Nixon and Mao
Page 26
The Americans, Kissinger told Chou, would bring their own interpreters; but, he said, “in private meetings between the Chairman and the President we may want to rely on your interpreters in order to guarantee security.” He could not, Kissinger claimed, trust American interpreters not to talk to the newspapers. The Chinese agreed with understandable alacrity. Using their interpreters would give them greater control over the record of Nixon’s conversations. Finding enough English speakers was something of a problem, however; the Chinese brought them in from all over the country, often from the farms where they had been sent during the Cultural Revolution.10
On the whole, Kissinger and Chou concentrated on the big political issues: the Soviet Union, the tension in South Asia, Japan, Korea, and the United Nations. Taiwan was at the top of China’s list, Vietnam on the Americans’. Kissinger was usually accompanied only by Winston Lord. He did not want, he told Chou, to share the discussions of major issues “with colleagues not in my own office.”11 Jenkins from the State Department was therefore sent off to talk to one of Chou’s subordinates about issues Kissinger considered less important, such as trade, or was kept occupied with trips to see an oil refinery and a chemical plant. With Chou, Kissinger said, it was as though the two of them were resuming a seamless conversation: “Everything ever said to me by any Chinese of any station was part of an intricate design—even when with my slower Occidental mind it took me a while to catch on.”12
In their twenty-five hours of conversations, Kissinger and Chou covered much of the world and much past history, but they kept coming back to Taiwan. And it was Taiwan that caused them the most trouble when they came to drafting the communiqué for the conclusion of Nixon’s trip. Kissinger had come prepared with a detailed draft, which he handed over to the Chinese on October 22. “It is such a long one,” commented Chou. The draft contained much fine language about how the Chinese and Americans recognized each other’s differences but how they wanted to work together for international peace and security. Neither side was seeking hegemony—a favorite accusation of the Chinese against the superpowers. The draft also skated over the key areas of dispute, such as Taiwan, expressing the hope that the issue could be settled peacefully. It was the sort of standard communiqué issued when nations still had important matters to work out. Mao disliked it intensely, perhaps because as an old revolutionary who still dreamed of leading a world revolution, he was put off by the idea of subscribing to something so bland and conventional. The United States, he told Chou later that night, was talking about peace and security. “We have to emphasize revolution, liberating the oppressed nations and peoples in the world,” he said. It was all empty talk, Mao went on, when the Americans said they would not interfere in other countries’ internal affairs and swore that they were not seeking to dominate the world: “If they did not seek hegemony, how could America expand from 13 states to 50 states?” Chou should tell the Americans that it was better for everyone to speak frankly. Anything short of that would be “improper.”13
Chou duly complied with his instructions. On the morning of October 24, he told Kissinger that they must face the fact that there were significant differences between the positions of their respective countries. To do otherwise would be dishonest, the sort of thing the Soviet Union might do. The Americans, Chou lectured Kissinger, were behaving like Metternich had after the Napoleonic Wars: trying to suppress revolution and maintain order by relying on old friends. Metternich had failed in the end because he could not hold off revolution forever. The Americans were facing something similar in the present: “This awakening consciousness of the people is promoting changes in the world, or we might call it turmoil.” Look at Vietnam, at the rest of Asia, at Africa, at Latin America, even Europe, he said. The Americans should understand the power of revolution; after all, they had once been revolutionary themselves, when they fought for their independence. Both the United States and China wanted peace but, Chou demanded, “shall this generation of peace be based on hopes for the future or on old friends?” That was a fundamental difference between their two countries. If the United States preferred to behave like Metternich once had, it would also find itself facing revolutionary challenges after a few years. “Of course,” Chou concluded blandly, “perhaps limited by your system, you are unable to make any greater changes, while we, due to our philosophy, foresee such a thing.”14
The Chinese prepared their own draft, which set out their general approach and their views on major issues and left a space for the Americans to do the same. The Chinese also added the requisite revolutionary sentiments—about oppression breeding resistance, for example, and peoples making revolution. Mao was pleased. The communiqué, he said, now had a “voice.” On the evening of October 24 Chou read out the new draft. “I had wanted to escape from it today,” he told Kissinger, “but it appears not possible.” Kissinger was taken aback but, as he said in his memoirs, gradually came around: “I began to see that the very novelty of the approach might resolve our perplexities.” On Taiwan, the Chinese insisted that the Americans set a timetable for withdrawing all of their troops and recognizing China’s sovereignty over the island. Kissinger could not go that far, although he stressed that the American military forces would gradually be withdrawn once the United States had extricated itself from Vietnam. He hinted, too, at greater concessions in the future, once Nixon had been reelected in the fall of 1972: “I have told the Prime Minister two things: first, it’s possible for us to do more than we can say, and secondly, it’s possible for us to take more measures after next year than during next year.” Nixon, he promised, would reaffirm that when he came to China. Kissinger told Chou, though, that the Chinese would have to tone down their criticisms of the United States: “It will be said that the President came 12,000 miles in order to be asked to sign a document containing the sharpest possible formulations against United States policy.”15
