Sincerity in Foreign Policy
Stillman, Whit
Whit Stillman Sincerity in Foreign Policy A "deep backgrounder" on the administration's Taiwan decision and how the press has collaborated in misreporting it. In announcing his decision to end...
...The U.S...
...In his introduction to a 1978 book which he co-edited-Dragon and Eagle, The United States-China Relations: Past and Future-he links together the American, Russian, and Chinese revolutions: Through the ideas of the revolutions that established them, three continental states have become the repositories of the principles which coexist in tension-liberty, growth, and equality...
...Worldwide expressions of support for the decision, gathered by administration officials, were reported without attribution and apparently without corroboration...
...The Chinese proposal of December 1, 1955, included a general "renunciation of force" declaration which, although it did not specifically refer to Taiwan, provided a legal basis for opposing any military action against it...
...the respected China News Analysis earlier estimated that 50 million people died in the wake of the 1959-1961 famine alone...
...Finally, of course, there is Jimmy Carter, who in his special message to the people of Taiwan assured them that he had "paid special attention" to insuring that the end of American diplomatic relations and the abrogation of our military commitment...
...At a news briefing on the Monday following the China announcement, Holbrooke-under intensive questioning-revealed that during the negotiations the United States had not asked China for any specific assurances as to Taiwan...
...In the wake of the revelation that no assurances were exchanged, this particular prediction can never be more than an interesting hypothesis...
...Secretary of State Vance, the third member of the inner group, was reported to be skeptical of the China move, particularly its timing...
...They say it is an internal problem...
...The growing literature on the political and economic disasters of Mao's fegime is ignored...
...Another member of the group which monitored the Sino-American negotiations was Richard Holbrooke, Assistant Secretary of State- for East Asian and Pacific Affairs...
...Most of the dire predictions of 1973, '74, '75 did not take place...
...The evident basis for this statement is the announced American expectation that the question would be settled peacefully and the unilateral assertion that the United States will be able to continue selling Taiwan selected defensive arms...
...on Friday, he learned that the Chinese would not, after all, accept the one clause of the agreement that offered help to the Taiwanese beyond 1979, he did not feel it important enough for consultation...
...Some of the unusual steps taken to brief influential journalists about Carter's decisions were later reported in the authoritative TV Guide...
...Oksenberg, who likes broad formulations, is a critic of "American aggression" worldwide...
...The disavowed endorsement still floated in Times columns over a week later...
...Five years later this inevitable triumph has still to be fully consummated, as UNIT A sporadically fights on...
...Ambassador to Moscow first heard of the communique on a Voice of America news broadcast...
...The terms accepted by the United States in 1978 are actually less favorable than those offered by the Chinese during the Geneva ambassadorial talks of 1955-1957...
...Less than 19 hours remained before the joint communique was to be read...
...When, at 2 a.m...
...There has been too much emphasis on transient spectaculars and too little on substance...
...Withdrawal, cloaked in hard-headed (and hard-hearted) talk of larger strategic concerns, is the general policy Holbrooke has advocated...
...One reason for these precautions was that, over the years of diplomatic association with the Nationalists, loyalties had grown up within the State Department, and no room was to be allowed for old loyalties to interfere with the new policy...
...Britain had no alliance with Czechoslovakia...
...Oksenberg was the only China specialist involved in the Carter administration's policy-making...
...In areas of insistent demand for United States action," the memorandum continues, it should be made clear that U.S...
...So often you find yourself having to talk about something you have very little familiarity with...
...But his concern was how the Soviet Union might react in the midst of the SALT talks...
...A 1970 Oksenberg booklet, China: The Convulsive Society, is a mild portrayal of the Cultural Revolution which includes some dark glimpses of American foreign policy: "the United States has prevented the termination of the Chinese civil war through its protection of Taiwan...
...Late in 1978, before the China announcement, President Carter commissioned Ball to prepare a special report on the situation in Iran-a commission which had the possible side benefit of bringing a potential critic within the administration...
...The assurances had to be conveyed with mirrors to avoid any dilution of Peking's claims of sovereignty over the island...
...We have a pretty good story for you," he said...
...Carter announced the policy change and extended his "special message to the people of Taiwan...
...The MPLA actually only stopped losing in 1974, when the Cubans intervened on its behalf and most Western support for its opponents was withdrawn...
