1972 was an ice-breaking year for China and the United States, and the photograph of US President Richard Nixon shaking hands with Premier Zhou during his visit to China became a sign of the times. Accompanying this exchange, which broke the gap between China and the United States for more than two decades, was accompanied by many gifts from President Nixon to China.
In addition to the well-known ornaments, Nixon also prepared a treasure for China that is said to be hidden under the sea. However, the Chinese government searched for three years, and to this day, it has not seen any trace of the treasure that Nixon said.
So what exactly is this treasure, why did Nixon give it to China, and why has China not found it so far? This issue of the article reveals the "Schrödinger's Treasure" that Nixon gave during his visit to China, and the audience and friends should not forget to click on the highly recommended oh below
Photos of Nixon during his visit to China
On February 21, 1972, the plane on which US President Richard Nixon and his wife Pat was flying, Air Force One, slowly landed at Beijing's xijiao airport. When Nixon saw Premier Zhou and others waiting on the ground, the newly taken office president hurried down the gangway and tightly held Premier Zhou's hand.
According to Nixon's daughter Julie, Nixon heard premier Zhou wearing a coat from the staff when the plane landed, and specially ordered people to bring their own coats to show respect for Premier Zhou. This is also the reason why both of them are wearing coats in the photo at the airport.
Premier Zhou shook hands with Nixon at the airport
In the afternoon, Chairman Mao and Nixon held secret talks in Zhongnanhai, and the original fifteen-minute talk time was extended to one hour and ten minutes because of the rapport between the leaders of the two countries. In addition to political interactions and discussions about the international situation between the two countries, Nixon apologized for the personal gift he gave to Chairman Mao.
Before coming to Visit China, Nixon gathered the wisdom of the White House to purchase a pair of porcelain swans made by the famous American hard porcelain firing master Edward in his later years, Nixon himself was very satisfied with the realistic image and pure meaning of the swan, but he did not expect that the fifth feather of the swan was broken during transportation.
Nixon presented a pair of swans
In order not to cause the relationship between China and the United States to crack because of the swan, Nixon asked the craftsmen to glue the swan's feathers back together. After Nixon apologized, Chairman Mao said with a pun: "Didn't this make you pick it up?" ”
Chairman Mao embodied Sino-US relations and the feathers of the swan in this sentence, and Nixon, who understood Chairman Mao's meaning, and everyone present laughed, and Nixon's visit to China began in this relaxed and pleasant atmosphere.
The porcelain swan was received by Premier Zhou at the Great Hall of the People and handed over to the state treasury together with the crystal glass vase that Nixon gave to Chairman Mao, who left only a personal business card and a goblet given by Nixon.
Business cards and goblets
That evening, Premier Zhou hosted Nixon at a state banquet in the Great Hall of the People, and in addition to China's admirable traditional cuisine, the table of the state banquet was specially prepared with tomato sauce, cucumber slices and other ingredients that Westerners love.
The wine at the banquet was Moutai specially prepared by Premier Zhou for more than thirty years, and after he finished toasting with the crowd with a glass of wine, he also improvised a fireworks display using Moutai wine for President Nixon. When the beautiful blue fireworks were lit in the wine glass, Nixon's expression could not be described by admiration.
Premier Zhou entertained Nixon at a state dinner
It is said that Nixon also copied the classic scene of Premier Zhou displaying blue fireworks with wine in the White House, but unfortunately it did not succeed, and the fire caused by alcohol burning burned the tablecloths, causing a panic among the White House staff.
Coming and going is not rude, not to mention that China is a country of etiquette. Nixon gave Chairman Mao four gifts, and Chairman Mao naturally gave back four. In addition to the national liquor Moutai, Chairman Mao also gave Nixon four or two red robe tea leaves, a calligraphy painting and a pair of giant pandas.
