Years of Upheaval

by Henry Kissinger

  Mao then launched on another review of the strengths and weaknesses of various states in the area, almost country by country. He stressed the importance of Turkey, Iran, and Pakistan as barriers to Soviet expansion. He was uneasy about Iraq and South Yemen. He urged us to increase our strength in the Indian Ocean. He was the quintessential Cold Warrior; our conservatives would have been proud of him. All this without notes or any prompting by his colleague, who maintained a deferential silence.

  Mao concluded his tour d’horizon by turning to Japan. He applauded my decision to spend a few days in Tokyo on my way home. Japan must not feel neglected by the United States; Japan was inherently insecure and sensitive. He would see to it that China did not force Tokyo to choose between the United States and China. That might polarize Japanese politics; it would surely enhance Japanese insecurity and might give rise to traditional nationalism. “Their first priority is to have good relations with the United States,” he said approvingly. “We only come second.” The apostle of world revolutions would do his best to keep Japanese priorities that way; he did not want a free-floating Japan playing off other countries against each other, for that would whet chauvinistic appetites. We should do our part by staying in close touch with Japan. As one of the architects of the first “Nixon shock” — my secret visit to China — I personally had an important task: “They are afraid of you and you should try to lessen their fear.” The incongruity was almost palpable: China’s enthusiastic support for the US–Japanese alliance was a complete reversal of the suspicions displayed during my first visit. Barely two years after establishing contact, the grizzled revolutionary was giving a tutorial to the American Secretary of State on how to keep America’s alliances together. Starting from opposite ends of the ideological spectrum, we had become tacit partners in maintaining the global equilibrium.

  After two and a half hours, Zhou indicated that it was time to leave. But the Chairman had to put his mind at rest about America’s domestic situation. The last thing Mao wanted at that point was the very domestic upheaval in America that his political theory foresaw and advocated. Like the composer of a symphony, he ended by returning to his opening theme: Would Watergate sap the authority of a President with whom he more or less agreed? What kind of a new President might emerge from all this turmoil? He was “suspicious” that isolationism might return if a Democratic President came into office; what did I think? My conviction was that it could not be in America’s interest to pretend that only a single personality whose term of office could not run beyond 1976 in any event — and might end sooner — was capable of guaranteeing American policy toward China. I said that reality would impose the main lines of our policy regardless of which party was in office; there might be some hiatus while this lesson was being learned, however. Mao missed no nuance. “Then you seem to be in the same category as myself. We seem to be both more or less suspicious,” shot back the Chairman.

  He was particularly uneasy about possible American troop withdrawals from Europe, a perennial proposal of Senate Democrats. I said there was also a difference between our two parties in the willingness to be “very brutal very quickly in case there is a challenge.” Mao mused that it was not necessary to put up a diplomatic front; what I really meant was the willingness to risk war. Though he was known as a warmonger, he added, laughing, he hoped that a war would be confined to conventional weapons. I sought to curb the speculation: “We will not start a war in any event.” Mao was not all that pleased with such a reassurance. It elicited a parting warning: “As for the Soviet Union, they bully the weak, and are afraid of the tough.” In other words, do not deprive Moscow of the fear that we might prove bellicose.

  We were stirring in our easy chairs on the verge of leaving when Mao suddenly reverted to the theme of our conversation in February, that we should be wary of China’s women — meaning his wife’s machinations. “And you shouldn’t try to bully either Miss Wang or Miss TangII because they are comparatively soft.” I denied that I had detected any softness in either. But Mao persisted mystifyingly: “She [Miss Tang] is American, while she [Miss Wang] is a Soviet spy.” He laughed again. And so the meeting ended after nearly three hours. The Chairman rose ponderously, though without assistance, and with slow shuffling steps escorted us to the outer reception room — a signal honor. As he bade us goodbye, more pictures were taken. He told me: “And please send my personal greetings to President Richard Nixon.”

  Zhou took me aside to agree on an announcement that spoke of a “wide-ranging and far-sighted conversation in a friendly atmosphere” and mentioned the Chairman’s greeting to Nixon. This by Chinese standards came close to exuberance in putting Mao’s imprimatur on US–Chinese relations.

  It was an astonishing performance. David Bruce, who had met all the great leaders of Europe over a period of thirty years, said that we had witnessed the most extraordinary and disciplined presentation he had ever heard from a statesman — all the more impressive for seeming so spontaneous and random.

  But what did it all mean? Why did Mao consider it necessary to place his enormous authority behind so detailed an assessment of the international situation? There was no doubt that the Chinese attached great importance to the encounter. This was reflected in its unusual length (doubly significant for someone not a head of state), in the warmth of the announcement, in the attention it was given in the Chinese press, and in the choice of pictures that accompanied the news stories, showing a beaming Mao clasping my hand in both of his with a more solemn Zhou distinctly in the background.

