A secret trip by Henry Kissinger grew into a half-century-long relationship with China

BEIJING — Official China called Henry Kissinger “an old friend.” A commentator likened him to a giant panda, a goodwill ambassador between two countries that have been at odds more often than not over the decades.

Kissinger, who died Wednesday, developed a special relationship with China in the second half of his 100-year-long life. It started with a secret trip in 1971, when he feigned illness while at a meeting in Pakistan and flew undercover to Beijing for unprecedented talks that led to U.S. President Richard Nixon’s groundbreaking visit the next year.

For that act, he is remembered positively in China as an envoy who was willing to overlook ideological differences at the height of the Cold War and to engineer a rapprochement that over time brought communist-ruled China fully back into the family of nations. Many Chinese people mourned Kissinger’s death on social media.

“This is one of the main reasons for him to be revered,” Zhao Minghao, an international relations professor at Fudan University in Shanghai, said. “He helped Nixon open China’s door and promoted a thaw in China-U.S. relations.”

The willingness to overlook differences took on renewed importance in recent years as U.S.-China relations frayed and attacks on China mounted from both Democrats and Republicans in Washington. Kissinger made more than 100 trips to China, according to the Chinese government, and was welcomed as an American it could talk to; as recently as July, he was met by China’s leader Xi Jinping.

“At present, there is no one in the U.S. who can have frank, face-to-face talks with the highest Chinese leader, who understands China and who can be the next ‘giant panda,’” commentator Shi Shusi said, likening Kissinger to the animal that has become an international symbol of Chinese diplomacy.

“He was the giant panda the U.S. sent to China — rare and friendly,” Shi said. “Since the U.S. doesn’t have such an animal, Kissinger played giant panda.”