A photograph of Chairman Mao and Nixon talking
It is said that Nixon was still complaining about Chairman Mao's stinginess when he saw that there were only four or two tea leaves, and Premier Zhou laughed and said that Chairman Mao gave "half of the country" to Nixon. In Nixon's puzzled gaze, Premier Zhou explained to him the origin of the four or two red robes. Since there are only three or six mother trees left in the Wuyi Mountains of China, and only eight or two tea leaves are plucked from the mother tree every year, these four or two tea leaves were called "half of the country" by Premier Zhou.
This painting and a pair of giant pandas also have their own mission and significance. On the evening of February 27, 1972, the farewell banquet was held in Shanghai, when Premier Zhou had already discussed the treaty of the Sino-US Joint Communiqué with Nixon, and the atmosphere of the banquet was relaxed and pleasant.
The Sino-US Joint Communiqué was signed in Shanghai
Premier Zhou handed Mrs. Nixon a box of Panda cigarettes at the banquet, saying she had a gift to give her. Mrs. Nixon hastened to say that she would not smoke, but Premier Zhou said that he would give her two real pandas.
This surprised Mrs. Nixon, who spent almost all of her seven-day trip to China on the giant panda, and she even shouted Nixon's name directly at the banquet to convey the good news to him.
Xingxing and Lingling
The giant pandas "Lingling" and "Xingxing" not only promoted Sino-US relations and became witnesses of Sino-US friendship and exchanges, but also directly caused the "panda fever" in the United States, and the year they went to the United States is also known as the "Year of the Panda".
The most profound is the banner that Chairman Mao gave back to Nixon, which respectively inscribed Chairman Mao's calligraphy works "Lao Shu Sits on the Stool", "Chang'e Running moon" and "Walking Horse and Watching Flowers".
Chairman Mao gave nixon back his calligraphy
There are many speculations in the United States about the meaning of this word, and everyone's statement is different, but the Chinese government has never published the inner meaning of these three words, so we have never been clear about the meaning behind Chairman Mao's work.
In addition to friendly exchanges between personal contacts, the gifts that the United States gives to China in accordance with international relations are quite meaningful. The first was a lunar rock that Nixon had given to Premier Zhou, which was said to sell for tens of millions of dollars in a gram. Although the monetary value of the gift was very expensive, Nixon's own motivation for the gift was probably to show off the American Apollo spacecraft landing on the moon.
In 1969, the United States Apollo landed on the moon
The second gift, which was a more stark expression of American ambition than the moon rock, nixon gave China satellite photographs of our country's Lop Nur region. Lop Nur was the place where China's first atomic bomb exploded, and the satellite photos taken by the United States here are enough to show their wolf ambitions and a kind of intimidation to new China.
The last gift is the treasure map claimed by Nixon, although from the current point of view, the treasure described by Nixon may be fictional, but the existence of this treasure still moves the economically backward New China.
The Nixons climb the Great Wall
Nixon handed Over to China a top-secret World War II archive containing the "truth" about the sinking of the Japanese cargo ship Awa Maru. Japan's Awa Maru was originally a very advanced 10,000-ton cargo ship, specializing in the transportation of supplies and relief supplies to the Japanese forces in the Pacific Theater.
However, the United States found that the Japanese secretly installed anti-aircraft guns and other weapons on the ship, and the freighter, which was originally stipulated to carry only 236 passengers, was crowded with 2,009 people. After entering Southeast Asia, the "Awa Maru" changed its normal state, traveling day and night, secretly loading a lot of mysterious goods.
Japan's 10,000-ton giant ship Awa Maru
On April 1, 1945, the "Awa Maru" was traveling to the vicinity of Niushan Island in Fujian Province, China, and suddenly sank, and all 2,009 people on board fell into the sea, except for chef Tian Kanichiro, who was later saved, and all 2,008 other people were killed.
