In his nearly three decades as the Premier of the People’s

Good people,
I point out that (C) has an inexcusable pronoun error ----
"...because of Zhou, China normalized their diplomatic connections with the US when Nixon visited."
Yes, there are a whole lot of people in China, but the noun "China" itself is singular. A singular noun demands a singular pronoun. Be careful with this --- the GMAT loves catching people in this mistake: using a singular collective noun (e.g. a company, a city, a country, etc.) and following it with a plural pronoun. See this blog for more details:
https://magoosh.com/gmat/2013/gmat-pronoun-traps/

As to kinghyts objection to (D) ---- it's very subtle. The original says: "because of Zhou, China normalized their diplomatic connections with the US when Nixon visited." In other words, Zhou was the cause, the agent, that set in motion this series of events. It's unambiguous that Zhou caused China to normalize diplomatic relations with the US. Did Zhou also cause Nixon's visit? Think about it this way. Given (A), we could interpret this two ways
(1) Zhou caused both Nixon's visit and the diplomatic normalization
(2) Nixon just happened to be popping in for a visit, and Zhou essentially said, "Gee, Dick, while you happen to be here, let's normalize relations!"
First of all, (A) leaves both of those possibilities open, because it's ambiguous. Any answer that clarifies ambiguity is doing something positive. Furthermore --- here we get into some very subtle SC & CR ground about real world stuff that students kinda should appreciate to have a sense of what's plausible. In international relationship, scenario #1 is both what one would expect to happen and, in fact, what historically happened. Scenario #2 is 100% unrealistic: the president of the US, the most powerful office in the world, doesn't make a visit to a country, especially a huge power player like China, without a meticulously defined agenda. That agenda needs to be "orchestrated" by someone, and since (A) says the whole thing was "because of Zhou", it's not a stretch at all to say he orchestrated it.

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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Responding to a pm:

I will try to clarify two objections here:
1. This quote is followed by a "colon" at the end. Hence shouldn't we be concerned about the impacts
2. Shift in meaning from the original sentence


1. Consider this:
He got me the things that I need for the party: pop, chips...
Is there any confusion here? The things after the colon are the things I need. We should not list my needs, right?
'that I need for the party' modifies 'the things'. The list is the list of things.

Zhou Enlai set in motion processes that had a major impact on U.S.-China relations: ...
We will list the processes here which are more than one. Note the use of 'a major impact' - we are not expecting a list of impacts.

So what are the processes he set in motion?
a. He urged China to enter the Korean War against the United States
b. he orchestrated Nixon’s visit and the normalization of US-China diplomatic connections

2. The first issue with objection 2 is that there is no 'original meaning' nor any 'original sentence'. You know that option (A) is often incorrect (well in 80% of the cases). Why are you convinced that it relays the accurate meaning? 'Meaning question' does not mean 'keep the meaning of option A intact' - it means it should make logical sense e.g.
I will try and win the game. - Illogical
I will try to win the game. - Correct

Taking care of pronouns and keeping parallelism intact, I would go with (D). Also, as Mike explained above, it is logical that Zhou orchestrated Nixon's visit to normalize connections. It is highly unlikely that Nixon went visiting country after country hoping come relations will fall in place somewhere. It is a single process - Nixon visited with an agenda to do something about the connections. Zhou orchestrated his visit and also played a part in actually normalizing the diplomatic connections (perhaps by influencing who Nixon talks with and how the talks go etc).

But you don't really need to think this much in detail. Focus on pronouns, parallelism and ensure that your choice makes logical sense.

Hii Mike.
It would be great if you clarify on one issue.
, this quote is followed by a "colon" at the end. Hence shouldn't we be concerned about the impacts rather than about those which were done by Zhou.

Isn't there a quite a big shift in the meaning in D). It says "he orchestrated Nixon’s visit " while the original sentence just says "when Nixon visited". Therefore one means that Zhou was responsible for Nixon's visit while the other doesn't say so.

I selected D because less bad then others.

A and C out because of China ... their... incorrect

B have SV error as there is no verb in 2nd clause

E changed the meaning. by saying US fought againt china while they fought againts Korea and china was helping korea.

(C) Zhou urged China to enter the Korean War against the United States, and two decades later, because of Zhou, China normalized their diplomatic connections with the US when Nixon visited.

(D) Zhou urged China to enter the Korean War against the United States, and two decades later he orchestrated Nixon’s visit and the normalization of US-China diplomatic connections

Between (C) & (D), I ended up choosing (D). It is arguable that there is a shift in meaning, but I opted for the choice that maintains parallelism better.

