On July 25, 1969, Nixon, passing through the US territory of Guam on his first presidential trip to Asia, unveiled the Nixon Doctrine, declaring that the United States did not want a future land war in Asia and would no longer “undertake all the defense of the free nations of the world.” The United States began a drawdown of its forces in South Korea. Nixon ordered destroyers from the Seventh Fleet to stop patrolling the Taiwan Strait and began moving US soldiers out of Taiwan.