...In announcing his decision to end diplomatic relations and break the mutual security treaty with the Republic of China, and to acquiesce in the People's Republic of China's claim to Taiwan, President Carter said: "I wish also to convey a special message to the people of Taiwan...
...In the area of foreign policy, our people are troubled, confused, and sometimes angry...
...briefing at the White House...
...George W. Ball, Under Secretary of State from 1961 to 1966, has been the most important Democratic foreign affairs specialist to remain outside the administration, and thus has been in a position to be an influential critic of its policies...
...There is, however, some reason to doubt the sincerity of these expressions of concern...
...policy began to appear, most of the press had stopped covering the China story...
...No full account of the administration's strategy in presenting the China decision to the public is likely to emerge before the next presidential election, but a 1949 internal State Department memorandum-headed "Policy Information Paper-Formosa" (one of its directives is "avoid name Taiwan...
...An October 6 report in People's Daily discredits their version with particular thoroughness...
...So the way in which America has withdrawn its crucial support for Taiwan's future independence could be seen as worse than Munich...
...For Taiwan, dependent on American arms and spare parts and denied access to most other arms markets, the denial of such sales would doom its military to incapacity...
...Whether the cynicism and dissemblance evident in this 1949 memo also characterize the present administration's approach cannot be known without access to its own "internal memoranda," but some clues emerge from the chronology of Carter's China policy...
...These assurances, the editorial writer predicted, would "not still the cries of appeasement and sell-out from some American quarters...
...de-recognition and treaty cancellation...
...In briefings for reporters yesterday and today the Administration showed unusual sensitivity to what it perceives as strong public and Congressional opposition to establishing formal diplomatic relations without gaining reciprocal assurances from China that Taiwan will not come under military attack...
...military involvement would "accomplish no material good for China or its Nationalist regime...
...Later, paying what was described as an unusual visit to the White House press room, President Carter declared simply: "The interests of Taiwan have been adequately protected...
...The United States' treatment of Taiwan does not represent "another Munich...
...The shift in China policy is reported to have come in May 1978, after the treaties with Panama had been ratified...
...This time we were able to speak with authority...
...Oksenberg alludes to the oppressiveness of the Communist regime only in the politest, most favorable way...
...Considering together all the aspects of the policy change-the hurry of the negotiations, the viewpoints of those who monitored them, the lack of assurances, and the general carelessness-the "signals" of U.S...
...His analysis of the issues involved, given after the announcement, was that "the idea of our not having relations with nearly a billion people is just ridiculous...
...All material," the memorandum advises, "should be best used to counter" any impression that "Formosa's retention would save the Chinese Government" or that "its loss would seriously damage the interests of either the United States or other countries opposing Communism...
...Accordingly, Oksenberg writes, the "litmus test" becomes: "Can the ideas of Jefferson and Mao Tse-tung, of political freedom and economic equality, coexist as we seek areas of cooperation...
...He said that although the negotiators had continually expressed their interest that the Taiwan issue be settled "in a peaceful manner," they "did not get into the issue of how that would happen...
...The policy change was kept secret even from those allies most concerned with its consequences...
...However, the Chinese statement did sound contradictory: "We absolutely cannot agree to this" ("nevertheless," they continued, "a joint communique was reached...
...the United States has had a long-standing one with the Republic of China...
...Under the heading "treatment," the memorandum advises: "Without evidencing undue preoccupation with the subject, emphasize as appropriate any of the following," and included are tranquilizing truisms similar to the ones that filled up news columns the weekend of the joint communique-"Formosa has no special military significance," "Other potential objects of Communist aggression are closer to points on the Chinese mainland," and "China has never been a sea power and the island is of no special strategic advantage to the Chinese Communist armed forces...
...The paper begins: "Problem: To formulate information policy which will minimize damage to the United States' prestige and others' morale by the possible fall of Formosa to the Chinese Communist forces...
...Making modest exception of Cambodia, he concluded: "I think it's been an unexpectedly good period...
...There he edited Brzezinski's frequent contributions and wrote on foreign policy himself: "Was Angola, for example, of real importance to the United States...
...We may discover that there is less tension between the values of our two revolutions than is currently believed...
...He publishes theoretical essays derived from uncritical accounts of China's developmental success, as revealed through official Chinese government sources...
...For over a day after Carter's announcement, the China story was covered extensively in the press...
...He called the Chinese Liaison Officer in Washington and they decided to leave ambiguous the United States' right to sell Taiwan "certain arms of a defensive nature in a restrained way...
