Henry Kissinger: It is a fifth of the human population. It was not natural for the United States and China to have no contacts. It made it extremely difficult to conduct foreign policy when on every issue China was considered an enemy. Therefore, we thought we were serving the cause of peace by bringing China into a relationship with the United States and thereby with the rest of the world because China didn’t have contact with any other country either. So, we led the way into dialogue with China and thereby made it possible to have a wider international system.