1/24/83

The visit of Secretary of State George Shultz to China will surely determine the course and quality of Chinese-American relations for the remainder of this Administration and probably for the remainder of the decade. Unfortunately success will not lend itself to treatment by the media.

For it will consist of intangibles: the way the United States and China view their respective roles in world affairs, above all whether these views can be harmonized.

Much less important will be the familiar staples with Beijing datelines: Taiwan, trade, normalization.

Sino-American relations have been on a roller coaster for the past generation. During World War II and its immediate aftermath we yielded to sentiment in promoting a weak China torn by civil war to great power status.

The Chinese revolution brought a swing of the pendulum to the other extreme; hostility became seemingly fundamental and permanent; contact between the two countries was to all intents and purposes broken off. When rapprochement

2

finally took place in the Seventies many Americans treated
it with the traditional nostalgia of equating relations
among states with relations among people and endowed
it with qualities of personal friendship. In the nature
of things such exaggerated expectations could not be
sustainable. Inevitably strains have developed as each
side has sought to adjust the relationship less to sentiment
than to its perception of its national interest. In
this sense some of the strains of recent years reflect
a sign of maturing, indeed a return to normalcy.

Still the strains have been excessive. They have
been driven beyond their intrinsic merit by domestic
upheavals in both countries. A point has been reached
where some of the disputes are on the verge of gaining
their own momentum. Essentially tactical squabbles could
override common long-term objectives to the detriment
of both parties and the prospects of world peace. It

3

is to arrest this process and to start a process of reversal
that Secretary Sultz has set out on his journey.

## What Went Wrong?

During the period of innocent optimism much nonsense
was written and spoken about the proposition of how
"unnatural" had been the estrangement between the American
and the Chinese people as if the rapprochement fulfilled
a deep emotional necessity on both sides. The facts
were far more prosaic. China in its marvelous history
of three thousand years has had no natural allies. Indeed
it has only recently accustomed itself to dealing with
other nations on the basis of equality. For the greatest
part of Chinese history the status of foreigners was
defined in terms of various degrees of dependency on
the Middle Kingdom. China has felt most comfortable
aloof, self-contained as a culture whose uniqueness placed

4

it beyond the reach of foreigners.

For China there was nothing at all unnatural about living apart from America. And while Americans have had a historic emotional bond to China, it was developed during the period of foreign incursions which Chinese do not remember with equivalent affection. In any event it can hardly be said that there was a great popular demand in 1971 for an opening to China. In fact those of us who executed it were more worried about brickbats from the China lobby than anticipating vast public acclaim.

What brought the two nations together was the emerging consciousness of a common threat. For the United States, the build-up of Soviet power and constant Soviet pressures on the international equilibrium had been a familiar feature of the postwar scene. But it was only in the late Sixties that we began to look for partners beyond the traditional relationship with the industrial democracies.

5

For China this understanding was delayed for a decade
by ideological blinders; a shared philosophy with Moscow
obscured geopolitical realities or at least enabled Beijing
to sweep them under the rug. By the late Sixties the
conflict would no longer be obscured. Disagreements
between Beijing and Moscow started over ideology. They
soon spread to the basic security concerns of both sides.
Moscow grew uneasy about the emergence of a major military
power along an unrecognized frontier of 4000 miles only
thinly populated on the Soviet side. China was realistic
enough that its frontier was the only one bordering the
Soviet Union not protected by some outside security arrangement.
By 1969 it was clear that Marxist theory not only did
not shield it from military pressures; under the Brezhnev
doctrine Moscow claimed the right to police the orthodoxy
of fellow Communists by military might. For the United
States opportunity combined with necessity. For once

6

we had a President to whom an unsentimental perception
of power relationships was congenial rather than anathema.
And the Vietnam war produced an incentive not only to
isolate Hanoi and to warn Moscow but above all to prove
to our people that America had not lost the capacity
for great initiatives.

The new links between China and America prospered
for so long as the two sides kept their eye on the common
objective of resisting what their communiqués came to
describe as "hegemony". Simply put, this meant resistance
to Soviet attempts to overturn the global balance of
power. That objective required some agreement on what was
the essence of the threat, the elements of power, and
the appropriate strategy.