...Analysis of this caliber pervades Oksenberg's essays...
...After the broadcast, unaware that the microphone was still on, he made his self-congratulatory remark, "Massive applause throughout the nation...
...Negotiations were conducted in private quarters and through White House, rather than State Department, communications channels...
...As Vance put it: ' The Chinese have made it very clear all along that they will not state that the resolution of the problem is a problem for anybody else to determine other than them...
...In the following days a number of reporters found that they had issued their first news stories with more authority than was warranted...
...Brzezinski, the impatient advocate of completing American rapprochement with China, would seem least likely to have been preoccupied with considerations for "the people of Taiwan"-and the way negotiations were conducted bears this supposition out...
...The recent agreement involves a nation of over seventeen million people...
...But by the time the convoluted clarifications of U.S...
...Previously, he was at Columbia with Brzezinski...
...On Learning from China" is the title of his own essay: "Of all nations from which we might borrow, one is particularly intriguing- China...
...This has not been contradicted by the People's Republic of China," administration spokesmen repeatedly added...
...In this essay, however, Oksenberg also sounds a warning note: Although China has not been expansionist "thus far," we must establish firm contacts "with Chinese of all generations now, to minimize the chances of future hostility...
...The "backgrounders" White House and State Department officials had provided the press appear to have been more "misleading" than "deep...
...But the revised histories now coming from Peking undermine all the glowing accounts by Oksenberg and others of China as an inspiring "developmental model" for poor countries...
...The two world wars and the end of the missionary era signalled the end of the West's claim to ideological superiority...
...After listing some of the regime's doubtful achievements, he further elaborates: "the Chinese have undertaken bold experiments in a number of areas that are of direct concern to us, such as bureaucratic practice, education, the pattern of urbanization, penology, public health, factory management, and civil-military relations...
...he did not learn of its provocative wording until asked by reporters for comment...
...On the basis of a Brzezinski statement, it was widely reported that Nixon had endorsed Carter's decision, but this was denied by Nixon's office...
...Carter glanced at it and said, "good deal...
...The key group assigned by Carter to monitor the negotiations consisted of Brzezinski, Vance, Richard Holbrooke, and Michel Oksenberg...
...Yet some academic China-watchers, amateurs of real-politik, now advocate that cynical course on the ground that the "normalization" of relations with Peking (which involves the "de-normalization" of relations with Taiwan) is necessary to sustain a Peking-Washington counter to Soviet expansionism...
...Another administration figure reported to have had a role in the China decision is Hamilton Jordan, Carter's political adviser...
...Yet each value speaks to an important aspect of the human condition...
...The continuity of this policy after Carter assumed office was made explicit in State Department briefings, such as one reported in the August 19, 1977, New York Times: On the eve of Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance's trip to China, Carter Administration officials have gone out of their way to stress that the United States will refuse to normalize ties if it means even the appearance of abandoning Taiwan...
...unconcern for the Taiwanese could not have been made much more clear...
...In his introduction of the book's other essayists, Oksenberg remarks that nearly all of them agree that China's developmental experience offers valuable lessons...
...On Wednesday, December 13, Carter called Vance and told him to return from the peace negotiations in Tel Aviv to Washington by Friday, as "the matter that only five of us know about" was nearly settled...
...Stunning," a "diplomatic coup," "China breakthrough" were the terms the newsmagazines used to describe the policy change...
...It is doubtful whether considerations of the well-being of "the people of Taiwan" played a part in his recommendations, The concern of the American Sinologists with whom he is associated has not been Taiwan's independence but the reverse: that the unconscionable American intervention in the Chinese civil war be ended as soon as possible and Taiwan be put under mainland control-and under its exciting developmental plans...
...would "not jeopardize" their well-being...
...Also disturbing was the extraordinary contrast between Carter's fierce moral condemnation of secrecy in foreign policy two years ago ("inherently" amoral, he said), and his unprecedented use of it in this case...
...In the same interview, possibly timed to coincide with the change in China policy, Holbrooke described the present U.S...
...The most striking fact of working in the White House, he said, was "how easy it is for any president to manipulate the press...
...Seemingly characteristic of the administration's candor in representing the implications of the new policy was President Carter's statement, in a December 19 television interview with Walter Cronkite, that a message to him from Soviet leader Brezhnev was "very positive in tone...
