> It was also a policy decision driven by necessity. Nixon didn’t go to China for the lulz, China was going down a bad path dangerous to the west and western business was hitting a wall in many ways as well.

My understanding is that Nixon went to China to create a another pressure point on the USSR. The Cultural Revolution was bad, but mostly for the Chinese.

Sure, but applying pressure on the Soviets is a bullet point that covers a lot of ground.

Think about the scale, scope and impact of the Apollo program, which ultimately was done for similar reasons.