also seemed acutely aware that the political opportunity of an American
opening to China could fall into the hands of a Democratic Party opponent,
and they were determined to preclude such an outcome. 25
For a time, it was difficult for scholars to construct the full picture of the
Nixon administration approach to China because much of the record initially
remained secret, and public pronouncements, memoirs, and other documents
from administration leaders sometimes seemed very much at odds with what
was actually the administration’s policy and practice. It was clear that US
leaders now centered their strategies and approaches in East Asia on improv-
ing relations with China, and that US relations with Taiwan would decline,
though the scope and extent of the decline were left ambiguous. Relations
with Japan and other East Asian allies and friends also appeared secondary
and were sometimes viewed as declining assets or liabilities. Also clear was
evidence that the United States sought, through the new relationship with
China, a means to secure US interests following the failure of US military
intervention in Vietnam and the rising danger posed by the expanding power
of the Soviet Union in the Asian region as well as elsewhere. And the ambi-
tions of the Nixon administration to use the dramatic opening to China to
garner personal prestige at home and abroad and strong domestic political
support in the run-up to the 1972 US presidential race seemed evident. 26
The American people, their representatives in Congress, the media, and
others with an interest were notably left in the dark for many years regarding
the full extent of the US compromises on Taiwan carried out in the early
contacts between Kissinger and Nixon and Chinese leaders. The Nationalist
Chinese government was in a similar situation. The record reconstructed by
scholarship shows that Kissinger met Chinese conditions involving a full
break in US official relations with Taiwan and other interaction with Taiwan
during his initial meetings with Zhou Enlai in 1971, and that Nixon backed
these steps in his initial meetings with Chinese leaders the following year.
These compromises were kept from public view and also kept from many US
officials responsible for the conduct of US policy toward China and Taiwan,
amid statements and actions by the administration indicating continued sup-
port for Taiwan and ambiguity about what the future course of US policy
might be. 27
On the basis of the compromises by Kissinger and Nixon, scholarship
judges that the Chinese leadership could reasonably have concluded Taiwan
would soon be theirs, as the United States would remove itself from involve-
Rapprochement and Normalization
71
ment in the issue. Unfortunately, Nixon and his associates had only begun to
build support in the United States and internationally for this dramatic
change in policy. It was unclear whether majorities in the Congress, the
media, public opinion, and the major political parties would accept it. Nixon
and his aides avoided building this support as they focused on developing
relations with China in secret on a foundation of compromises and accom-
modations poorly understood in the United States and abroad. They made a
strong case that such secrecy was needed in order to avoid complications in
the process of normalization. That argument would be followed by later US
administrations with mixed success and some serious negative consequences
for long-term US-China relations. Notably, Chinese expectations that Taiwan
would soon be theirs and that the United States would remove itself from
involvement in Taiwan were sorely and repeatedly tested by US actions
demonstrating continued support for Taiwan, backed by American leaders
often unaware of or opposed to the Nixon-Kissinger secret compromises on
Taiwan. 28
The July 1971 announcement of Nixon’s trip to China came as a surprise
to most Americans, who supported the initiative; Americans watched with
interest the president’s February 1972 visit to China. Supporting Kissinger’s
secret pledges in the July 1971 meetings in Beijing, Nixon privately indicat-
ed to Chinese leaders that he would break US ties with Taiwan and establish
diplomatic relations with China in his second term. In the Shanghai Commu-
niqué signed at the end of President Nixon’s historic visit to China, both
sides registered opposition to “hegemony” (a code word for Soviet expan-
sion), laid out differences on a variety of Asian and other issues, and set forth the US intention to pull back militarily from Taiwan and to support a “peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves.” Subse-
quently, both sides agreed to establish US-China Liaison Offices staffed with
senior diplomats in Beijing and Washington in 1973, despite the fact that the
United States still maintained official relations with the Chinese Nationalist
government in Taipei. 29
Normalization of Relations
Progress toward establishing formal US-China relations, the so-called nor-
malization of relations, was delayed in the mid-1970s on account of circum-
stances mainly involving the United States. A politically motivated break-in
at the Watergate office complex in Washington, DC, and cover-up of the
crime involved President Nixon in criminal activity. As congressional inves-
tigation led toward impeachment, Nixon resigned in August 1974. His prom-
ise to normalize relations with China in his second term ended with his
resignation. President Gerald Ford privately reaffirmed Nixon’s pledge to
72
Chapter 4
shift diplomatic recognition from Taiwan to China, but then he backtracked
in the face of US domestic opposition and international circumstances. 30
Chinese leaders for their part were preoccupied with Mao’s declining
health and subsequent death in September 1976, and the most important
leadership succession struggle in the history of the People’s Republic of
China. The leadership turmoil in China at the time had seen Zhou Enlai die in
January 1976. His purported successor, recently rehabilitated veteran leader
Deng Xiaoping, gave the eulogy at the memorial service for Zhou and then
disappeared from public view, purged from the leadership for a second time.