  Even the scheduling was bound to attract attention. For it coincided with a reception David Bruce had planned in my honor at the Diplomatic Club for the diplomatic corps. The meeting with Mao went on so long that the guests had given up by the time I appeared. From the Chinese point of view, that had the advantage that each ambassador was forced to report on the lengthy meeting to his capital — a meeting considered sufficiently weighty by the Chinese to stand up the entire diplomatic corps. Nor was it unconscious, for toward the end of the meeting Mao apologized to David Bruce for having “taken up time originally set aside for other activities.” (Was a secondary purpose to teach Bruce that as only Chief of a Liaison Office he should not have invited accredited ambassadors to a semipublic event?)

  Undoubtedly, there were many motives behind the actions of our multifaceted hosts. I think now that Mao’s extended dialogue had two basic and perhaps related causes: the depth of the internal controversy and the imminent retirement of Zhou. It is possible that Mao’s overwhelming authority was needed to end the debates over Chinese foreign policy that had been raging since the summer and had been fueled by the Cambodian fiasco. But Mao rarely put himself unambiguously behind one faction; he usually maintained freedom of maneuver. He might well have adopted Zhou’s policy while personally favoring some, at least, of Zhou’s opponents. This would explain why in the middle of the conversation Mao suddenly asked me whether I had met Guo Moro, “who understands German” — hardly a prerequisite heretofore for an encounter with me. When I said that I had never met the gentleman, Mao said: “He is a man who worships Confucius, but he is now a member of our Central Committee.” Why would I meet a worshipper of Confucius in the midst of an anti-Confucian campaign? And who in China would have the temerity to arrange such an encounter? Or did it imply that being a Confucian was no obstacle to serving on the Central Committee of the Communist party, hence that the anti-Confucian campaign was over? And there was another brief flare-up when I referred to the dinner conversation I had had with Vice Foreign Minister Qiao Guanhua. “Lord Qiao,” replied Mao, jocularly or menacingly, implying that Qiao came from the soon-to-be eliminated upper class — the very charge being made against Confucius.

  Whatever the state of Chinese domestic play during my visit, Premier Zhou Enlai disappeared from the direction of affairs within two months. The official explanation was illness. Was the Premier’s tentativeness due to the knowledge that his cancer was drawing his physical li
fe to a close? Or was it the result of his imminent political demise? Did Mao engineer it as he had with every other deputy, or did he yield to the inevitable, either political pressures or the specter of mortality? Was the reference to the women a warning, or was the statement that they were soft intended as a reassurance? The one thing of which one could be certain was that Mao never spoke at random; he always had a purpose even if we were not able to divine it.

  I was never to have another serious talk with Zhou Enlai. A year later I visited him with my wife and children in what was called a hospital but looked like a guest house. We chatted casually; Zhou looked unchanged to my amateur eye. But whenever I raised a serious topic, Zhou changed the subject. His doctors, he said, had prohibited him from discussing such problems. Why political problems impaired his health more than small talk was never explained. It was a painful session — probably for both of us.

  Before my November 1973 trip ended, I caught a glimpse of the pressures closing in on Zhou. At the final dinner, a festive atmosphere and lavish toasts tempted me to raise the subject of Confucius. My mind must have been addled by the many changes of time zones. Or maybe the toasts of mao-tai had finally gotten to me. I cannot now explain what caused me to raise the explosive topic. China had always been Confucian, I ventured, in the sense that it seemed natural for the Chinese to see the state as a vast educational institution, regulating conduct, morality, and politics. This concept seemed to have survived, I argued, though of course the content of what was being taught now was diametrically the opposite of Confucian.

  At this statement, which — with rare absence of tact — in effect called Mao a Confucian, Zhou lost his composure, the only time I knew him to do so. Although only the interpreter had heard my remarks, he insisted in an extremely agitated fashion on the absurdity of my parallel. Nor would he accept my disclaimer that he should ascribe any misunderstanding to ignorance. Zhou persisted, making certain that the ubiquitous Nancy Tang — later accused of radical sympathies — had a detailed record.

  Whatever the cause of Zhou’s decline, his name was never mentioned by any of my Chinese interlocutors after this trip. Whenever I referred to a previous discussion with him, the Chinese would reply by invoking Mao’s conversation, which as it turned out had covered every area and practically every country of mutual interest. In that sense the meeting with Mao served both an immediate and a long-range purpose, though the latter remained obscure to me for quite a long time. For the remainder of my term in office, this dialogue with Mao became for the Chinese the bible of US–Chinese relations. And from our point of view it was a constructive one. While it did not prevent the rise of the radical faction, later called the Gang of Four, it provided a floor below which they could not drag Zhou’s work even when our relations became temporarily stagnant under by the increasing influence of the radicals over the daily management of affairs.