According to Japan, the Awa Maru was torpedoed by a U.S. ship that led to its sinking, and Japan even demanded huge compensation from the U.S. government before announcing its surrender. The United States suspected that the "Awa Maru" was loaded with a self-detonating device to explode the wreck under 4 torpedoes that could not cause damage at all, and the two sides insisted on arguing and arguing endlessly.
Courts after World War II
However, after Japan's surrender, it directly abandoned its claim for the "Awa Maru", and the survivor Kanichiro Tian also did not mention this matter, and Japan, which had just experienced atomic bombing, was in need of a large amount of economic funds, and Japan suddenly changed its attitude and no longer mentioned the reasons behind the "Awa Maru".
According to U.S. archives, when the Awa Maru was sunk by a U.S. warship, it carried a total of 40 tons of gold, 150,000 carats of diamonds and 12 tons of platinum, in addition to thousands of tons of rubber and tin ingots.
The Awa Maru at the bottom of the sea
What attracted China's attention most was that the document claimed that the fossilized Peking Ape Skull, which was missing during World War II, was also on board the Awa Maru and fell into the depths of the ocean along with its sinking.
The fossil skull of the Peking Ape Man illustrates the origin of mankind, is a national treasure of China's cultural relics, and a precious treasure of the world, not to mention the crazy and heartwarming belongings on the ship, so it is imperative to salvage the "Awa Maru".
Fossil model of Peking Ape Man skull
So why did the United States give such an important treasure to China? The reason is that the place where the "Awa Maru" sank belongs to China's Fujian sea, and although the US satellites have detected its specific latitude and longitude, it is impossible to salvage it within the territorial waters of China.
According to Nixon, this treasure was used as a friendly witness to Sino-US exchanges, and the "treasure map" that recorded the details of the "Awa Maru" was also given to China as a shunshui favor.
Nixon and Premier Zhou
In 1977, China began salvage operations east of Niushan Island, the deepest and fastest, three years and forced to abandon the time-consuming project because it had not found what the United States said was the treasure.
The shipwreck of the "Awa Maru" is indeed a thing, so what did China salvage, and what made them persist for three years before they finally gave up the search for treasure?
Among the items initially salvaged in 1977 was a private seal belonging to zheng Yu, a puppet Manchukuo politician, which originally belonged to China, and Li Shuxi, who was in the history department of Peking University, firmly believed that the Peking ape skull fossil was among them.
Salvaging the Awa Maru
However, after three consecutive years of salvage, the navy in charge of construction only fished out more than 5,000 tons of tin ingots, rubber, mica and other items, as well as the remains of 300 Japanese people, although the value of these things has exceeded 50 million yuan, but the United States said that the 40 tons of gold and 12 tons of platinum shadows have not been found.
After handing over the bones of the Japanese to the Japanese Red Cross, China's reform and opening up also achieved results, and people no longer hoped for the illusory dream of treasure, and stopped salvaging the "Awa Maru".
The Awa Maru sinks to the bottom of the sea forever
However, the speculation that the "Awa Maru" has no gold has not subsided, along with the history of the United States in the early stage of wanting to assist China in salvage with advanced technology, and the Japanese government has also sent people to contact, some people think that the "Awa Maru" did carry gold, but it was all blown into powder by the captain and disappeared into the depths of the sea.
Some people also believe that the gold on the "Awa Maru" is a conspiracy carefully woven by the United States, probing China's underwater operation capabilities, waiting for an opportunity to sell the United States' marine salvage machine, taking advantage of the opportunity to make a lot of money from China, and also adding chips to China's offshore oil development negotiations.
Now that the Awa Maru has been uninterrupted at the bottom of the sea for forty years, the only survivor and the Japanese government are secretive, and we still don't know whether Nixon's gift was a fake, just as the United States has never guessed the meaning of Chairman Mao's three words.
However, instead of pinning our hopes on the illusory "treasure", it is better to develop our country's existing resources in a down-to-earth manner and carry out better economic construction, as long as the "Awa Maru" is still within the sea area of our country, its hidden secrets will eventually come to light.