From Colony to Superpower: U.S. Foreign Relations Since 1776 (126 page)

Meanwhile, Nixon and Kissinger inched cautiously toward normalizing relations with the People's Republic of China. United States elites, including much of the foreign policy establishment, had long argued that the policy of isolation and containment was outdated. Liberal Democrats such as Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts had taken up the cause. A slowing economy revived century-old dreams of a potentially limitless Chinese market as a solution. Nixon and Kissinger saw geopolitical gains in the form of leverage with the Soviet Union and with North Vietnam in ending the war. Ever the political animal, Nixon relished the prospect of being the first American president to visit China, in part because of the exquisite irony given his reputation as a hard-core anti-Communist, also for the likely political advantage.
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China was moving in the same direction. Its leaders increasingly recognized that their national security required economic growth and modernization, which in turn demanded access to foreign ideas, technology, and imports. Easing of tensions with the United States would permit cuts in defense spending and afford access to trade and desperately needed technology. As tensions with the USSR escalated into border warfare, the United States appeared an increasingly useful counterweight. Despite its revolutionary ardor, China, much like the Soviet Union, desperately sought confirmation of its status as a world power. Recognition by the United States was an essential step toward that goal. Chinese moderates saw a rapprochement with the United States as a means to stabilize the nation's foreign relations and contain internal impulses toward radicalism.
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Thus for two and a half years, the erstwhile enemies carried out an elaborate, carefully choreographed diplomatic mating dance comprised of signals faint and strong, one step forward, two back. Early in Nixon's term, the Chinese spoke of peaceful coexistence and proposed reopening the Warsaw talks. Nixon signaled his interest through de Gaulle and Romanian dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. In July 1969, the United States eased restrictions on travel to China and reduced Seventh Fleet patrols in the Taiwan Straits. Most significantly, in early 1970 in Warsaw the two sides began to outline positions on such difficult issues as Taiwan and Vietnam.
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After twenty years of hostility and name-calling, the path to normalization was strewn with obstacles. In China, a hard-line faction headed by Lin Biao stubbornly opposed talks with the United States. Nixon had to worry about right-wing Republicans such as Arizona senator Barry Goldwater and California governor Ronald Reagan, bitter foes of Red China and staunch backers of Taiwan. The Vietnam War provided a huge barrier to normalization. Nixon's incursions into Cambodia in April 1970 and Laos in early 1971 provoked a renewed Chinese commitment to North Vietnam and loud protests from Beijing. Reverting to boilerplate Cold War rhetoric, Chinese leaders appealed to revolutionary forces everywhere to "unite and defeat the U.S. aggressors and all their running dogs."
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Both nations had set their course, however, and the pace quickened again in late 1970. The United States continued to withdraw forces from Vietnam while the Soviet Union expanded its deployments along the Chinese border. The course for Beijing seemed obvious. In December 1970, Mao Zedong invited to China American journalist Edgar Snow, author of a glowing 1938 account of the Chinese Communist movement, who was presumed, incorrectly, to have influence in Washington. Snow stood on the reviewing platform during a founder's day parade. In a conversation, the Great Helmsman confided his willingness to talk with Nixon "either as a tourist or as president."
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United States officials completely missed the importance of these events until Snow published in
Life
four months later an account of his trip. Regardless, Nixon was increasingly eager to use reconciliation with China to isolate North Vietnam, and he too made important moves. In October, he became the first U.S. president to publicly use the term "People's Republic of China," a hugely symbolic step whose significance was not lost on Beijing. He sent
out additional feelers through Pakistan and Romania. In February 1971, he spoke publicly of drawing the PRC "into a constructive relationship with the world community" and pledged a willingness to respect its "legitimate national interests." In March 1971, the United States removed special passport restrictions imposed for travel to China, long viewed by the PRC as an affront to its sovereignty.
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This seemingly small step made possible what has come to be known as "Ping-Pong diplomacy," one of the most celebrated events on the road toward normalization. The U.S. table tennis team was competing in Japan in early 1971. Inadvertence sometimes plays a vital role in diplomacy. When an American player on his own initiative made friendly gestures toward a Chinese participant, Beijing mistakenly perceived another official signal and responded by inviting the U.S. team to China. The visit drew a horde of journalists and worldwide attention. Not surprisingly, the Americans lost to the acknowledged masters of the sport, but their trip represented a major breakthrough. "The Great Wall has come down,"
Life
proclaimed. Prime Minister Zhou En-lai told the U.S. team that they had "opened the doors to friendly contacts."
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In a move undoubtedly calculated to light a fire under the White House, a Chinese official proposed to a U.S. reporter the possibility of American dignitaries visiting China, including some prominent Democrats. Ping-Pong diplomacy opened the way to visits by students, scholars, and reporters. Nixon scrapped a longstanding trade embargo on China. Zhou followed by inviting a top-level U.S. official to visit for open-ended discussions.

