Years of Upheaval

by Henry Kissinger

  Then there was a difference in the Chinese and American approaches to international relations. China’s was in the great classical tradition of European statesmanship. The Chinese Communist leaders coldly and unemotionally assessed the requirements of the balance of power little influenced by ideology or sentiment. They were scientists of equilibrium, artists of relativity. They understood that the balance of power involved forces in constant flux that had to be continually adjusted to changing circumstances. Only one principle was inviolate: No nation could be permitted to be preeminent, however fleetingly, over the combination of forces that could be arrayed against it, for in that fleeting moment of neglect independence and identity could be irrevocably lost. China would not risk its survival on the goodwill of a dominant power; it would act against potential danger, considering it an abdication of leadership to permit a possible opponent to amass overwhelming strength.

  But the United States possessed neither the conceptual nor the historical framework for so cold-blooded a policy. The many different strands that make up American thinking on foreign policy have so far proved inhospitable to an approach based on the calculation of the national interest and relationships of power. Americans are comfortable with an idealistic tradition that espouses great causes, such as making the world safe for democracy, or human rights. American pragmatism calls for the management of “trouble spots” as they arise, “on their merits,” which is another way of waiting for events — the exact opposite of the Chinese approach. There is a tradition of equating international conflicts with legal disputes and invoking juridical mechanisms for their resolution, a view considered naive by the Chinese, who treat international law as the reflection and not the origin of the global equilibrium. The legacy of America’s historical invulnerability makes us profoundly uncomfortable with the notion of the balance of power, and with its corollary that encroachments must be dealt with early (when they do not appear so clearly dangerous) lest they accumulate a momentum stoppable only by horrendous exertions, if at all. We in the Nixon Administration felt that our challenge was to educate the American people in the requirements of the balance of power. This implied a diplomacy in which our weight had to be available to the weaker side even in a conflict among Communist states whose domestic practices we deplored. This meant that we had an interest in preventing a Soviet assault on China and resisting it if it occurred.

  But even if we succeeded in bringing our public along in this intellectual leap, Chinese and American interests and perspectives were different enough to require careful consultation to avoid needless irritations. Moscow’s ideological hostility toward America had a long history; every Leninist textbook had defined us as anathema. At the same time Soviet ideology dictated no particular schedule for our downfall; it could be adjusted to the expediencies of the moment. While our peril was therefore as inexorable as China’s, it was more long-term. The United States in 1973 was still militarily more powerful than the USSR and would remain so in mobilizable strength for the indefinite future.

  The United States therefore had a margin for maneuver unavailable to China. The Soviet Union was likely to recoil before confrontations with us, if we could only convey our determination sufficiently clearly; nor were we likely to be given ultimatums. A Soviet Union confined to its national territory posed no unmanageable threat to the United States. The danger to us was that the rate of Soviet armament would fuel Soviet global adventurism against others. Unlike the Chinese, we had it in our unaided power to match Soviet arms and to thwart Soviet adventures. With our superior productive capacity, and that of our allies, we would be able to outproduce the Soviets, and if we understood our interests — in light of recent events, not a small qualification — we possessed the means to contain aggressive moves. The United States therefore had the option of playing for time to see what modifications the Soviet system might undergo if it were firmly blocked and as it dealt with its inherent stresses.

  Peking did not enjoy this luxury; it was far more immediately threatened. Its greatest peril would arise, ironically, when it had settled its own internal schisms and began to grow economically at a steady rate. This would face the Soviet Union with the prospect that at some clearly predictable point China would become an unmanageable obstacle, especially in conjunction with the other countries Moscow was driving into an adversary status. Whenever Chinese growth appeared self-sustaining the Kremlin would be sorely tempted toward a preemptive attack, unless China was prepared to make drastic concessions to the Soviet Union. The Soviet Union needed no growth in its military capabilities to attack China even if (in 1973) it was not yet strong enough to take on the West. The Chinese leaders could pretend otherwise; they had to put up a bold front; their argument that Moscow was simply feinting in the East to assault the West was a good bargaining pose. But they were much too shrewd to underestimate their danger; their actions contradicted their pronouncements (which in any event were not put forward with much persistence). Thus whatever our motive for negotiating with the Soviets, however sophisticated our explanations, Peking could see no advantage in deferring a showdown, which it saw as inevitable and which it could not really avert by its own action unless it was prepared to condemn itself to permanent weakness.

  For Peking there was no benefit and some risk in America’s dealings with Moscow. Even if the Chinese had some personal confidence in Nixon and me as his representative, they could not be certain how our successors would use the freedom of maneuver we had gained between the Communist capitals. And in any event no serious statesman of equilibrium rests his country’s security on personal trust in individuals. From the Chinese point of view, the worse US–Soviet relations were, the less China needed to worry about its strategic nightmare of a US–Soviet condominium; the better would be China’s bargaining position with respect to both superpowers.