There were inevitable differences in tactical perspective.
In the developing world Beijing was less concerned than
we with stability and gave more emphasis to preempting

7

Moscow by appealing to radical movements. This caused it to back some leaders and causes that were hardly America's favorites. China was always leery of Washington's relations with Moscow, explicitly fearful that it would undermine the West's willingness to stand up to the Soviet Union, implicitly suspicious that detente might lead to a US-Soviet arrangement at China's expense.

These differences were obscured during the first months because each side had an interest in demonstrating rapid progress: the United States to demonstrate options amidst the frustrations of the Vietnam war; China to give us a stake in its security should the Soviet Union seek to apply the Brezhnev doctrine to it. After these immediate needs were satisfied the potential differences were contained for some years because major efforts were made to achieve a coordination of purposes if not of policies.

High level Chinese-American meetings were unique in

8

that they rarely concerned concrete or technical issues.

Most of the conversations dealt with assessments, projections and strategies. In the touchy field of Washington's relations with Moscow great pains were taken to keep Beijing informed and to ease Chinese concerns that deals might be made at their expense. In this manner tactical differences were seen in perspective and limited by the need to achieve common objectives. With respect to most of the world--Europe, Asia, the Middle East--Chinese and American perceptions were in fact parallel. Elsewhere, still faithful to its ideological convictions Beijing stopped short of policies that would have benefitted Soviet expansionism--as it still does in Southeast Asia.

The succeeding years made this mutual restraint increasingly difficult to maintain. Major domestic transformations preoccupied the leaders of both countries and spilled over into foreign policy. At first relations

9

with Moscow were at the heart of the problem. The United
States always had a difficult passage to navigate. If
we grew too exuberant about detente we would disquiet
Beijing and tempt it into its own overtures to Moscow
to avoid being left at the gate. If we were too intransigent
Beijing might take our hostility to Moscow for granted
and feel that there was no price to pay for thwarting
us in other parts of the world. The Carter Administration
oscillated between both extremes. The Vance wing gave
clear priority to relations with Moscow; the Brzezinski
wing spoke of a"China card." Beijing was a weapon in
our arsenal beyond the imperatives of Chinese national
interest. But a card can be discarded as well as played;
the unintended consequence was the inference that for
the right price from Moscow we might loosen our ties
with Beijing. The Reagan administration suffered from
no such ambivalence. Its anti-Soviet pronouncements

10

seemed to freeze us into a rigid hostility which no Chinese policy could affect. At the same time its rhetoric implied philosophic convictions with respect to China very different from its predecessors, causing the Chinese to fear a regression to the Dulles era.

Nor is the fault all on our side. Since the first American visit to China, Beijing has experienced major domestic upheavals of its own. The succession to Mao, the overthrow of the Gang of Four, the struggle for preeminence afterwards and finally the attempt to leaven a planned economy with incentives were each bound to leave some disgruntled elements within China. It would be astonishing if China's internal political battles remained confined to the publicized issues. Inevitably some of the stridency in the reaction to American policies reflected factional rivalries exploiting what seemed to be some Chinese leaders' embarassments. In the Ford administration the domestic

11

ambitions of the Gang of Four led to criticism and actions
with respect to our East-West policies which came close
to intervening into our domestic affairs. In recent
years the Taiwan issue--which we owe it to the Chinese
to recognize as a neuralgic one--has nevertheless been
pursued with extraordinary stridency even after the Reagan
Administration had gone out of its way to emphasize the
importance it attached to Sino-American relations. The
ambiguous rapprochement with Moscow almost surely involves
some internal maneuvering in the People's Republic. It
is a symptom of our real ignorance of internal Chinese
trends that we have great difficulty identifying particular
groups with particular policies or determining who favors
what policies and for what reason. For several reasons
US-Chinese relations are less good than they should be,
given the enduring parallel interests of the two countries
in maintaining the global balance of power. The issue

12

of Taiwan festers. A totally needless confrontation
on textile trade--exacerbated by a failure to fulfill
earlier promises of technology transfer--shadows Secretary
Shultz's trip. The hints and rumors of a Sino-Soviet
rapprochement are unnerving to some in the West. There
is a danger of a whole series of self-fulfilling prophecies
making Moscow the arbiter of both European-American and
Sino-American relationships--a situation whose first victim
will surely not be the United States.

