UN General Assembly
1972

204. Our Organization is now at the crossroads. The entry into the United Nations on 25 October 1971 of the most populous nation on earth is in itself a sign that a new era has begun for the great family we form in this Assembly. If we have welcomed that admission as the prelude to the strengthening of the role of the United Nations, we are entitled today to express our gratification at another event that will inevitably have a beneficial effect on the evolution of international relations. The historic visit of the Chief Executive of the United States to the People's Republic of China at the beginning of this year was for the whole world an illustration of the essential truth that differences in ideology are not incompatible with the search for peace and coexistence. It is for that peace and peaceful coexistence that we should be happy one day to see the Chinese of Peking and the Chinese of Taipei sitting around the same table, animated by the same desire to bring about the normalization of a situation which more than 20 years of history have imposed upon China.