Years of Upheaval

by Henry Kissinger

  There were many explanations for Chinese aloofness. They were undoubtedly smarting at my harsh reaction to their cancellation of the Cambodian initiative. The fact was, after all, that it was not the Chinese who had changed their minds but the United States Congress that had destroyed the premise on which the negotiations were based. The Chinese were surely confused by our domestic turmoil and no longer sure how steady or reliable a partner we would prove to be. And the collapse of the Cambodian negotiations accelerated the internal attacks on Zhou Enlai, who apparently found himself accused of having been taken in while we sought to play off the Soviet Union against China.

  During September we noted confusing signals in statements that senior Chinese diplomats were making in various capitals around the world. For the first time in our experience, the hitherto coherent and uniform line was missing. This almost surely reflected an internal struggle in China that made Chinese representatives unsure of which side was going to prevail and caused them to adjust their pronouncements to their estimates of the probable outcome. Some claimed that US–Chinese relations were “stalemated,” largely on the issue of Taiwan. Others hinted that progress would be easy if only the United States recognized the “principle” of one China — which sounded more like a face-saving formula than an operational policy. Since there had been no recent discussion of Taiwan with us and surely no controversy, the issue must have been raised as part of a domestic power struggle over the value of the rapprochement with the United States. We heard a report that the reason for the postponement of my August visit was that Zhou Enlai lacked the support of the Central Committee for his policy and needed to build up his domestic base first. This was reinforced by the sudden transfer of one of Zhou’s principal aides to the ambassadorship in Ottawa because he allegedly criticized the United States for trying to manipulate the Sino-Soviet rivalry. All this, it must be stressed, became clear only in retrospect. At the time all we noted were confusing signals.

  Another puzzling phenomenon was the “anti-Confucian campaign” building in the Chinese media. There were several schools of thought in the West as to the purpose of attacking a philosopher dead nearly 2,500 years, however influential he had been in shaping Chinese culture and turning the state into an all-pervasive educational institution. The Aesopian indirectness in Chinese media gave few clues; there was even a dispute among our analysts whether the campaign was pro- or anti-Zhou in its aim. Considering that Confucius was an aristocrat whose style and philosophy of restraint had dominated Chinese public life for so many centuries, the weight of the evidence suggested that Zhou was the target. The brilliant China scholar on the NSC staff, Richard H. Solomon, called my attention to a significant article in the Chinese party journal Red Flag in November, criticizing an “aristocrat” of ancient times who had favored a policy of making friends with “distant countries” to deal with menacing neighbors but found himself sitting on a volcano.I

  Even Zhou Enlai seemed to be seized by doubts. He told one visiting diplomat of his uncertainty about how US–Chinese relations would develop in the future. If the two superpowers reached an accord, Zhou felt, the China card would not have as much value for the United States as it did before. But Zhou Enlai was too astute to rail against reality. It was clearly not in the American interest to side with one of the Communist giants against the other; it was even more against our interest to permit the Soviet Union to overwhelm or to humiliate Peking. Therefore Zhou added what sounded like a non sequitur. Despite his doubts he would continue to improve relations with the United States. But there were objective limits to what China could do, Zhou indicated; on Cambodia it could not support American policies, however much importance it attached to its ties with Washington.

  By early October, Chinese internal controversies seemed to us (erroneously) to be on the way to being ended. Vice Foreign Minister Qiao Guanhua arrived in New York as head of the Chinese delegation to the United Nations General Assembly to deliver the standard Chinese fire-breathing speech and (on October 3) to join me in the by-now equally standard amiable dinner in my suite at the Waldorf Towers.

  Qiao was full of good cheer. He thought his speech at the UN had “rendered [us] quite a bit of help,” which given his revolutionary rhetoric was not self-evident to me.

  “Not everywhere,” I objected politely.

  “If I rendered you help everywhere, then I could not do it anywhere,” replied Qiao, who was a Hegelian scholar. He used this occasion to clear the books on Cambodia. Speaking “as a philosopher,” Qiao said he had come to the conclusion that we had both erred in getting involved with Cambodia — a rare admission of Chinese fallibility. Even more striking was his assertion that China was basically indifferent as to who won in Cambodia:

  Whether Cambodia turns red, pink, black, white or what, what difference will this make in the end for world history? The best way out is for neither of us to get involved in Cambodia. You have some difficulties which we do not have, I know. Your difficulties with Congress and with the press.

  In other words, China absolved the Administration of blame for the fiasco; it was the fault of the Congress and the media. I had suggested that Chinese and North Vietnamese interests were not the same with respect to Cambodia. Qiao evaded this by putting his Hegelian training to good use once again: “I would not say that it is a question of our interests being different, but rather that our circumstances are not the same.” It was a distinction without a difference, which admitted that there were clashing perceptions between Hanoi and Peking. But the clever Qiao also preempted any American temptation to lure China again into the Cambodian bog. It did not really matter, he said. China had not known anything about Cambodia before 1954; it was beyond its historical horizon — the implication was that China would cultivate its traditional indifference. The best course for both China and the United States was to forget about it, averred the Chinese Foreign Minister:

  The Cambodian problem is in some respects the same to both of us. You have not asked for our help, and we have not asked for yours. What I wish to emphasize is that, considering the overall situation, the Cambodian issue is very definitely only a side issue.