A stock-taking on both sides is overdue.

## What Can be Accomplished.

The fundamental objective must be to place Sino-
American relations into an agreed strategic framework.

The staples of the recent dialogue cannot offer a roadmap
to that; they may in fact confuse it. The beginning of

wisdom is therefore to get clear what can _not_ be accomplished
and should _not_ be attempted.

13

The Shultz visit should not seek to resolve the Taiwan issue. In the Shanghai communique of 1972, the accord on normalization of 1979, and even more explicitly in a new communique signed last year, the United States has repeatedly committed itself to the proposition that there is only one China and that it would not support any variety of two-China solutions. Moreover the United States has recognized Beijing as the government of all of China. The legal framework cannot be stretched further. What remains for both sides is to live up to the letter and spirit of existing undertakings. The future of Taiwan must now be left to historical processes as Beijing has repeatedly asserted. The Secretary will surely wish to hear Chinese views as to what that spirit entails. But formal diplomacy has exhausted the subject itself in recent years; no new negotiations seem feasible.

14

Nor would the subject of trade by itself warrant
a trip to Beijing by the Secretary of State. Trade will
develop on the basis of a mutuality of interests; it
will follow, not guide political relationships. To be
sure, the tactics in recent textile negotiations have
been execrable. If there is one country with which one
should never proceed by ultimatum it is the heirs of
the Middle Kingdom with a tradition of three thousand
years of dealing with foreigners through the majesty
of its conduct rather than the naked pressures of power.
And bringing the issue to a head just prior to the Shultz
visit makes one wonder about the adequacy of the coordinating
mechanisms within our government. Still these steps
reflect the inadequate political priority US-Chinese
relations have received from both sides. Neither country
can want to--or indeed afford to--win these bureaucratic
battles. Both have a stake in overcoming bureaucratic

15

inertia and suspiciousness. If they quarrel it should
be on issues of principle and concept not over technical
disputes of experts. It is high time for the top leaders
of both countries to concern themselves with the fundamental
dimensions of the relationship.

Above all the United States should show no nervousness
over Sino-Soviet negotiations. A mature relationship
between the United States and China can only be based
on the premise that each side can assess its own national
interest without instruction from the other. Washington
and Beijing regulate their relationships to other countries
not as a favor to each other but to serve their interests
in peace, security and progress. When these interests
coincide, relations thrive; when they clash, cooperation
disintegrates. In this concept, tension between Moscow
and Beijing is not a boon bestowed on us by the Chinese;
it grows out of existing realities; it can surely not

16

be promoted by us. By the same token close ties between
Washington and Beijing--in which I deeply believe--are
not an act of altruism on our part; they either reflect
a correct evaluation of our self-interest or they will
wither. In my view a threat to the security of China
would undermine the global equilibrium as surely as Soviet
domination of Europe. And a weakening of America will
jeopardize the security of China. Statesmen can make
use of these premises; they cannot invent them.

Within the limits dictated by security each side
will of course adjust its relations to Moscow on the
basis of its tactical necessities and other considerations.
Neither country can want to encourage unnecessary international
tensions or encourage hostility with other countries
not imposed by circumstances. Neither Washington nor
Beijing can seek to blackmail each other, if only because
each would lose if the other is perceived as influencable

17

by pressure. Each side's freedom of action is thus restricted
by a matrix of principles which each ignores at its peril.

1) The United States must avoid Soviet domination
of the Eurasian landmass--the much-stressed hegemony--
for over time that would shift the global balance of
resources and power towards Moscow. Hence the United
States has a vital interest in the security and territorial
integrity of China.

2) China knows--even when it does not avow--that
its frontier of over 4000 miles with the Soviet Union
is its fundamental security problem. As China modernizes
it turns into a potential security problem for Moscow,
into a country less and less capable of being intimidated.
That problem can be eased by Moscow-Beijing diplomacy,
never eliminated. No rapprochement can shorten the frontier;
no withdrawal of troops can guarantee against their return.
Just as the US--if it is rational--cannot push US-Soviet

18

detente to the point of endangering Chinese security;
so China--if it is farsighted--cannot wish to forfeit
American interest in its security and territorial integrity.