  These theoretical considerations became especially relevant for Peking after the end of the war in Vietnam. So long as Hanoi was being armed by the Kremlin in a bitter war with the United States there was an inherent limit to the rapprochement possible between Moscow and Washington. And periodically America would take some drastic action in Indochina that forced the Soviets to respond if only by slowing down its diplomacy with us. Zhou Enlai, who was a great diplomat, was not a bit unhappy that the war in Vietnam restricted our options. By the same token its end had the opposite effect: America’s options would be increased; they were in fact greater than Peking’s. We would be closer to both Moscow and Peking than they were to each other — an irritating state of affairs to a country that for centuries had masterfully manipulated the rivalries of what it considered barbarians.

  Zhou was far too intelligent to make the Chinese dilemma explicit. He understood that if the United States and China could articulate parallel analyses of the world situation, compatible actions would follow automatically, while if we failed to do so, verbal assurances meant little. And so Zhou and I spent long hours comparing our assessments in a detail impossible between countries having a great deal of day-to-day business to conduct and with a candor that was our best guarantee to bridge the difference in perspective.

  Zhou raised his concerns elliptically in the form of questions: Would we emphasize containment even in Asia? Or would we seek our security in the mutual exhaustion of the two Communist giants? With the war in Vietnam over, were we prepared to face Soviet expansionism head-on? Or was the West going to try to conciliate the Soviets in the desire to “push the ill waters of the Soviet Union . . . eastward” — that is, to encourage or at least acquiesce in its threats against China?

  Zhou’s dilemma, in truth, was somewhat different from the way he posed it. Idealistic Americans, and even those who were fervent anti-Communists, were unlikely to be capable of cynically and deliberately embroiling China with the Soviet Union. At the same time, American leaders such as Nixon, who basically accepted the principles of equilibrium, might not be able to implement their conviction that the United States had a vital stake in preventin
g the dismemberment or humiliation of China — even though it was not an ally, had recently been an enemy, and showed no prospect of becoming a democracy.

  As far as Nixon and I were concerned, diplomacy toward Moscow would always be bounded by a firm perception of the American national interest, which in our view included the territorial integrity of China. Should the Soviet Union succeed in reducing China to impotence, the impact on the world balance of power would be scarcely less catastrophic than a Soviet conquest of Europe. Once it was clear that America was unable to prevent major aggression in Asia, Japan would begin to dissociate from us. Faced with a Soviet colossus free to concentrate entirely on the West, Europe would lose confidence and all its neutralist tendencies would accelerate. Southeast Asia, too, would bend to the dominant trend; the radical forces in the Middle East, South Asia, Africa, and even the Americas would gain the upper hand. Thus we could not possibly wish to encourage a Soviet assault on China. We would have, in my view, no choice except to help China resist.

  But I also knew that in the early 1970s such a proposition was as yet unfamiliar and uncongenial to most public and leadership opinion in America. Thus it was crucial, first, to strengthen the tangible links between our two countries.

  I put these considerations before Zhou Enlai in one of the most candid and comprehensive accounts of our foreign policy that I ever made to any foreign leader. I stressed to the Chinese Premier that Nixon and I had no illusions about Soviet motives, and that China should not be misled by the tactical maneuvers that our strategy sometimes required:

  [T]here are two theoretical possibilities. One is [that the Soviet leaders] genuinely want to bring about a relaxation of tensions in the world. If that is true, it is in our common interest. . . .

  The second possibility is, and the evidence seems to point more in that direction, that the Soviet Union has decided that it should pursue a more flexible strategy for the following objectives: to demoralize Western Europe by creating the illusion of peace; to use American technology to overcome the imbalance between its military and economic capability; to make it more difficult for the US to maintain its military capability by creating an atmosphere of détente and isolate those adversaries who are not fooled by this relaxation policy

  [“Such as China,” interrupted Zhou.

  [“I was trying to be delicate,” I replied and continued:]

  Now what is our strategy? . . . We believe that the second interpretation of Soviet intentions is by far the most probable one. Now first, very candidly, as you must know from your own reports, we have had a very difficult period domestically as a result of the war in Vietnam. So on many occasions we have had to maneuver rather than to have a frontal confrontation. But now [that] the war in Vietnam has ended, especially if the settlement does not turn into a constant source of conflict for the US, we can return to the fundamental problems of our foreign policy. Even during this period, which the Prime Minister must have noticed, we have always reacted with extreme violence to direct challenges by the Soviet Union. . . .

  [W]hat is our strategy? First we had to rally our own people by some conspicuous successes in foreign policy, to establish a reputation for thoughtful action. Secondly, we had to end the Vietnam war under conditions that were not considered an American disgrace. Thirdly, we want to modernize our military establishment, particularly in the strategic forces. . . . [Fourthly,] ultimately we want to maneuver the Soviet Union into a position where it clearly is the provocateur. Fifthly, we have to get our people used to some propositions that are entirely new to them.

  The “new propositions” were that the United States had a vital national interest in the global balance of power in general and in China’s territorial integrity in particular, and that we might have to resist challenges even when there was no legal obligation to do so.