(C) is he urged....and because of...blah blah & there is a S/V issue with China and "their"...correct pronoun should be "its"
(D) is he urged...and he orchestrated -- parallel structure is maintained. The wording doesn't seem typical of GMAT Prep / OG questions though

Hmm. This is a gray area, not a black & white thing. One perspective is --- what's the most striking, the most interesting, about the entire sentence before the first part? Zhou himself seems more important than than impacts, so arguably some of the focus is already on him. After the colon, the information is not so much about "wow, this impact was big! wow, that impact was big" --- it's arguably more about Zhou, again, than the impacts. In other words, there's not a rigid rule about the colon, and to some extent, it depends on the rhetorical organization of the entire sentence --- which is exactly what this question is testing.
Does this make sense? What do you think?
Mike
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Well, Mike, I would like to disagree with your line of reasoning with Choice D.

Original choice A meaning:
Yes, Zhou made a huge impact and did the following
1) At Zhou's urging: China entered the Korean War against the United States
2) Because of Zhou: China normalized their diplomatic connections with the US when Nixon visited.
This clearly implies that when Nixon visited China, Zhou played a vital role in normalizing the diplomatic connections between US and China.

Choice D:
1) Zhou urged China to enter the Korean War against the United States.
2) Two decades later Zhou orchestrated :
a) Nixon’s visit
b) the normalization of US-China diplomatic connections
This clearly implies that Nixon's visit and the normalization of US-China diplomatic relations were independent events.

I believe this is a significant shift in meaning from the original sentence.

In his nearly three decades as the Premier of the People’s Republic of China, Zhou Enlai set in motion processes that had a major impact on U.S.-China relations: China entered the Korean War against the United States, at Zhou’s urging, and two decades later, because of Zhou, China normalized their diplomatic connections with the US when Nixon visited.

(A) China entered the Korean War against the United States, at Zhou’s urging, and two decades later, because of Zhou, China normalized their diplomatic connections with the US when Nixon visited.

(B) China entered the Korean War against the United States, at Zhou’s urging, and two decades later orchestrating Nixon’s visit and the normalization of US-China diplomatic connections

(C) Zhou urged China to enter the Korean War against the United States, and two decades later, because of Zhou, China normalized their diplomatic connections with the US when Nixon visited.

(D) Zhou urged China to enter the Korean War against the United States, and two decades later he orchestrated Nixon’s visit and the normalization of US-China diplomatic connections
--> correct.

(E) the US fought against China in the Korean War, because Zhou urged them, and two decades later, Nixon visited China and normalized US-China diplomatic connections, again because of him.
_________________

In his nearly three decades as the Premier of the People’s Republic of China, Zhou Enlai set in motion processes that had a major impact on U.S.-China relations: China entered the Korean War against the United States, at Zhou’s urging, and two decades later, because of Zhou, China normalized their diplomatic connections with the US when Nixon visited.

(A) China entered the Korean War against the United States, at Zhou’s urging, and two decades later, because of Zhou, China normalized their diplomatic connections with the US when Nixon visited.

(B) China entered the Korean War against the United States, at Zhou’s urging, and two decades later orchestrating Nixon’s visit and the normalization of US-China diplomatic connections subject of orchestrating is not clear

(C) Zhou urged China to enter the Korean War against the United States, and two decades later, because of Zhou, China normalized their diplomatic connections with the US when Nixon visited.

(D) Zhou urged China to enter the Korean War against the United States, and two decades later he orchestrated Nixon’s visit and the normalization of US-China diplomatic connections correct

(E) the US fought against China in the Korean War, because Zhou urged them, and two decades later, Nixon visited China and normalized US-China diplomatic connections, again because of him.

I agree that D is the only grammatically right choice but doesn't it shifts from the original intended meaning.It looks like that Nixon's visit and the diplomatic patch up with US are two separate event.

Dear techiesam,

I'm happy to respond.

This is Mike McGarry, the author of this question. I would say: meaning is about holism, not about reductionism. Meaning is about the big picture, not about the minor variants in word choice in how an idea is expressed. Consider these sentences.
Dr. A is scientist well known for discovering X, and she won the Nobel Prize for this discovery.
Dr. A won the Nobel Prize for the the discovery of X, which brought her wide recognition.
The discovery of X made Dr. A famous and garnered her a Nobel Prize.
For GMAT purpose, all three of those say the exact same thing. The wording is very different, but essentially there's no change in meaning. You can't get too attached to individual ways of phrasing something when you are trying to determine meaning. Now, this version does change the meaning:
Dr. A won the Nobel Prize for the discovery of X, and winning the prize made her famous.
That version changes the logical relation of the ideas, so that's a change in meaning, even though in word choice, it's very close to the third version above.