Yet reality is not self-implementing. Differences
in national style, history and geography are often obstacles
to an identity of views. The American approach to policy
is too episodic and personal. Each new Administration
proudly proclaims the folly of its predecessor and its
determination to start afresh--oblivious to the fact
that this must unsettle all leaders who have staked their
country's future on the previous dispensation. The Chinese
approach is analytical and systematic; the Middle Kingdom
has a horror of appearing as a supplicant. Beijing assumes
that its interlocutor has done his homework and will
understand subtle indirections; the Chinese approach can
therefore appear aloof even condescending. Washington
acts as if good faith and bonhomie supply its own rationale.

19

Beijing conducts itself as if no other analysis deserves
the appellation of rational. To the Chinese, Americans
often appear unstable and slightly frivolous. To Americans
Chinese occasionally present themselves as either inscrutable
or uncommunicative.

Despite these differences in style and culture Sino-
American relations have remained extraordinarily durable;
a basis for a new advance still exists. Secretary Shultz's
preeminent objective will be to give them a new impetus
and this presupposes a stability of purpose and concept
on which both sides can count. Each side has seen many
changes of leaders in the past decade. The Chinese have
had to deal with four Presidents and five Secretaries
of State in a little over ten years--each taking pains
to distinguish himself from his predecessor. The United
States has encountered an equally dramatic alteration
of personnel, though the mainlines of Chinese policy

20

have been maintained with greater steadiness. Nevertheless
Sino-American relations are now encumbered because in
recent years far too much attention has been devoted
to peripheral issues and to surface irritations. We
have to face the fact that the Chinese have developed
serious doubts about our political or even emotional
stability. We have raised too many prospects only to
pull back. At one point we seemed to invite military
cooperation and then backed away. We promised cooperation
on transfer of technology and in effect reneged. All
this raised doubts whether we were really interested
in a close relationship. Even where Beijing accepts our
commitment to maintain the balance of power, doubts have developed
whether we are able to interpret it correctly in concrete
circumstances or act on our interpretation.

21

There were many important domestic and a few sensible international reasons why we did not oppose Cuban troops in Angola and Ethiopia, the first Communist coup in Afghanistan and behaved so fecklessly when Iran was taken over by a government hostile to the West. But to the Chinese they spelled a shift in the balance of power inimical to their interests with respect to which we proved ineffective.

A country with the longest tradition of self-government in history is loath to entrust its fate to the vagaries of personalities; when the United States is perceived in Beijing as an inadequate guardian of the equilibrium there are two consequences: Beijing is tempted towards Moscow despite all its suspicions, if only to gain time; the day-to-day issues of foreign policies--like Taiwan or trade--must carry a disproportionate burden.

The preeminent challenge of the trip to Beijing is to discuss a geopolitical and indeed historical concept

22

of the future. It would be dangerous to conceive this
as a public relations exercise. Or to apply the typical
method for high level meetings of more or less pedantic
expositions of well-known positions. The Chinese are
too subtle and analytical not to see through conventional
briefing papers. That requires of course that we settle
in our own mind what we are trying to do. In my experience
the best approach to the Chinese is complete frankness.
With the Chinese, majesty of conduct is more important
than cleverness. It is wiser to admit that some positions
are in a state of evolution than to pretend to settled
views which dialogue will reveal as shallow or empty.
It would help if--as the dialogue develops--it could
be given a bipartisan cast. For whatever the Chinese
may think of the merit of our expositions they are as
much interested in our staying power.

Fortunately Secretary Shultz is nearly the ideal

23

man for this delicate and crucial assignment. But his
hosts must not place the entire weight of the trip on
him. It is to be hoped that the Chinese contribution
will transcend the occasional hectoring of recent years,
especially the grating tendency of listening to American
presentations as if we were students taking an examination.

I believe that both sides will be represented by
men with sufficient wisdom to transcend the recent past.
Having had an opportunity to talk to both interlocutors
I am convinced that neither side promoted the visit of
the Secretary in order for it to fail. Both sides are
wise enough to understand that one dialogue can start
but not conclude a strategic understanding. Senior Chinese
leaders--preferably Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang--should
continue the process in Washington. And however difficult
the dialogue may be, negotiating with the Chinese has
the advantage that undertakings will be strictly honored.