The radical Gang of Four seemed to exert more influence for a time, but the
demonstration of support for Zhou and his relatively moderate policies, in the
form of thousands of Beijing people placing flowers and wreaths in his
memory at the monument for revolutionary martyrs in the capital in April
1976, appeared to indicate that the days of radicalism were numbered. The
death of senior military leader Zhu De in July 1976 preceded Mao’s by two
months, setting the stage for the struggle for succession, following Mao’s
death in September. 31
That China had far to go in creating a foreign policy that dealt with the
United States and other countries in the world in conventional and normal
ways was underlined by the tragedy of an earthquake in July 1976 that
demolished the industrial city of Tangshan, 105 miles southeast of Beijing,
/>
and severely damaged nearby areas including the capital and the major port
and industrial city of Tianjin. It later was disclosed that hundreds of thou-
sands of Chinese died in the quake and that the needs for relief were enor-
mous. Nevertheless, in a remarkable and extremely damaging demonstration
of Maoist “self-reliance,” the radical leadership in Beijing at the time refused to acknowledge these needs or to allow foreign countries and groups to assist
in efforts to save lives and reduce misery. 32
A coalition of senior leaders managed to stop the Gang of Four from
gaining power after Mao’s death. The coalition included veteran cadre who
had survived the Cultural Revolution and administrators who had risen to
prominence during the turmoil but also endeavored to avoid the harm caused
by excessively radical policies. The four radical leaders were arrested. After
a few years, they were put on public trial in 1980, once the Communist Party
leadership had sufficiently reunited and come to overall judgment about what
was correct and incorrect behavior during the Cultural Revolution. Reaching
such judgment was particularly time-consuming and difficult since Chairman
Mao Zedong, still seen as the revered leader of China, was personally re-
sponsible for support of the radicals and so much of the turmoil they and
others carried out during the Cultural Revolution. 33
Following the arrest of the Gang of Four, leadership changes in China
slowly evolved toward a reversal of the disruptive policies of the past and
restoration to power of senior cadre committed to pragmatic reform in the
Rapprochement and Normalization
73
interest of Chinese development and sustaining Communist rule in China.
Deng Xiaoping was once again brought back to power. By the time of the
third plenary session of the Eleventh Central Committee in December 1978,
Deng was able to consolidate a leading position within the party, govern-
ment, and military and to launch the economic and policy reforms that pro-
vided the foundation for China’s recent approach to the United States and
international affairs. Deng and his colleagues constantly were compelled to
maneuver amid competing interests and preferences within the Chinese lead-
ership and the broader polity in order to come up with changes they felt
would advance China’s wealth and shore up the legitimacy of the Chinese
Communist Party, which had been severely damaged by the excesses and
poor performance of the past. 34
Not only were Chinese leaders preoccupied internally, but their priorities
internationally in the latter 1970s were less focused on consummating nor-
malization with the United States and more focused on dealing with Soviet
intimidation and threat. The United States was weakened internally by Nix-
on’s resignation, and the Ford government was hobbled by the president’s
pardon of Nixon. Ford was in a poor position to continue strong support for
the struggling South Vietnamese government and the neighboring Cambo-
dian government aligned with the United States. Strong Soviet assistance to
Vietnamese Communist forces bolstered their efforts to take control of the
south. The Cambodian regime collapsed, and Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge
insurgents entered Phnom Penh in March 1975. The new regime immediately
began carrying out their radical and brutal policies that would see the evacua-
tion of the capital and the massive repression and deaths of more than one
million Cambodians. North Vietnamese forces launched an all-out assault in
South Vietnam. The Saigon regime disintegrated; the Americans and what
Vietnamese associates they could bring with them fled in ignominious de-
feat; and the Communist forces barged through the gates of the presidential
palace and occupied Saigon in late April. 35
Chinese officials showed considerable alarm at the turn of events around
China’s periphery. Stronger efforts by the Soviet Union to use military power
and relations with allies around China, like Vietnam and India, to contain and
pressure the PRC mimicked the US-led containment effort against China
earlier in the Cold War. Under these circumstances, Chinese leaders focused
on shoring up US resolve and the resolve of other governments and forces
