The first american president to visit communist china was

In 1972, President Richard Nixon visited the People Republic of China and met with chairman Mao Tse Tung and Chinese Prime Minister Zhou Enlai.

This visit, which took place in the middle of the Cold War era, caused great interest throughout the world and broke with twenty years of tense relations between Washington and Beijing.

It should be noted that formally the purpose of this visit was to normalize relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China, but this trip also opened the doors of China to the West and paved the way for the re-establishment of relations with Western countries after the October Revolution (1949) when the island of Taiwan separated from mainland China and became the "only China" recognized by the United Nations.