24

Zhou Enlai said during our first meeting: "Our word counts." I believe all American negotiators have found this to be the case.

Of the operational matters the only issue requiring urgent attention is transfer of technology, which has a symbolic significance. This not only will affect the pace of China's modernization, but also symbolize our commitment to it. The obstacles so far have been both bureaucratic (on both sides) and philosophical. The bureaucratic problems usually melt when it is understood that the top leadership is determined to proceed.

The philosophical issue goes deeper. Our restrictions on trade with Communist countries have as their purpose to prevent the strengthening of strategic capabilities potentially inimical to us. But China is decidedly not a Soviet ally nor is it in the same class of military power. China could not represent a *military* threat to American interests for the rest of this century by which

25

time current technology will be superseded. In any event,
statesmen stultify themselves if they seek to preempt
too distant a future as much as if they refuse to look
far enough ahead. China, in my view, should be given
the same status for technological transfer as India and
Yugoslavia. It would convey that we understand and take
seriously a parallelism of interest.

Many American leaders have visited Beijing in the
past decade. All have been impressed by their hosts'
thoughtfulness and meticulousness. None will have gone
at a more propitious juncture than Secretary Shultz.
Having had the privilege of making the first visit, I
have, of course, a deep commitment to the Sino-American
dialogue. I have every confidence that this one will
make a major step forward to the benefit of our two countries
and the peace of the world.

1/20/83

The visit of Secretary of State George Shultz to China
is an event both important and almost bound to receive
inadequate attention or even misleading emphasis. It will
surely determine the nature of Sino-American relations for
the remainder of this Administration and probably beyond.
Yet its real story will not be those staples with Beijing
deadlines: Taiwan, trade, normalization. At stake will
be something intangible: the way the US and China view their
role in international relations, above all whether these
views can be harmonized.

Sino-US relations have been on a roller coaster for
the past generation. A sentimental promotion of China to
great power status during World War II and its immediate after-
math; a swing of the pendulum that made hostility appear
almost an end in itself; rapprochement in the Seventies in
much of the public mind took on the character of a personal

2

friendship; a gradual cooling of relations ever since. The
most recent phase is a sign of maturing and of normalcy;
if it gains its own momentum and goes out of control it would
damage the interests of both parties and the prospects of
world peace. It is to arrest this process that Secretary
Shultz has set out on his journey.

During the period of innocent optimism much sentimental
nonsense was written and spoken about the proposition of
how "unnatural" had been the estrangement between the American
and the Chinese people as if the rapprochement fulfilled
a deep emotional necessity. The facts were far more prosaic.
China in its marvelous history of three thousand years has
had no natural allies. Indeed it has only recently accustomed
itself to dealing with other nations on the basis of equality.
For the greatest part of Chinese history the status of foreigners
was defined in terms of various states of dependency on the
Central Kingdom. China has felt most comfortable aloof,

3

self-contained, a unique culture beyond the reach of foreigners.

For China there was nothing unnatural about living apart

from America.

What brought the two nations together was the emergence
of a common threat. For the United States, the build-up of
Soviet power and the constant pressures on the international
equilibrium had been a familiar feature of the postwar scene.

For China this understanding was delayed for a decade by
ideological blinders; a shared philosophy with Moscow obscured
geopolitical realities. When the awakening came Beijing
drew conclusions with characteristic single-mindedness. By
the late Sixties border skirmishes brought home to it that
Marxist theory not only did not shield it from military pressures;
under the Brezhnev doctrine which claimed for Moscow the
right to police the orthodoxy of fellow Communists, it might
even invite them. And the United States for once had a
President to whom unsentimental assessment of power

4

relationships were congenial rather than anathema.

