1972 Nixon Visit: How Shanghai Changed, 1946-72

Fifty-two years ago this month, on February 21, 1972, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon flew into Shanghai on a landmark trip that would lead to the Shanghai Communique, signalling the beginning of a rapprochement between the United States and the People’s Republic of China.  America suddenly had China fever, and China experts, in mothballs (and worse) since 1949, were  in great demand. It was in that spirit that Shanghailander Kyra Clift, née Kuprianovich, was asked by her local newspaper what Nixon might expect from her hometown.

SHANGHAI COULD BE CHANGED PLACE [Denison Herald/AP] – February 25, 1972

When President Nixon arrives in Shanghai for a day’s rest Monday [February 21] before going on to Peking, he won’t find the Shanghai Mrs. John Clift remembers. Mrs. Clift spent the first 23 years of her life in China, where she met her husband. In 1946, the Clifts left Shanghai, where John Clift had been the editor of Stars and Stripes, the international military newspaper.

“President Nixon won’t find many motor cars on the streets of Shanghai. Although I’m sure the President won’t have to ride a bicycle, which is the chief transportation used by most Chinese today,” Mrs. Clift said. “Ricksha were the principal transportation when I lived there, with the bicycle type pedicabs just catching on when I left [in 1946]. The pedicabs were considered advanced transportation then,” she said. “Today, rickshas are out. The Chinese leaders feel it is below the dignity of the human race to have one pull another.”

Rickshaws (left) gave way to bicycles and the Shanghai car in the 1970s.

Mrs. Clift said that all of the French and English names given to the streets, “names like Bubbling Well Road, Avenue Edward VII, Rue Lafayette and others, have been changed to suit the new Chinese regime. When I lived there, Shanghai was made up of an International Settlement that included about 250,000 British subjects and another 150,000 assorted French, American, German, Italian, Russian, and others who represented practically every nationality in the world. Plus of course, the millions of Chinese who lived there. “All of that is gone today,” she said.

“There are very few westerners left in China. The magnificent Cathay and Palace Hotels are now used, I’m sure, for government purposes. The race track on Bubbling Well Road where gentlemen jockeys used to ride their own horses has been put to other uses. The golf course that criss-crossed the race track has long since disappeared along with the tennis courts where I played tennis many summers,” Mrs. Clift continued.

The race track that Kyra remembers (left) became People’s Square (right)

“I would guess there is very little demand for the kind of rich silks and brocaded Chinese dresses that I remember,” she said, “because the pictures from China show the women wearing blue cotton pants and jackets. The women no longer are exquisitely made up like in the old days, but are freshly scrubbed and pink-cheeked without a trace of makeup.” Mrs. Clift said there was no such thing as ready-to-wear clothing. “Clothes all were made in little salons in either Frenchtown, the International Settlement, or by the Chinese tailor around the corner.”

The nightlife is something else that has disappeared, Mrs. Clift said, “and all the foreign restaurants with it. However, I imagine the medium-priced Chinese restaurants must still be doing a good business, but only in Chinese food.”

Changing nightlife: Kyra and John (center) on a night out, and the Bund lit up for National Day

“Buses and streetcars along with bicycles are the only mode of travel in the cities. Perhaps what hasn’t changed is the fact that the Chinese still walk in the streets as much as on the sidewalks, just as they did 25 years ago,” she recalled. Mrs. Clift said the American and English private schools and colleges have been gone for more than a quarter of a century. “They were actually shot down by World War II and were completely eliminated when the Communists took over in 1949,” said Mrs. Clift.

“Contrary to the imagination of the designer who was responsible for the red and green dress that Mrs. Nixon wore on the cover of a recent Ladies Home Journal, the Chinese dress never has a belt. It is the Japanese obi. The long butterfly sleeves of Mrs. Nixon’s dress are also Japanese and not Chinese,” Mrs. Clift said.

Mrs. Nixon’s “Chinese” dress

“Mrs. Nixon, who says she likes Chinese food, will be in for truly a treat since Central Chinese cooking is the most excellent cuisine in China,” said Mrs. Clift, who is the foods editor of All Outdoors magazine. “The Cantonese variety of food that is served and generally accepted in America is not a true representation of Chinese food, but Mrs. Nixon should find that out quickly. The President will have to deviate from his well publicized cottage cheese and catsup luncheons while in China,” Mrs. Clift continued, “since milk products are not readily found.”

Mrs. Clift said the Chinese are so busy being industrialized that as far as art, drama, and music are concerned, there apparently isn’t a lot of time for that. “However, the Chinese have 5,000 good years of culture behind them, so they can afford to take a few years out,” she said.

“I wasn’t too surprised at the Chinese accomplishments in ping pong as they are not the athletic type to bury themselves in football or baseball. But what was surprising,” Mrs. Clift concluded, “was the fact that the Chinese used ping pong as a means of reestablishing diplomatic relations with America.”

About Kyra Clift 

She was born Kyra Kuprianovich in Harbin in 1923, where her White Russian parents, diplomats for the Tsarist government, had fled. The family moved to Shanghai in 1930 – like so many, looking for greater opportunity – and here her father, Eustace, worked for the French Municipal government. Kyra lived in Shanghai until 1946, when she left for New York with her American journalist husband, John Clift.  John had come to China with Stars & Stripes, the U.S. military newspaper, and they met at the Time-Life offices in Shanghai, where Kyra worked.

Kyra and John Clift on their wedding day, February 10, 1946 (left), the wedding invitation (top) and the St. Nicholas, the church where they were married.

For Kyra, and a generation of U.S. Shanghailanders, the Sino-U.S. rapprochement heralded by the Nixon visit was a rapprochement for them, too: they could finally reminisce about their beloved hometown without the fear of reprisal that China connections had produced in the McCarthy and Cold War era to which they had returned.

Kyra would never fly in a plane, so she only returned to Shanghai after her death, when her niece and namesake scattered some of her ashes on Rue Lafayette, where she had lived.

With thanks to Stephanie Clift, Kyra and John’s daughter, for allowing us to share this story and photos.

For more on the Nixon visit, see our post on The Creative Ambiguity of the Shanghai Communique