That proved to be Kissinger, of course, and his July 1971 mission to Beijing was handled with all the mystery and intrigue of a classic cloak-and-dagger film. Uncertain about the outcome of the trip and wary of embarrassment, he and Nixon insisted on absolute secrecy. That, of course, also enabled them to keep the bureaucracy—especially the State Department and Rogers—completely in the dark. Typical of their strange relationship, Kissinger was not even honest with Nixon, encouraging his boss to believe that he might visit some city other than Beijing, thus allowing the president to fulfill his ambition to be the first to go to the capital.
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Flattering himself with the code name Polo after the venerable fourteenth-century Italian visitor to China, Kissinger set forth on an extended tour of Asia. While in Pakistan, he feigned illness, and a person
masquerading as the national security adviser was whisked off to a safe haven for "recuperation." At 4:00
A.M
., July 9, he boarded a Pakistani aircraft for China—even the flight crew did not know the identity of their illustrious passenger. Informed that the Chinese retained bitter memories of John Foster Dulles's snub of Zhou at Geneva in 1954, Kissinger upon arrival warmly extended his hand. But it was the shrewd and silky Zhou who charmed his American visitor. "Urbane, infinitely patient, extraordinarily intelligent, subtle," Kissinger later flattered his host, "he moved through our discussions with an easy grace that penetrated to the essence of our new relationship."
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Kissinger's talks with the Chinese were far more substantive, and the United States conceded much more, than Nixon and Kissinger let on in their memoirs. The national security adviser did not respond when Zhou emphatically stated that Taiwan "is an inalienable part of Chinese territory" and even compared its relationship to China with that of Hawaii—and Long Island—to the United States. But he did pledge that the United States would not support independence for Taiwan or the newly flourishing Taiwan independence movements. "Good, these talks may now proceed," Zhou cooed in response. Kissinger subsequently pledged that the United States would not back Taiwanese military action against the mainland and indicated that recognition could come in Nixon's second term. He went to extraordinary lengths to ingratiate himself—and the United States—with his hosts and new friends, sharing intelligence gleaned from spy satellites about Soviet troop dispositions along the Chinese border. He also promised to inform the Chinese of the details of U.S. negotiations with the USSR that directly concerned them. Zhou skillfully deflected Kissinger's requests for assistance in ending the Vietnam War. About all the modern-day Marco Polo got was a much coveted Chinese invitation for Nixon to visit the following year—and the all-important (to Nixon) pledge not to permit any Democrats to come earlier.
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Nixon's July 15 bombshell announcement of Kissinger's trip and his upcoming visit to China had momentous consequences. Such a diplomatic volte-face could not but unnerve adversaries and allies alike. Kissinger took pains to give Dobrynin several hours' warning prior to the president's public statement that he would visit China before the Soviet Union, perhaps easing the jolt a bit. Nixon later dispatched Reagan on his maiden diplomatic voyage to reassure an understandably uneasy Taiwan. The news hit Japan with "typhoon force," the U.S. ambassador, himself in the
dark until the last minute, observed. Nixon assigned the humiliated Rogers the thankless task of informing the Japanese, but because of a communications snafu Prime Minister Eisaku Sato got the word a mere three minutes before the president's speech. The Japanese were "upset as hell," it was said, and what came to be called the "Nixon shock" would contribute to the fall of Sato's government.
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The diplomatic fallout continued into October when, with no more than perfunctory U.S. opposition, the United Nations voted to admit the People's Republic of China and expel Taiwan.