Now, think about the prompt:
... two decades later, because of Zhou, China normalized their diplomatic connections with the US when Nixon visited.
Clearly, there's a connection between the diplomatic patch-up and Nixon's visit.
Choice (D) has:
. . . two decades later he orchestrated Nixon’s visit and the normalization of US-China diplomatic connections.
This is subtle. The sentence makes clear that these two things happen at about the same time. Saying the two things side by side, without any other qualifying remark, implies a connection between them. If we wanted to emphasize that these really were unconnected events, we would have to put extra qualifying words in the sentence.
. . . two decades later he orchestrated Nixon’s visit and, on another unrelated occasion, the normalization of US-China diplomatic connections.
That fact that such qualifying words are conspicuously absent is what implies that two events are very closely related. Hence, there's really no change in meaning.

My friend, I don't know whether English is your native language. I will say that meaning and change-in-meaning can be a particularly tricky thing for non-native speakers to assess, because sometimes, as here, a certain way of phrasing something in English implies a certain meaning, and that implication is not always apparent to the non-native speaker. How does a non-native speaker develop these a sense for these subtle implications of the language? By developing a rigorous habit of reading. See:
How to Improve Your GMAT Verbal Score

Does all this make sense?
Mike
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Official Explanation

Split #1: the subject, the star, of the first half of the sentence is clearly Zhou Enlai. The sentence would have the most coherence if the second part also focused on this subject. Only (D) clearly features Zhou as the subject in both halves after the semicolon. This is not an absolutely deciding split, but gives us a suspicion that (D) is correct. In particular, choice (E) has a particularly awkward and indirect structure that couldn't possibly be correct even if it were free of grammatical mistakes (which it is not!)

Split #2: pronoun mistake. China has quite a few people, but the noun China itself is singular, and therefore takes the singular pronoun, "it." Using "they" for "China" is incorrect: both (A) & (C) & (E) make this mistake.

Split #3: parallelism problem. In choice (B), we have "China entered", bonafide [noun]+[verb], then "and", and then a participle "orchestrating". First of all, this is a complete failure of parallelism. Moreover, it's not at all clearly who is meant to be modified by this participle. (B) is an absolutely disaster.

Indeed, as we suspected on rhetorical grounds, (D) is the best answer.

A,C - Pronoun Agreement issue China --> Their
E - Distort the meaning --> US fought against China
B - Awkward phrasing and indirect as compared to option D (at Zhou's urging)

Hence, D is the Answer.

mike Thanks for the awesome question! I needed slight guidance from you because I feel that even though Option D is the best of all other 4s, Option D changed the entire meaning of the original sentence by stating that Zhou orchestrated Nixon's visit and the normalization instead of stating : He brought the Normalization to the US China relations when nixon visited... I mean He wasnt the one causing the Nixon's visit as per original sentence..
I know in GMAt its the selection of Better and not the Ideal but any guidance from you on this would be highly appreciated.

Regards

In his nearly three decades as the Premier of the People’s Republic of China, Zhou Enlai set in motion processes that had a major impact on U.S.-China relations: China entered the Korean War against the United States, at Zhou’s urging, and two decades later, because of Zhou, China normalized their diplomatic connections with the US when Nixon visited.

(A) China entered the Korean War against the United States, at Zhou’s urging, and two decades later, because of Zhou, China normalized their diplomatic connections with the US when Nixon visited.

(B) China entered the Korean War against the United States, at Zhou’s urging, and two decades later orchestrating Nixon’s visit and the normalization of US-China diplomatic connections

(C) Zhou urged China to enter the Korean War against the United States, and two decades later, because of Zhou, China normalized their diplomatic connections with the US when Nixon visited.

(D) Zhou urged China to enter the Korean War against the United States, and two decades later he orchestrated Nixon’s visit and the normalization of US-China diplomatic connections

(E) the US fought against China in the Korean War, because Zhou urged them, and two decades later, Nixon visited China and normalized US-China diplomatic connections, again because of him.

Although D is right for other reasons i cant find out how it is correct in terms of parallelism. Can experts throw some light on it??

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