It was US President Richard Nixon's trip to China in 1972 that pulled China onto the international political stage, triggering a discussion in West Germany about foreign policy involving China within a multipolar world order. But debates had already been taking place about China's role in a "bipolar" or "multipolar" "world political" order in the 1960s and 1970s, as Andreas Plöger illustrates in this study.

Autorentext
Andreas Plöger , University of Bonn, Germany.