Kissinger delayed his flight back to the United States, and he and Winston Lord worked late into the night of October 24 on the Chinese draft, seeking, said Kissinger, “a tone of firmness without belligerence.” All the next day and night, the two sides went back and forth. “I pointed out with melancholy,” Kissinger later reported to Nixon, “that the Chinese draft still accentuated our differences in provocative fashion.” The two sides gradually inched closer together on the wording of the communiqué. The language became calmer, although the differences remained. And the issue of Taiwan remained intractable. Finally, on the morning of October 26, as Air Force One stood ready at the Beijing airport, Kissinger came up with language on Taiwan that seemed acceptable to both sides: “The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Straits maintain there is but one China. The United States Government does not challenge that position.” Chou accepted it, later remarking to his colleagues, “After all, a Dr. is indeed useful as a Dr.” By 8:00 A.M. on the morning of October 26, the two sides had agreed on a draft. As he stood at the door of the Diaoyutai guesthouse to see Kissinger off, Chou spoke in English for the first time: “Come back soon for the joy of talking.”16
“The one thing that Doctor Kissinger had not worked out yet,” according to Chapin, “was how he was going to be able to keep Secretary of State Rogers from attending various meetings, but for the most part it was all coming together in a way that pleased Dr. Kissinger.”17 As Air Force One taxied along the runway, a coded message came in from Washington. The United States had lost its battle at the United Nations to keep Taiwan as a member. Ever since 1949, the Americans had insisted that Chiang Kai-shek’s Republic of China in Taiwan was the true representative for China, and so Taiwan and not the People’s Republic had occupied the China seat in the Security Council, in the General Assembly, and in the U.N.’s agencies. At home, the well-organized and well-funded China lobby had made sure that there was no weakening of resolve. At the start of the 1960s, when the Kennedy administration had looked at the possibility of having both Chinas in the U.N., Nixon, at the time out of
office, had led the campaign to make sure that the United States continued to support Taiwan as the only true China. It had gotten increasingly difficult, however, to hold the line at the U.N. itself. In the 1950s, determined lobbying by American diplomats and emergency measures such as sending a U.S. Navy airplane to collect the delegate from the Maldive Islands had kept the status quo intact. By the end of the decade, however, the end of the big European empires was producing new nations by the dozens, and most Third World countries and, of course, the Communist ones voted year after year for an Albanian resolution to admit the People’s Republic. In the 1960s the Americans were able to hold off the inevitable only by getting the vote classified as “important,” which meant that a majority of two-thirds was required; but even on that, time was running out.
In Nixon’s first couple of years in office, when he was questioned about American policy on China’s representation, he merely said he had no plans to change American policy on the issue “at this time.” In fact, he was gradually modifying his long-standing opposition to having the People’s Republic in the United Nations. This was largely because of his moves toward the People’s Republic but also because it had become clear that the United States was about to lose the vote at the U.N. In 1970 the General Assembly voted by a slim majority for the Albanian resolution to expel Taiwan and give its seat to mainland China. A compromise solution, floated briefly by the United States and others, that the People’s Republic take the seat on the Security Council but that Taiwan remain in the General Assembly went nowhere when both Chinas refused to accept the presence of the other in the United Nations. When Kissinger raised the issue of dual representation in his conversations with Chou during his first trip to China, Chou made it clear that China intended to reclaim what was rightfully its own, not share it with an illegitimate government. When Mao heard the proposal, he said firmly, “We will never board their ‘two China’ ‘pirate ship.’” That same summer, Washington sent a special envoy to sound out Chiang Kai-shek. The old leader was also firm, according to the envoy: “he would rather be a piece of broken jade lying smashed on the floor than a whole tile on a roof.”18
At the start of 1971, a high-level study group in Washington concluded that the United States was likely to lose the annual important-question vote and, therefore, the requirement for a two-thirds majority on the Albanian resolution. American allies such as the United Kingdom and Canada were indicating that they were no longer prepared to vote with the United States. Taiwan, the study concluded, might be expelled as early as that year. While the study merely laid out American options, increasingly the thinking in official Washington was that the United States should be seen to put up a good fight for Taiwan but that the admission of the People’s Republic to the U.N. was in reality a good thing.
