The Meaning of Nixon's China Coup
Karnow, Stanley
THE MEANING OF NIXON'S CHINA COUP by STANLEY KARNOW Early in the evening of July 15, only a few hours before President Nixon dramatically annnounced his in- tended visit to China, the head of the...
...Such a rebuff, President Nixon wor- ried, would expose him to further at- tack at a time when his popularity at home was at a record low...
...The element of secrecy was vital...
...100 worth of Chinese merchandise...
...The Kissinger ex- plorations were to take two forms...
...Realizing that they could not emerge from their self-imposed isolation with- out adopting flexible tactics, they be- gan to make concessions in their for- eign policy negotiations...
...Nevertheless, he will be able to say to the voters when he campaigns for re-election that he is in the midst of negotiating an overall peace with China and must therefore be returned to office to complete the job...
...They have put themselves into a position to play a key role in a Southeast Asian settle- ment that is going to take place after peace is achieved in Indochina...
...Commu- nist China's border clashes with the Russians throughout 1969 dramatized to the Chinese the need to come to terms with the United States...
...That signal, followed by others, came through clearly to the President...
...without any fanfare, he removed vir- tually the entire Seventh Fleet from the Taiwan Strait in an effort to per- suade the Chinese that the United States no longer posed a threat to their country...
...Last April, to the total surprise of the White House and everyone else, the Chinese invited an American table tennis team to Peking...
...Thus the President desperately sought a sensational victory in the one field he held to be crucial—foreign affairs...
...He was anxious to avoid criticism at home, especially from the Southern conservatives who had helped him to win election...
...STANLEY KARNOW is diplomatic cor- respondent for The Washington Post...
...Underlying the President's prudent moves, some of them made in great secrecy, were two primary considera- tions...
...What Mr...
...When he reaches Peking to open dis- cussions with the Chinese leadership, President Nixon is bound to encounter enormous difficulties...
...One of the most important of these concessions was the compromise they reached with the Canadians, in which they accepted a formula that merely "noted" their claim to sovereignty over Taiwan...
...On May 15, 1969, the National Se- curity Council devoted its entire session to the China question, recommending that the President initiate a series of small steps aimed at communicating his desire for contacts with Peking...
...By inviting Mr...
...No longer can there be any question of their legitimacy as the rulers of China...
...In effect, his design was based on the judgment that Peking would respond on its own initiative to his inducements if he could create the proper climate for such a response...
...He knew through Edgar Snow, Mao's American biogra- pher, that the Chinese leaders wel- comed the principle of such a meeting...
...But after Presi- dent Johnson's abdication in 1968, Nixon perceived that American in- volvement in the Far East was un- popular...
...Nixon has attained for the Peking leaders the objective they have been pursuing for more than two decades— big power status...
...Their main concern was the possibility that their dispute with Mos- cow might prompt the Soviet Union to invade China as it had thrust into Czechoslovakia in 1968...
...On the one hand, Kissinger quietly passed the word to East European diplomats in Washington and elsewhere that the White House was seriously interested in reaching some kind of modus vivendi with China...
...He was seeking, in short, to convince the Chinese that a detente with the^ United States could be founded on mutual self-interest...
...Nixon's belief that he could score a foreign policy triumph by re- laxing tensions between the United States and Communist China was not as incredible as it might have seemed a few years ago...
...Nixon to Peking, however, the Chinese have already scored several diplomatic gains in a single stroke...
...Thus Mr...
...embargo on trade with China to permit Americans to buy he is currently on leave to write a book about China...
...The Chinese have been extremely sensitive to the fact that for a whole generation the United States has attempted to encircle their country with a ring of military bases and a large and heavily armed fleet of warships...
...The fact that Presi- dent Nixon has resisted Pentagon pleas to transfer nuclear weapons from Oki- nawa to Taiwan may signal a modest break in the encirclement policy, but it still constitutes a formidable obstacle to an early rapprochement...
...President Nixon's remark that his move to seek a new relationship with Peking "will not be at the expense of our old friends" was amplified a few weeks later by Secretary of State Wil- liam P. Rogers' announcement that the United States would support the seat- ing of Communist China in the United Nations while opposing any action to expel the Chiang government based in Taiwan...
...He was a virulent anti-Communist during the early days of the Cold War, and as recently as 1966, before the hard line in Asia lost favor, he warned that the United States would be at war with China in five years "if we reward ag- gression in Vietnam...
...He followed this by lifting the ban on travel to China by Americans...
...Moreover, they are extremely sensitive to the existence of a rival Chinese gov- ernment that not only purports to speak for China but also represents their country at the United Nations...
...Because of their independ- ent position in the Sino-Soviet rivalry, the Rumanians were particularly well- placed to play the role of intermediary...
...But their first and foremost concern is the ques- tion of Taiwan, the redoubt of Chiang Kai-shek's Nationalists, over which the Communists claim sovereignty...
...Between now and early next year, when he plans to go to Peking, he may not have reached an accord with Hanoi, or resolved America's dire economic dilemmas, or made any progress in resolving the des- perate problems of American cities...
...approach to the Communists...
...Thus their forthcoming meeting reflects a conjunction of inter- ests that may, in the process, bring the world a bit closer to stability...
...military presence on the island than by the fact that a foreign power is occupying China's "sacred territory...
...Their ex- perience also dictated their actions...
...But above all, their gesture towards Mr...
...As Chinese, they were reassured by his long anti-Soviet record...
...In a very real sense, then, Mr...
...In his State of the World message this year, referring to China as the "People's Republic," he stressed his desire to see the Peking government enter into "a constructive relationship with the world community...