...on Thursday, Brzezinski brought in a cable completing the communique...
...But the question remains: How much did America's association with Taiwan weigh amidst all the "larger" concerns of geopolitical strategy...
...So, the underlying challenge in developing a viable international order involves the search for ways which allow the United States, the U.S.S.R., and China to remain true to their respective revolutionary traditions...
...The chronology of Carter's China initiative-that each of his two principal moves followed immediately upon other foreign-policy successes which had boosted his standing in the polls-his arbitrary January 1 deadline, the timing of the communique, and his unguarded remark about "massive applause throughout the nation," make his motives appear to have been other than for "world peace...
...on Friday, however, Brzezinski was awakened by a telephone call informing him that the Chinese objected to the key provision allowing the United States to sell Taiwan "certain arms of a defensive nature in a restrained way...
...Oksenberg is a member of the dominant group of American Sinologists who write for China Quarterly, quote and cultivate each other assiduously, and look at China almost exclusively through an official Peking perspective...
...On the surface it seems fatuous, but underneath there are some darker implications: How, for example, does Vietnam end "any Western nation's claim to political superiority...
...In the first year of his presidency, Carter's position remained as he had defined it during his second debate with former President Ford: that he would never let friendship with the People's Republic of China "stand in the way of the preservation of the independence and freedom of the people of Taiwan...
...In a recent interview, for instance, he analyzed the experience of the 600,000 refugees from Vietnam and Cambodia: "They are simply adjusting to the harsh, often tragic, new political and economic realities of Indo-China...
...President Carter sent Brzezinski to Peking to tell the Chinese Communist leaders that the United States had "made up its mind" to achieve full diplomatic relations...
...At a news conference ten days later he had said, "I wouldn't go back on the commitment that we have had to assure that Taiwan is protected from military takeover...
...Perhaps Vietnam marks the end of any Western nation's claim to political superiority....This volume suggests that the economically developed world is now beginning to surrender its claim of a monopoly upon social and economic wisdom...
...Barriers to a China Accord: How They Were Toppled" and "China Said to Have Made Key Concession for Ties" were New York Times headlines...
...This in itself is noteworthy...
...We stated very clearly what our expectations were, and they have not contradicted that...
...At 1 p.m...
...President Carter's motives were questionable...
...Least known of these men is Oksenberg, a professor of Chinese studies at the University of Michigan on leave to serve as a National Security Council staff member...
...The intensive negotiations were said to have begun on December 12, just three days before the joint communique was issued...
...At the time of Vance's China trip, Ball-as yet unencumbered with Carter ties-wrote a forceful essay on U.S.-China policy that ultimately turned out to be prophetic: Were Secretary of State Cyrus R. Vance to agree in Peking that the United States would break relations with the Nationalist Government in Taiwan in return for de jure relations with the People's Republic, he would make nonsense of the Carter Administration's commitment to morality in foreign policy...
...Two days later, in what was described as "an unusual step," the Soviet Union made public the details of the message, which showed that Brezhnev had in fact expressed concern about the wording of the joint communique...
...Rather than delay the agreement, Brzezinski, acting on his own, called the Chinese Liaison Officer in Washington and the two decided-to use the vogue phrase-to "agree to disagree" on the question of arms sales...
...Yet Brzezinski could not even hold the matter for morning...
...The three anchormen and their senior White House correspondents met Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski in a session which NBC's John Chancellor later described as "terribly useful...
...But press references to mirror-borne assurances, key concessions, and stunning diplomacy quickly declined after Secretary of State Vance confirmed that no pledges had been given...
...Eight hours before, at 2 a.m...
...It was impossible," a Times editorial writer reported on Sunday, "for the United States to abrogate the defense treaty until it had some assurance that its diplomatic retreat would not be the prelude to a humiliating annexation of Taiwan...
...In an official statement issued simultaneously, the United States expressed confidence that the Taiwanese "face a peaceful and prosperous future" and that the Taiwan issue would "be settled peacefully by the Chinese themselves...
...We could nearly always determine what they [the press] wrote about," James Fallows, until November Carter's chief speech-writer, said a week before the China announcement...
...So many reasons for supporting the decision were included in the first news reports-and so many possible objections were raised and then countered-that it seemed likely that the reporters' own imaginations had been supplemented with much administration "background," and even "deep background," advice...