  None of this, of course, was apparent to me in those heady days when I seemed to travel from success in Cairo to acclaim in Peking. With Mao’s apparent imprimatur, all negotiations ended rapidly and favorably. The claims issue was resolved, pending only some technical and legal details not expected to prove an obstacle. We agreed on a final communiqué that represented a major step forward; only the media’s preoccupation with Taiwan caused its significance to be underrated: It extended the joint opposition to hegemony from “the Asia-Pacific region” (as in the Shanghai Communiqué of 1972) to the global plane. It affirmed the need to deepen consultations between the two countries at “authoritative levels” to this end. Exchanges and trade were to be increased. The scope of the Liaison Offices was to be expanded. Zhou Enlai added a sentence that “the normalization of relations between China and the United States can be realized only on the basis of confirming the principle of one China.” After we had completed the text, Zhou almost playfully suggested that we review what was new in the communiqué. He called the sentence about Taiwan to my special attention — on the theory that subtle hints were likely to elude barbarians. “Confirming the principle” was not an impossible requirement; we had gone far toward it in the Shanghai Communiqué. We had indeed not challenged it at any phase of our China policy. Mao’s and Zhou’s elliptical references were clearly openings, but toward what was as yet obscure. Zhou said that he would call back Huang Zhen to instruct him on the nature of the intensified dialogue that should flow from the communiqué.

  No wonder that the visit ended on a note of extraordinary goodwill. At our last session, Zhou thanked me for our help in facilitating the departure of Sihanouk’s mother from Phnom Penh. He also told me that his protocol officers had handed him a list of Western newsmen missing in Cambodia — which I had left deliberately on a table in the guest house to spare us both the embarrassment of having to debate whether China had any influence with the Khmer Rouge. Zhou said that he would do what he could, though I knew it was not much. And so our last official meeting ended with a sense of hope that a new course had been set and yet, on a mellow note, as if there were a premonition that somehow things would never again be the same:

  ZHOU: Perhaps it is the national character of the Americans to be taken in by those who seem kind and mild. [He was referring to India.]

  KISSINGER: Yes.

  ZHOU: But the world is not so simple. . . . We wish you success and also success to the President.

  KISSINGER: Thank you and thank you for the reception we have received as always.

  ZHOU: It is what you deserve. And once the course has been set, as in 1971, we will persevere in the course.

  KISSINGER: So will we.

  ZHOU: That is why we use the term farsightedness to describe your meeting with the Chairman.

  Zhou had compared the visit with my secret one; he saw it as the starting point of a major advance. It was not to be. Both Zhou and I were engulfed by our nations’ domestic dramas. Huang Zhen was recalled to Peking as Zhou had promised. But he did not return to Washington for over four months and when he did he had nothing to say. The claims-assets talks were broken off by the Chinese under transparent pretexts. Exchanges languished. The overall orientation of the policy was maintained but its substance was substantially frozen. Subsequent trips in 1974 and 1975 either were downright chilly or were holding actions — through relations never went backward.

  Two concurrent domestic crises contributed to this state of affairs. A Washington riven by strife was a less interesting partner for China. Our credibility was bound to decline with the evaporation of Presidential authority, whatever my brave words to the contrary. At a minimum, even a cohesive China would have had every incentive to hedge its bets until our Watergate drama had played itself out.

  We know now that China was going simultaneously through its own leadership crisis. And while Mao’s conversation with me laid down the main lines of the policy, no single document could encompass all the shades of interpretation, which increasingly fell into the control of the radical Gang of Four.

  But if the hopes of the end of 1973 were not to be fulfilled, at least the philosophical premises of the dialogue with Zhou and Mao were maintained. In that sense the aged Chairman had in his conversations with me bought insurance against his own propensity to radicalism. There were periodic high-level exchanges of view with Zhou’s de facto successor, Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping, and with Qiao Guanhua, soon elevated to Foreign Minister. They lacked the warmth of the previous conversations but did not alter their substance. We preserved the essence of a relationship crucial to world peace amidst the turmoil of the times and the stresses in both countries unrelated to our foreign policy design. Statesmen have often done much worse.

  * * *

  I. This transparent allegory is an example of the style of the Chinese debate. The Zhou figure criticized his opponents

  for advocating the policy of “making friends with neighboring countries [i.e., the Soviets] and attacking the distant ones [the U.S.]” in order to preserve their own hereditary prerogatives, and went further in putting forward the
policy of “making friends with distant countries and attacking the neighboring ones.” San Sui’s [Zhou’s] line won the approval of King Chao [Mao], and he was accordingly appointed as a guest minister in charge of military affairs.

  However, although San Sui [Zhou] had become Prime Minister, he was actually perched on the top of the crater of a volcano that could erupt at any time. In the Chu state the power of the old aristocrats [the regional military commanders?] was still rather powerful.

  II. This referred to Miss Wang Hairong, Assistant Foreign Minister and reported to be Mao’s niece, and Miss Tang Wensheng, or Nancy Tang, the American-born interpreter.

  XVI

  Troubles with Allies

  BY the fall of 1973 we had run into unexpected obstacles in the effort to revitalize America’s alliances with its fellow democracies. Europe gave priority to the elaboration of European unity; its governments faced domestic stress; America was racked by Watergate. The October war and the oil shortage completed the process: Each ally became absorbed in its national dilemmas; most governments lost the domestic base for farsighted action — indeed, none of the principal leaders survived 1974 in office. With Europe and with Japan, we then entered a period of strain. The oil crisis produced similar tensions in our Atlantic and in our Pacific alliances, but with emphases that differed with the culture and the history of the regions.