...On February 1, 1969, his twelfth day in office, he instructed Kissinger to begin exploring the chances of a rapproche- ment with Peking...
...Nixon assumed office...
...Nixon took the first of these tiny steps a month later, when he modified the total U.S...
...To help him in working out the de- tails, he relied heavily on Rumanian President Nicolae Ceausescu, who vis- ited China in early June...
...With Mao Tse-tung's hectic Cultural Revolution finished in all but rhetoric, Premier Chou En-lai and a phalanx of senior Chinese army officers rose in power...
...During his election campaign, he hinted that he welcomed a detente with Peking...
...Nixon's election, the Chinese made a gesture that was at the origin of the present relaxation of tensions with Washington...
...He was wrong—at least in his estimate of their timing...
...They have demoralized Chiang Kai-shek's rival regime on Tai- wan, thereby setting in motion forces on the island that might eventually seek some sort of accommodation with the Communists...
...In Peking, meanwhile, the prospect of a deal with Washington began to look increasingly attractive...
...The sharp reaction in Peking emphasized anew, if indeed it needed emphasizing, that any attempt to reach an accom- modation with the Chinese Commu- nists would be reduced to the extent that the Nixon Administration con- tinues to support the Chiang regime in one way or another...
...That plat- form will be more compelling than any public relations gimmick he has con- trived throughout his long career of public relations gimmicks...
...THE MEANING OF NIXON'S CHINA COUP by STANLEY KARNOW Early in the evening of July 15, only a few hours before President Nixon dramatically annnounced his in- tended visit to China, the head of the State Department's Far East Bureau asked one of his colleagues: "What do you think the President is going to say in his speech tonight...
...Nixon feared most as he worked to arrange his delicate trip, therefore, was a rebuff from the Chinese...
...In addi- tion, they foresaw the inevitability of an American withdrawal from Indo- china, and they were eager to partici- pate in a future settlement that would determine the status of Southeast Asia...
...That vignette illustrates the extra- ordinary secrecy with which Nixon and his chief security adviser, Henry Kis- singer, planned their stunning coup...
...Nixon went for- ward on the path towards rapproche- ment...
...This prompted Nixon to speed up his attempts to or- ganize a summit meeting with Chou En-lai and Mao...
...They have intruded a new element into Japanese-American relations that, they apparently hope, will forestall the nu- clear rearmament of Japan...
...Nixon is using the Chinese to guarantee his election victory—just as they are using him to vault themselves onto the inter- national scene...
...The Chinese therefore sought to set in motion a strategy of "triangular" diplomacy that would deter the Russians...
...Equally important, he was anxious to avoid any advances that might provoke a rejection from Peking...
...It was President Eisen- hower, a Republican, with whom the} had made peace...
...For the President attached immense im- portance to the Peking mission he had been contemplating for two years and actively preparing since April, when the American table tennis team breached the great wall that had sep- arated China from the United States for more than two decades...
...And after he became President, he showed even greater re- ceptivity to the idea of contacts with the Chinese Communists...
...Fortunately for the President, his shifting attitude towards the Chinese coincided with a changing outlook in Peking towards the United States...
...As Marxists they interpreted his Republican Part) affiliation to mean that he representee "monopoly capital" and was conse- quently closer to the American "ruling classes" than the Democrats...
...With all this, the President was not overly optimistic that Peking would jump quickly to his feelers...
...Oddly enough, President Nixon's credentials suited China's rulers...
...This approach, predictably, brought an angry response from Pe- king, whose official press agency at- tacked the Rogers statement as a "clumsy 'two Chinas' trick" that was "absolutely illegal and futile...
...The Post...
...For President Nixon, the impending visit to China has given him the com- modity he most needed for his own political survival—time...
...The two nations are also divided by such complicated problems as Indo- china and the future of Japan...
...The Chinese also perceived that an accom- modation with Washington might also block Japanese rearmament...
...He further modified the restric- tions on trade with China, and he indi- cated his intention to allow the export of non-strategic items to Peking...
...At the same time Kissinger ordered his staff to make a broad policy review of the costs and risks involved in a new U.S...
...They issued a statement calling for a resumption of the Sino- American ambassadorial talks in War- saw, specifying that the conversations reopen after Mr...
...On November 26, 1968, just aftei Mr...
...It was President Truman, a Democrat who had threatened China during the Korean War...
...Separating the United States and China are years of hostility and mistrust...
...Thus thej turned to President Nixon...
...They have given the Russians cause for concern that, from now on, their own dealings with both Peking and Washington will be compli- cated by the new factor of a Sino- American rapprochement...
...This reality is al- most certain to be ratified at the Unit- ed Nations, where their claim to rep- resent China is likely to be supported by a majority of the members of the world organization...
...Encouraged by the Chinese reactions to his overtures, Mr...
...Pervasive opposition to the Indochina war, com- bined with an accumulation of do- mestic, economic, and social problems, had undermined his prestige to the point at which it was commonly pre- dicted in Washington that his chances of re-election in 1972 were declining sharply...
...He has served for eleven years in the Far East as a correspondent for Time, Life, the London Observer, and, more recently...
...Nixon's trip in 1969 to Rumania—the first American President to travel to a Communist country—had not been gratuitous, as many observers thought at the time...
...The Communists have asserted in every public and private statement that there can be no improvement in Sino-Amer- ican relations until the United States removes its military forces from the island, which lies 100 miles from the China mainland...
...As an astute politician, he had adjusted himself to fashionable trends throughout his career...
...The Communists are less worried by the U.S...
Vol. 35 • September 1971 • No. 9