  At the same time, my discussion of American policy sought to make clear that China and the United States would have to pursue their parallel strategies with the tactics suited to their respective circumstances. As I have said, America had no interest in a policy of unremitting, undifferentiated confrontation with the USSR as China undoubtedly preferred. We saw no need to become a card that Peking could play. China had to be able to count on American support against direct Soviet pressures threatening its independence or territorial integrity; it must not be permitted to maneuver us into unnecessary showdowns. Complex as it might be to execute such a tactic, it was always better for us to be closer to either Moscow or Peking than either was to the other — except in the limiting case of a Soviet attack on China.

  By the same token we had to resist the temptation of playing the China card in our turn. To strengthen ties with China as a device to needle the Soviet Union would run the dual risk of tempting a Soviet preemptive attack on China — inviting the very disaster we sought to avoid — and of giving Peking the unnerving impression that, just as we tightened our bonds to respond to Soviet intransigence, we might relax them in response to Soviet conciliation. China would be transformed from a weight in the scale into an object of bargaining — an approach quite incompatible with the necessities that brought about the rapprochement in the first place,

  I stressed that despite Chinese reservations we would pursue negotiations with Moscow that we considered in the common interest. But we would give Peking advance information; we would take seriously Chinese views; we would make no agreements aimed against China. We were prepared to make three types of agreements with the USSR, I said: those that eased tensions in danger spots such as Berlin, where we thought the overall benefit was on our side; those that were in the mutual and general interest, such as the recent limitations on strategic arms; and those that were technically useful but of no major political significance one way or another, such as cultural and scientific exchanges, and trade (within strict strategic controls and subject to political conditions).

  The Chinese Premier, who did not miss a trick, interrupted me: “But it can also be said that this is consistent with the Soviet policy which is meant to lull, to demoralize Western Europe.”

  “I admit,” I replied, “both sides are gambling on certain trends. The Soviet Union believes that it can demoralize Western Europe and paralyze us. We believe . . . that through this policy we are gaining the freedom of maneuver we need to resist in those places which are the most likely points of attack or pressure.”

  Zhou Enlai for his part had no doubt. He called on us to take the lead in organizing an anti-Soviet coalition. It should stretch from Japan through China, Pakistan, Iran, and Turkey to Western Europe. The concept was correct, but it could not be implemented through exhortation alone. Nixon and I agreed on the importance of Turkey, Pakistan, and Iran — but the next five years would reveal how little domestic support there was in America for viewing key allies in terms of the world balance of power. (In 1974 the Congress legislated an arms embargo against our Turkish allies. Aid to Pakistan foundered on Congressional opposition and public indifference, while Iran collapsed with a new administration standing impotently on the sidelines.) And Europe and Japan would require more delicate ministration, as they were to prove resistant to Chinese as well as American advice on many crucial issues of the global balance. Nevertheless, American conservatives would have found much in common with the analysis of world affairs put forward by the Chinese Communist Premier. He derided the very thought of negotiating with the Soviet Union. In his view the expansionist tendencies of the Soviet system were immutable; negotiations could lead only to confusion. Whatever America did, China’s role would be to expose Soviet motivation and thus provide an intellectual framework for concerted opposition.

  It was a difficult passage to navigate, all the more so as Zhou Enlai had unerringly identified the ambiguity of our policy. On the one hand, we needed flexibility to ensure that the United States was not paralyzed by public or allied pressures denouncing it as the cause of tensions. But it was also true that détente could, as Zhou pointed out, lull the West, free the Soviet rear fo
r pressure on China, and undermine the general will to resist. What was the greater risk? The question was never finally resolved either in our dialogue with the Chinese leaders or in our domestic debate because Watergate was soon to impose its own imperatives.

  Tour d’ Horizon

  FROM these perspectives — similar premises, differing circumstances, parallel strategies — Zhou Enlai and I surveyed the international situation. Since his paramount goal was the containment of Soviet power, the old revolutionary supported anything that enhanced the cohesion and strength of the non-Communist world regardless of the ideology the key countries represented.

  In the nineteen months since my first visit, for example, Zhou had done a complete turnabout with respect to Japan. Then, as I have noted, he had described Japan as a potentially aggressive nation that might join with others to carve up China. He had accused us of deliberately reviving Japanese militarism; both privately and publicly he castigated the US–Japanese Security Treaty.1 By February 1973, although Zhou still uttered a formalistic warning about Japanese militarism, in practice he treated Japan as an incipient ally. (China and Japan had restored diplomatic relations, encouraged by us, when Japanese Prime Minister Kakuei Tanaka visited China in September 1972.) Zhou Enlai now acknowledged that Japan’s ties to the United States braked militarist tendencies in Japan and gave Japan an indispensable sense of security. He asked me to note that Peking had ceased its attacks on the Security Treaty; indeed, China now urged the closest cooperation between the United States and Japan. Chairman Mao would later offer the friendly advice that to preserve Japan’s dignity I should never visit Peking without also stopping in Tokyo. We had already decided that this was imperative. By the time I left office I had visited Tokyo more frequently than any other major capital.