  Peking, the fount of revolutionary orthodoxy, was clearly washing its hands of Cambodia. It expressed no preference as to the outcome; it subjected our policy to no harangues. The Chinese as shrewd analysts could have very few doubts indeed about the future course of events in Cambodia; nor could they fail to understand that a collapse of Cambodia would precipitate the same result in South Vietnam. They had miscalculated our perseverance and our geopolitical insight. They had thought that the United States would understand the impact of defeat on its global position. Therefore they believed we would stay the course in Indochina, sustaining the existence of four independent states in the former French colonial territory, the outcome that suited Peking’s national interest best. That would have avoided one of China’s strategic nightmares: the emergence on its southern border of a powerful unified state controlling all of Indochina and closely allied with the Soviet Union. Now that our domestic divisions had brought the hitherto-unthinkable into view, China’s only course was to deprecate the importance of the almost certain outcome without really believing it. Zhou Enlai saw no sense in compounding his geopolitical setback by having it encumber the overall relationship with the United States. Qiao’s remarks suggested that we understand each other’s dilemmas on Indochina; they must not be permitted to magnify the disaster by impeding the overriding common objective of containing Soviet military power.

  So the meeting ended on a conciliatory and friendly note. Qiao advised a more “two-handed” American policy in the Middle East, dealing evenly with both Israel and the Arab states; as friends “now for quite a number of years, we can talk frankly,” he said. He might be obliged to criticize some of our policies from time to time; he would as a friend never criticize me as an individual. Apparently the struggle in Peking had ended with a victory for the line of conciliation. The switches had been thrown in
the direction of continued elaboration of Chinese-American rapprochement.

  Before my visit to Peking — delayed yet again to November by the Mideast war — there was one more opportunity for a show of goodwill. Its locus ironically was Cambodia, the country that would not let us go, however the Chinese and we might wish to minimize its significance. On October 15, Huang Zhen, Chief of Peking’s Liaison Office in Washington, brought me a message from Zhou Enlai: Prince Sihanouk’s mother was gravely ill in Phnom Penh; Sihanouk wanted to see her once more before she died. He promised not to make use of the Queen Mother in his political struggle. On October 16, I replied that we had made the necessary arrangements: The Queen Mother and her doctors could leave for China on a special Air France flight. To Sihanouk’s credit, he meticulously kept his promise not to exploit his mother’s presence in China.

  I reached China toward the end of my round-the-world flight. Bhutto had seen me off at Islamabad airport with a flattering parade of horse guards normally reserved for heads of state. Bhutto explained on television that given the number of “nincompoops” occupying that office who had visited Pakistan, it was only fair to the horses that they get to see an intelligent example of the human species.

  We retraced the route of my secret journey. Once again we crossed the Himalayas; Zhou had sent almost the same welcoming party to escort me into China. One can, of course, never repeat an experience; the thrill of the unknown could not be recaptured. And as Secretary of State I was surrounded by much more machinery than on that essentially solitary venture. But this was balanced by the knowledge that in the little more than two years since the first journey, we had built solidly. We were visiting a country that shared a comparable view of our major security problem and whose leaders possessed an acute insight into world affairs.

  I arrived for my sixth visit to Peking to an extraordinarily warm welcome, late Saturday afternoon, November 10, 1973. Premier Zhou Enlai greeted us in the Great Hall of the People prior to a banquet for almost two hundred guests (modest by Chinese standards). Zhou and I had already met informally, with only a few advisers each, for about half an hour. Zhou congratulated me on my “whirlwind diplomacy” in the Middle East — the term “shuttle diplomacy” not yet having been invented. He urged me to convey his good wishes to President Nixon (a hint that Watergate had not altered China’s high regard for him) and his admiration for the resolution shown during the October alert. He applauded our efforts to reduce Soviet influence in the Arab world. He confessed that he had originally thought that we had missed the opportunity represented by Sadat’s expulsion of Soviet personnel. He now understood our strategy to wait for a propitious time when decisive action was possible.

  With that Zhou escorted me into dinner, which for protocol reasons was hosted by Foreign Minister Ji Pengfei. And in Chinese fashion, everything was orchestrated to suggest approval and cooperation. For the first time on one of my visits a military band was playing (it had, of course, during Nixon’s), alternating American and Chinese songs. The Foreign Minister’s toast applauded the progress in our relationship, mentioning particularly the Liaison Offices and expressing confidence that normalization would be achieved. My response proved that I was loath to let go of a good line. For the fourth time on my six trips I referred to the fact that China had once appeared to us as a mysterious country but was so no longer. Zhou, who had first put that idea forward, hid his boredom behind an indulgent smile.

