In October 1971, on Henry Kissinger’s second visit to Beijing, the American side brought a draft of a joint communiqué. According to the American record of the talks, as given in a Chinese report, Zhou Enlai came back the next day and said that Mao Zedong had rejected the draft completely, because it gave a false impression.
Zhou proposed a different kind of text. Each side would state its own views as clearly as possible, followed by a few points of agreement. Kissinger’s aide Winston Lord later wrote: “After checking with Mao, Zhou treated our effort with scorn and derision.”