On his secret trip to China that summer, Kissinger tried one last face-saving move for the United States when he promised Chou that the American government would allow China’s admission by a mere majority but that it would still insist that expelling a member required two-thirds. The People’s Republic would be in right away, and Taiwan would be out soon. Chou was not interested: “We do not consider the matter of reclaiming our seat in the U.N. as such an urgent matter. We have gone through this for 21 years, and we have lived through it.”19
The sensational news of Kissinger’s visit to China served to undermine the American position, but the American delegation at the U.N., led by its ambassador, George H. W. Bush, fought on during the summer and early autumn. The delegates were handicapped because Washington delayed sending them clear directives about what American policy was, whether to keep to the old line or try to get some sort of compromise, until September. That fall, when the General Assembly met, the Americans spent the days lobbying to keep the admission of the People’s Republic of China as an important question, requiring a two-thirds majority. Each night the Americans met to go over their lists as their old friends slipped away. Then, as the crucial vote in the General Assembly approached in October, Kissinger made news headlines with his second trip to China. “So,” said one of the American diplomats, “that was the coup de grace. If there was any lingering possibility that we could hold a line, that pretty well ended.”20
Kissinger, who was criticized at the time and has been since for the timing of his trip, may well have chosen his dates deliberately. In a conversation with Rogers and Nixon on September 30, Kissinger said he had been told that the period between October 19 and 28 was the tricky one. Rogers complained strenuously that Kissinger was almost certain to be in Beijing when the vote took place, pointing out that “everybody would think we were deliberately undercutting our own effort.” Kissinger agreed to see if he could change his trip, but later that day, he and Nixon talked alone and decided that it was not worth it. “I think,” said Kissinger, “the votes are set now.” Nixon concurred.21
On the morning of October 26, as Kissinger and Chou En-lai were finishing their last-minute discussions on the draft communiqué in Beijing, it was still the evening of October 25 in New York and the crucial vote was approaching in the General Assembly. Suddenly, to the dismay of the Americans, the Saudi ambassador proposed a break for dinner. The delegates poured out of the hall, and although the Americans searched the cafeteria and nearby restaurants, many simply vanished into the night. When the General Assembly reconvened, two votes took place: one to have the admission of the People’s Republic decided by a simple majority and the other to expel Taiwan. When the result was announced, many delegates—from African countries, for example—danced in the aisles, while the delegation from Taiwan slowly filed out. Nixon told the press that he was “outraged” at the display, but privately he was relieved that the issue had finally been resolved. He instructed Kissinger and Haldeman to tell conservatives such as Ronald Reagan and Barry Goldwater that the administration had fought as hard as it could to keep Taiwan in the U.N.22
In New York, Bush told the American delegates that their job was now to meet the representatives of the People’s Republic and treat them courteously. There must be no regrets. He could not resist a moment of irritation, though, when Kissinger said how disappointed he was. “So was I,” Bush later wrote. “But given the fact that we were saying one thing in New York and doing another in Washington, the outcome was inevitable.”23
In Beijing the news caused something close to consternation. The Foreign Ministry was still painfully rebuilding itself after the Cultural Revolution, and China had very few experienced diplomats available. Besides, Mao himself had said that whatever happened, China would not join the United Nations that year. Chou hastily called his top officials together to discuss China’s response. The radicals took a hard line. China should not belong to a bourgeois and bureaucratic institution “where people drank coffee, chatted and fought each other orally, which could not speak truly for the oppressed nations and peoples.” The moderates argued that China needed at least a year to study the U.N. and prepare for participation. As Chou was agreeing, a messenger arrived to summon them to Mao’s house. They found a smiling Mao who brushed aside all objections. China must send a delegation right away, he said. He had enjoyed two major victories that year: first when Lin Biao’s plot against him had been uncovered, and now China’s victory at the U.N. The United States had lost the votes of even its old allies, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, who had behaved like good rebellious Red Guards. China’s first speech at the U.N. must throw down the gauntlet to the imperialist superpowers and encourage the peoples of the world to make revolution. If China’s spokesmen needed ideas, Mao advised, they could use the notes prepared for the discussions with Kissinger.24
China’s ambassador to Canada, the relatively experienced Huang Hua, was hurriedly sent to New York, and an official party flew into La Guardia on a Chinese plane. Mao spoke to them before they left: “One cannot capture the tiger cubs unless he risks going into the tiger’s den.” The Chinese representatives had little idea of what to expect in the United States, a Chinese
diplomat later recalled, beyond the stories of poverty and oppression that were standard fare in the Chinese press. There were inevitably awkward moments, such as when a small band of pro-Taiwan supporters demonstrated outside Chinese headquarters, and there was a potentially serious incident when one of the Chinese delegates unexpectedly died of what turned out to be food poisoning. On the whole, though, the Chinese were pleasantly surprised to find the Americans friendly. The Americans, for their part, were impressed by the serious and low-key way in which the Chinese set about learning the ropes.25
Kissinger and Nixon found the presence of Chinese diplomats at the U.N. useful, too, as yet another private channel to Beijing. Outside a small circle in the White House, only Bush, under strict instructions not to tell the State Department, knew that Kissinger was meeting Huang Hua and his colleagues in a safe apartment in New York. Kissinger suggested that the Chinese limit their contacts with their American opposite numbers at the U.N. itself, saying, “We do not want to overwhelm you with every bright idea of our bureaucracy.” Huang could call him at the White House on a special line. It would not cause any comment, said Kissinger, if he gave a woman’s name. The only one he should not use was “Nancy.”26