...To be avoided was any statement reflecting that Formosa's territorial status was still "to be determined by the Japanese peace treaty" or showing "undue concern with whether Nationalists can hold the island or when Communists may take it...
...on Friday-less than an hour after the Republic of China had been informed of the decision-presidential press secretary Jody Powell invited anchormen from each of the three networks to an 8 p.m...
...A foreign policy based on secrecy inherently has had to be closely guarded and amoral, and we have had to forgo openness, consultation, and a constant adherence to fundamental principles and high moral standards...
...It is, at least, our first...
...Neville Chamberlain's motive in acquiescing to German demands was unquestionably to avoid war...
...A little before 2 p.m...
...One of Oksenberg's favorite themes, revolutionary China's lessons for America, is touched upon in this booklet: "From revolutionary China, we can learn about the potentiality and limits of politically induced social change and about efforts to disperse economic development to avoid metropolitan congestion, lessons perhaps applicable to our racial and urban problems...
...Oksenberg's special preoccupation is with grandiose theoretical constructs...
...After the United States signed the Helsinki Pact, People's Daily commented that "people have often described similar schemes by several major powers in conniving at aggression and betraying other countries as a 'Munich' or 'Munich plot.' " In its initial editorial following the China policy shift, the New York Times predicted that even the implicit Chinese assurances would "not still the cries of appeasement and sell-out from some American quarters...
...At the outset of Carter's China initiative, the decision was made to restrict the deliberations to an extraordinarily small group of advisers operating under unprecedentedly tight security...
...position in Asia as the strongest it has been "since World War II...
...use Formosa")-indicates how a past administration, in a situation somewhat comparable to the present one, sought to manage the public's attitude toward Taiwan...
...Any appearance of abandoning Taiwan," a State Department official further elaborated, "would alarm the Japanese" and other American allies in the area...
...one of many revelations was that per capita food grain production was no greater in 1977 than in 1955...
...Holbrooke joined the State Department in 1962, was a delegate to the 1968 Paris Peace Talks, and in 1972 left the government to become managing editor of Foreign Policy...
...Oksenberg reiterated this theme in the 1973 book he edited, China's Developmental Experience...
...In a number of interviews since the announcement of recognition and de-recognition, Zbigniew Brzezinski has volubly confirmed Ball's supposition as to the rationale for the policy change...
...Whit Stillman is publisher of"The American Spectator and editor of "Spectator's Journal...
...At 2 a.m...
...I have paid special attention to insuring that normalization of relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China will not jeopardize the well-being of the people of Taiwan...
...It would not be in the interest of mankind to see any of these principles eliminated or fundamentally compromised...
...But a report in the next day's paper was devoted to those on Capitol Hill who were arguing this seriously...
...Few countries turn out to be "of real importance to the United States" when members of the current administration apply the criteria of global political realities...
...In October, shortly after the conclusion of the Camp David talks, Carter set January 1 as the deadline for establishing full diplomatic relations with Peking...
...The Japanese Defense Minister, Shin Kanemaru, told his parliament in late June that he had met with Brzezinski and other officials who assured him that the United States would honor its commitments to Taiwan and viewed its security as important...
...the sole "human rights violation" specifically mentioned in Dragon and Eagle is in the chapter critical of the Nationalist regime in Taiwan...
...At 9 p.m...
...As Vance was out of the country during the entire period of the intensive negotiations, it is doubtful whether he played a role in formulating the joint communique...
...In this same piece, Holbrooke wrote of the "inevitable MPLA triumph...
...Of this trip the New York Times reported, "Washington is depicting it more as an effort to demonstrate the United States' continued interest in China than an attempt to negotiate an improvement in relations...
...The aftermath of American withdrawal from Indochina he put in similarly optimistic terms: "First of all, the dominoes did not fall...
...We have made highly publicized efforts to woo the major communist powers while neglecting our natural friends and allies...
...Taiwan time, Republic of China President Chiang Ching-kuo was awakened to be told of the prospective U.S...
...We simply must have an international policy of democratic leadership, and we must stop trying to play a lonely game of power politics -Jimmy Carter Address to Foreign Policy Association, June23, 1976...
...No one," a news story in Monday's New York Times reported, "appeared to argue seriously today that President Carter lacked current legal authority to take the step he did on Friday night...
...Not really-and anyway, we could have sought relations with the MPLA...
...the 1938 pact involved five of fourteen million Czechs...
Vol. 12 • February 1979 • No. 2
