Fifty years have passed since U.S. President Richard Nixon’s February 1972 visit to China.

Nixon’s visit achieved the normalization of U.S.-China relations, drove a wedge into the Sino-Soviet relationship and established a foothold for extricating the U.S. from the quagmire of the Vietnam War.

The visit was a diplomatic feat by Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger.

A half century later, amid the spread of the omicron variant and the crisis in the Ukraine, the U.S., at least, is in no mood to celebrate the anniversary of Nixon’s visit and the “China fever” it unleashed. On the contrary, some U.S. critics argue that the aggressive, overbearing China of today is the direct result of the U.S. policy of engagement, which began with the “Nixon in China” extravaganza.

For U.S. proponents of engagement with China, the decade following the 2008 Lehman shock can be described as a “decade of betrayal," which included: military and civilian integration; the advance of state enterprises at the expense of the private sector; the Belt and Road Initiative and the expansion of China’s sphere of influence; unilateral and aggressive claims to new territory and territorial waters; cyberattacks, cybertheft, and the repeated violation of intellectual property rights; economic coercion and the weaponization of markets and supply chains; political machinations and “wolf warrior diplomacy"; and, finally, the emergence of a Sino-Russian entente.

Where did things go wrong? Was the U.S. policy of engagement with China a mistake? Was it a mistake from the very start — from the time of Nixon’s 1972 visit? Was it because the U.S. was simply ignorant of China’s long game? Or rather, was it because the U.S. was deceived by China? If the latter, who precisely was deceived? And by whom?

In an article written before he joined the administration of President Joe Biden as National Security Council Coordinator for the Indo-Pacific, Kurt Campbell declared the U.S. policy of engagement with China a failure. Similarly, in a book published before he joined the Biden administration, NSC China Director Rush Doshi argued that in the wake of the global financial crisis, China has signaled its readiness to displace the U.S. as the world’s leading power. Nixon himself reportedly worried in his later years that “we may have created a Frankenstein.”

So the question remains: Who deceived whom?

In the U.S., Wall Street has been vilified for its collusion with China — specifically, for listing Chinese companies, taking huge commissions, creating more and more Chinese billionaires and ruining Main Street and U.S. manufacturers in the process.

More recently, a different culprit has emerged: Henry Kissinger, who, as national security adviser, laid the diplomatic groundwork for Nixon’s visit to China. Over the past half-century, Kissinger has played the “Pied Piper of Hamelin” in guiding successive U.S. presidents toward a policy of appeasement toward China.

In his recently published book "America Second: How America’s Elites Are Making China Stronger," Isaac Stone Fish denounces Kissinger’s consulting business with China as a symbol of the festering collusion between China and U.S. elites. Stone Fish sees Kissinger as the archetype of the “elite captive:” an influential former politician, government or military official in a democratic state who has essentially been “bought” by Russia or China.

Yet it would be overly simplistic to argue that U.S. policy toward China has been consistently mistaken ever since Nixon’s 1972 visit. The idea that the U.S. was foolish for failing to realize that China was acting on a 100-year plan to overtake the U.S. — set by the Chinese Communist Party when the People’s Republic of China was founded in 1949 — is inconsistent with historical fact.

Nevertheless, the time has come to re-examine the basis of Kissinger’s strategic approach to China — namely, the Group of Two (a G2 of the U.S. and China) theory and its natural extension, the coevolutionary argument.

As its power grows, China will not hesitate to change the international order or rules. And if American power diminishes, China will have little interest in abiding by a G2 or coevolutionary approach. Confining the U.S. to a narrow “G2 outlook," however, does make it easier for China to enclose all of Asia within its own sphere of influence.

The U.S. by itself can no longer compete against China. Unless the U.S. bolsters strategic dialogue and cooperation with allies and like-minded countries across the Indo-Pacific region, it will lose the ability to stand off against or compete with China.

To be sure, Kissinger’s ready wit — his ability to charm the Chinese — may well be a necessary diplomatic tactic for remaining in “competitive coexistence” with China.

Back in 1999, I attended a small, informal retreat at a cottage in Tarrytown, New York. The theme of this meeting was Sino-American relations and one afternoon Henry Kissinger joined our discussion as a special guest. I recall Kissinger saying: “Without exception, every U.S. president works to build a friendly relationship with China — even if he hasn’t shown any interest in China before becoming president. This is because it is in the national interest to do so.”

I was impressed by Kissinger’s speaking skills. Yet I found myself wondering how many times he had used the exact same words before a Chinese audience.

Yoichi Funabashi is chairman of the Asia Pacific Initiative and a former editor-in-chief of the Asahi Shimbun. This is a translation of his column in the monthly Bungei Shunju.