seen as important in what China depicted as a united front against expanding
Soviet power and influence in Asian and world affairs. The Chinese leaders
appeared prepared to wait for the United States to meet Chinese conditions
on breaking all US official ties with Taiwan, including the US-Taiwan de-
fense treaty, before moving ahead with full normalization of PRC relations
with the United States. 36
74
Chapter 4
Desiring to complete the normalization of US-China relations begun by
President Nixon, President Jimmy Carter felt compelled to wait until after his
success in spring 1978 in gaining Senate passage of a controversial treaty
transferring control of the Panama Canal to Panama. A visit by Secretary of
State Cyrus Vance to China in 1977 showed that Chinese leaders were not
prepared for significant compromise on Taiwan. President Carter was aware
that a complete ending of US official relations with Taiwan would alienate
many in the US Senate, and he needed the support of these senators for the
two-thirds Senate vote of ratification on the Panama Canal treaty. Once the
Senate approved the Panama treaty in spring 1978, Carter moved forward
expeditiously with normalization with China. 37
National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski was in the lead in seeking
rapid progress in normalizing US-China relations in 1978 and in subsequent
steps to advance US-China relations as a means to counter Soviet power and
expansion. Soviet and Soviet-backed forces had made gains and were mak-
ing inroads that seemed at odds with US interests in different parts of Africa, the Middle East, Central America, and Southwest and Southeast Asia. Chinese officials were in the lead among international advocates in warning the
United States to avoid the dangers of “appeasement” and to stand firm and
work with China against the expanding Soviet power. Carter followed Brze-
zinski’s advice over that of Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, who gave a
higher priority to working constructively with the USSR, notably in order to
reach US-Soviet arms control agreements. 38
The process of US administration decision making followed the practices
of the Nixon period. Like their Nixon-administration counterparts, the Carter
administration leaders were concerned with the reactions of US supporters of
Taiwan and others opposed to American normalization with China. To out-
maneuver anticipated opposition and complications, Carter, Brzezinski, and
their senior aides worked hard to preserve the secrecy of the negotiations
with China. Though the broad direction of US policy was understood to be
moving toward normalization with China, the process of the talks with Bei-
jing and the content of US concessions were held back. The Carter adminis-
tration agreement to normalize diplomatic relations with China would follow
through in a public way on many of the secret agr
eements the US leaders had
already made with China over Taiwan. Though some in the Carter adminis-
tration were concerned with preserving important US ties with Taiwan after
normalization, Brzezinski showed little interest, and Carter seemed contemp-
tuous of congressional backers of Taiwan. Key Carter officials didn’t expect
Taiwan to survive the change in relations. 39
The United States–China Communiqué announced in December 1978
established official US relations with the People’s Republic of China under
conditions whereby the United States recognized the PRC as the government
of China, acknowledged that Taiwan was part of China, ended official US
Rapprochement and Normalization
75
relations with the Republic of China (ROC) government on Taiwan, and
terminated the US defense treaty with the ROC on Taiwan. Official US
statements underscored US interest that Taiwan’s future be settled peacefully
and that the United States would continue sales of defensive arms to Tai-
pei. 40
US and especially Chinese leaders used the signs of improved US-China
relations in the communiqué and during Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping’s
widely publicized visit to the United States in January 1979 to highlight
Sino-American cooperation against “hegemony,” notably a Soviet-backed
Vietnamese military assault against Cambodia beginning in late December
1978. Returning from the United States, Deng launched a large-scale Chinese
military offensive into Vietnam’s northern region. Chinese forces withdrew
after a few weeks but maintained strong artillery attacks and other military
pressure against Vietnamese border positions until the Vietnamese eventual-
ly agreed to withdraw from Cambodia ten years later. Carter administration
officials voiced some reservations about Deng’s confrontational tactics
against Soviet and Vietnamese expansionism, but Sino-American coopera-
tion against the USSR and its allies increased. 41
In pursuing normalization of relations with China, President Carter and
National Security Adviser Brzezinski followed the pattern of secret diploma-
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