  The friendly atmosphere set the tone for the rest of the visit. Our discussions were conducted at two levels. A group of experts reviewed bilateral problems, especially the expansion of exchanges and trade and a residue of the period of conflict: the unfreezing of blocked Chinese assets in return for a settlement of claims of American citizens. On previous visits we had kept the State Department personnel occupied with technical issues while I conducted political talks. Now that I was Secretary of State, we no longer needed to play such games. But the procedure had meanwhile proved efficient and was therefore continued — proving, I suppose, that some bureaucratic maneuvers can even have substantive merit.

  Following the now well-established practice the heart of the visit was a detailed review of the international situation by Zhou and me, together with our senior associates. My opening comment — that we had developed between us a habit of candor, honesty, and long-range thinking — was not a diplomatic courtesy; it had, in fact, become the key to the Chinese-American relationship at a point when few concrete results were achievable and our bonds depended on intangibles. Our ties were cemented not by formal agreements but by a common assessment of the international situation. The media, which for the first time had accompanied me to China, tended to judge the visit in terms of progress on Taiwan. Zhou understood that what was then possible on Taiwan was not desirable, because it would make US–Chinese ties controversial in both countries, though for obvious reasons of Chinese domestic politics he could not say so. Most of our conversations, as usual, traced our shared analysis of the world situation, though for the equally obvious reason of Soviet sensitivities we could not announce that fact either. So what was perhaps the most cordial of all my visits to China took place against a backdrop of media comment on a stalemate in our relationship.

  In contrast to my February visit and to what we knew of China’s internal debates, Zhou did not raise the issue of the US–Soviet relationship. Nor did he inquire, as he had earlier in the year, whether our policy was to “push the ill waters eastward.” Perhaps he had won this particular internal debate; perhaps, more likely, his domestic position had so weakened that he did not dare legitimize the arguments of his critics by raising questions about them with me.

  So it happened that, for the first time, I volunteered an analysis of our strategy toward the Soviet Union. It added little to what I had told him nine months earlier (see Chapter III). Nor could it. After all, strategies do not change every few months, and if they do, it undermines confidence. Statesmen prize steadiness and reliability in a partner, not a restless quest for ever-new magic formulas.

  I chose to meet head-on the conventional criticisms of détente. I did not doubt, I said, that the Soviet Union sought to use a period of relaxation of tensions to erode the unity of the West and to weaken its defense. This only meant that the Soviet leaders had purposes of their own, as was to be expected in the policy of a great power. We, in turn, thought that time was on our side. We could stand a relaxation of tensions better than the Soviet system, which seemed to depend on an artificial sense of crisis. The disintegrating tendencies in the Soviet bloc already evident in Hungary and Czechoslovakia would inevitably recur. I reminded Zhou that in my Pacem in Terris speech on October 8 I had warned that we would not permit détente to undermine our relationship with friendly nations, and that we would resist any attempts by the Soviet Union to use international crises to expand its influence:

  When aggressive action occurs, we will act decisively, and if necessary brutally, but we require the prior demonstration that we have been provoked. And I think we have proved this in our handling of the Middle East crisis.

  Zhou did not challenge these propositions. Either he had been persuaded or, more likely, thought our policy too settled to be altered by debate. He was baffled by the uncertain attitude of our European allies. He could not understand their ambivalence either about the alert or about my trip to the Middle East. After all, he said, China had not been consulted about the alert either, yet it had applauded our action. It was symptomatic of the strained state of US–European relations (see Chapter XVI) that I replied without an excess of generosity, if accurately:

  If you want to play for high stakes with very little risk, then you are likely to be in a continued state of dissatisfaction. The secret dream of our Western allies in the Middle East is to restore their position of 1940 without any risk or effort on their part and therefore, to the extent that we are more active, there is a vague feeling of jealousy and uneasiness.

  Moreover, European leaders had become
used to posing as mediators between East and West. They pretended to their publics that they were more peace-loving than the United States, secure in the knowledge that we would continue to hold the ring against the Soviet Union:

  [E]ach of them faces the problem that for domestic reasons he has to say one thing while deep down he understands that what we are doing is essentially correct. Therefore, they very often, particularly after the event is already over, take a public position which is at variance [with] their understanding of the real situation.

  A more flexible American policy deprived European leaders of this luxury. It forced them to take their own defense more seriously and to assume responsibility for their own proposals. In another session on the same topic the next day, I said:

  [I]f in these efforts we keep slightly to the left of the West Europeans, this is a means to prevent them from going further because then they will be afraid we will make a separate arrangement with the Soviet Union and that will worry them sufficiently so that they start thinking about their own defense.

  Zhou nodded understanding. But he raised a point that over time proved unanswerable: “[A]s for this point, the people would not be able to comprehend it.” This was indeed our dilemma. If we were to sustain prolonged crises, we had to demonstrate our peaceful intentions to our public. To maintain allied unity, we could not permit our European associates to claim a monopoly on détente. But if we went too far down that road, we might confuse our public about Soviet purposes or start a race to Moscow among our allies. The Watergate era proved inhospitable to a policy based on such complicated maneuvers. Nor has the West as a whole squared the circle at this writing; yet its cohesion and purposefulness, its security and its self-confidence, will ultimately depend on its ability to do so.