Because Italy was mostly divided into strong and independent city states it had a very special status throughout the renaissance period. The individual city states were able to conduct trade with other nations independently of each other. Here, different kings had different notions on how their relationship with Italy should be; which was best seen exactly in the way how the king of Spain and king of France treated the city states and Italy as a whole.
President Nixon believed that normalizing relations with China would "b) drive a wedge between China and the <span>Soviet Union," which was a Cold War goal. </span><span />
