Beijing Zoo
In July 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon announced that he would be going to China and made a historic trip in February 1972 during which he met with Mao in Beijing, visited the Great Wall, received a pair of giant pandas from the Beijing Zoo and began the process of normalizing Sino-U.S. relations. The Nixon trip and the accession of the People's Republic to the China seat at the United Nations in October 1971, marked the beginning of the country's diplomatic orientation toward the Western bloc. In 1971–72, 30 countries, mostly in Europe and Latin America, severed ties with the Republic of China on Taiwan and established diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China. The embassy district in eastern Beijing, outside Dongzhimen, Chaoyangmen and Jianguomen began to expand with diplomatic compounds, hotels, and Western business interests, and eventually developed into the city's Central Business District.