999) by William Burr.

Source: http://www.aim25.ac.uk/cats/1/3808.htm



Two part documentary series about the relationship between the US Presidency and China. GB, Brook Lapping Productions for Channel Four. Tx. Channel 4. 1999/09/25 & 1999/10/02.

Episodes



* TIANANMEN HOSTAGE (02/10/1999)

* NIXON AND MAO (25/09/1999)