For Nixon, a rift with Japan, tensions with Taiwan, and a largely symbolic and expected defeat at the UN were small prices to pay for the larger diplomatic gains and especially for the presumed domestic political windfall. The president handled the Republican right with as much care as Dobrynin, instructing Kissinger to speak personally with Goldwater and Reagan. The announcement of Nixon's visit to China won near universal praise from Americans, however, forcing even liberal Democrats to grudgingly support a policy change they had pushed and a president they despised. A trip to Beijing in February provided something "good to hit the Democrats with at primary time," Nixon crowed.
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Indeed, with summits set for Beijing and Moscow in 1972, the administration was poised to put into place the major elements of its Grand Design and launch a triumphal presidential campaign.

As the "Nixon shock" makes clear, the administration's focus on Vietnam and detente gave a certain tunnel-vision quality to its foreign policies. That accurately reflected Nixon and Kissinger's assessment of what was really important in the world. It also indicated their concentration of control in the White House and inability to handle all the problems that fell in the lap of the world's greatest power. Sometimes, they pursued major goals without much regard for the impact on other nations. Often, they viewed events largely in terms of their connection to superpower relations. Thus, in dealing with the rest of the world the administration achieved no better than mixed results.
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As Soviet-American conflict eased and the Continent edged toward greater stability, European issues no longer seemed urgent. To be sure, Nixon did take a much publicized trip to Western Europe early in his
presidency, during which he met with de Gaulle in a celebration of mutual admiration. At a NATO council meeting in Brussels, he pledged to "listen with new attentiveness" to America's European "partners," a promise he generally ignored. To the great annoyance of the Soviets, he subsequently visited Romania, Yugoslavia, and Poland. But in general, Europe did not occupy much of his and Kissinger's attention or loom especially large in their calculations.
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Even in the area of detente, the Europeans themselves led the way toward a reduction of tensions on the Continent. Brandt was the driving force. Like Kissinger a refugee from Nazi Germany, he grew up in Norway and embraced the Scandinavian middle way as a basis for his domestic and foreign policies. His
Ostpolitik
broke sharply with West Germany's traditional policy of isolating East Germany. Rather, it sought reunification by engagement with East Germany and extrication from superpower domination. To ease the way for other agreements, West Germany in 1969 signed the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty. During a spring 1970 visit to Moscow, Brandt's foreign minister, Egon Bahr, worked out principles that formed the essence of
Ostpolitik
. West Germany accepted the long-contested Oder-Neisse line as a boundary with Poland, promised to return the Sudetenland to Czechoslovakia, renounced the use of force to change boundaries, and agreed to establish relations with East Germany. The USSR agreed to support the reunification of Germany by peaceful means and discuss the status of West Berlin. These principles were subsequently incorporated into treaties with the Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, and Poland. The treaties ratified and legalized the status quo in Eastern Europe. They formed the basis for the European settlement that had eluded the great powers after World War II. Ironically, the German issue changed from being a key point of Cold War conflict to a basis for detente.
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In December 1970, placing a wreath on a memorial to victims massacred by the Nazis at the Warsaw ghetto, Brandt fell to his knees in a gesture of penitence hailed by
Time
as a "turning point in the history of Europe—and of the world."
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That magazine named him Man of the Year in 1970. The next year he won the Nobel Peace Prize.

Brandt's diplomacy sparked movement in other areas. Since V-E Day, the status of West Berlin had been among the most explosive Cold War issues. The USSR wanted the West out of West Berlin, an isolated enclave
within East Germany, or, failing that, only the most limited ties between West Berlin and West Germany. The West sought Soviet guarantees of access to West Berlin. Reflecting the interlocking nature of
Ostpolitik,
the August 1970 Soviet–West German Treaty smoothed the way for a September 1971 four-power agreement guaranteeing Western access to West Berlin in return for pledges that it would not be incorporated into West Germany. The treaty eliminated a dangerous problem. It facilitated negotiations on other issues and ultimately for progress on Soviet-American detente. Under Moscow's leadership, the Warsaw Pact, mainly to secure Western acceptance of the status quo in Eastern Europe, had long pressed for a broad East-West conference on European security. Fearing that Congress might unilaterally reduce U.S. forces in Western Europe, NATO had urged negotiations with its Eastern European counterpart on mutual and balanced force reductions in Europe. In 1972, the two sides agreed to begin discussions.
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