American and Chinese relations prospered for so long as it was understood that what bound the two sides together was the common objective of resisting what their communiqués came to give the code name of Soviet "hegemony". Simply put this meant resistance to Soviet attempts to overturn the global balance of power. That objective could be pursued only so long as the two countries could more or less agree on what constituted the elements of power, what represented the essential threat and what was the appropriate strategy for countering it. There were inevitable differences in tactical perspective. In the developing world Beijing sought to preempt Moscow in the radical movements. This caused it to back some leaders who were hardly America's favorites. At the same time China was suspicious of detente, explicitly fearful that it would undermine the West's willingness to stand up to the Soviet Union; implicitly suspicious that

5

it might be a prelude to a US-Soviet arrangement, at least indirectly at China's expense. These differences remained manageable because each side took great care to explain its purposes to the other. High level US and Chinese meetings were unique in that they rarely concerned concrete negotiating issues. The preponderance of the conversations dealt with assessments and projections. In this manner differences were kept within bounds if not eliminated. In the developing countries Beijing stopped short of policies that would have benefitted Soviet expansionism. In detente we took great pains to ease Chinese concerns about US-Soviet relations at their expense.

The succeeding years made this mutual restraint difficult to maintain. Major domestic transformations preoccupied the leaders of both countries. In the United States some spoke first of a China card which implied that we could use Beijing for our strategy beyond the imperatives of Chinese

6

national interest. But a card can be discarded as well as played; the unintended consequence was the interpretation that for the right price from Moscow we might loosen our ties with Beijing. A few years later another shift in the American political spectrum unleashed an exuberant rhetoric with a throwback to some of the terminology of the Dulles era, causing Chinese nerves to jangle.

Meanwhile Beijing underwent major domestic changes of its own. The succession to Mao, the overthrow of the Gang of Four, the attempt to leaven a planned economy with incentives were bound to leave some disgruntled elements. It would be astonishing if the domestic battles could be confined to the publicized issues. Inevitably some of the stridency in the reaction to American policies reflected domestic imperatives. The incipient rapprochement with Moscow almost surely involves some internal jockeying in the People's Republic as well.

Whatever the causes, US-Chinese relations are less good

7

than they should be, given the parallel interests of the two
countries in maintaining a global balance of power. The issue
of Taiwan festers. A totally needless confrontation on trade--
buttressed by a failure to fulfill earlier promises of technology
transfer--shadows Secretary Shultz's trip. There are indications
and rumors of a Sino-Soviet rapprochement. A stock-taking on
both sides is overdue.

The Secretary's Journey

What then can be accomplished on the visit to Beijing?

It is vital to get clear what can _not_ be accomplished and
should _not_ be attempted.

The Shultz visit should not attempt to deal with the
Taiwan issue. In the Shanghai communique and even more explicitly
in a new communique signed last year, the United States has
reaffirmed the proposition that there is only one China, that it
would not support varieties of two-China solutions. In the
normalization process the United States has recognized

CD

8

Beijing as the government of all of China. The legal frame-
work cannot be stretched further. What remains for both
sides is to live up to the letter and spirit of existing
undertakings. The future of Taiwan must be left to historical
processes as Beijing has itself repeatedly asserted. The
Secretary will surely wish to hear Chinese views as to what
that spirit entails. But the subject itself has been negotiated
at great length in recent years. No new negotiations seem
feasible.

Nor would the subject of trade warrant a trip to Beijing
by the Secretary of State. The tactics in recent textile
negotiations have been execrable. If there is one country
with which one should never proceed by ultimatum it is the
heirs of the Middle Kingdom with a tradition of three thousand
years of dealing with foreigners through the majesty of its
conduct rather than the naked pressures of power. But
trade will follow a political understanding; many of the

9

obstacles to it have been bureaucratic inertia and
suspiciousness which will surely be reduced, perhaps eliminated,
as soon as the top leaders of both countries occupy themselves
with the problem.

Finally it cannot be an American objective to seek to
wean Beijing from Moscow. A mature relationship between
the United States and China must start from the premise that
each side can assess its own national interest without instruction
from the other; Washington and Beijing regulate their relationships
to other countries not as a favor to each other but to serve
their interests in peace, security and progress. Tension
between Moscow and Beijing is not a boon bestowed on us by
the Chinese; it grows out of existing realities. Close ties
between Washington and Beijing--in which I deeply believe--
is not an act of altruism on our part; it is a correct
evaluation of our self-interest.

10

Each side will of course adjust its relations to Moscow
on the basis of its perceptions of its security and other
interests. Neither country can want to encourage
unnecessary tensions. Each side's flexibility must be limited
by some fundamental principles.

1) The United States must avoid Soviet domination of
the Eurasian landmass--the much-stressed hegemony--for that
would shift the balance of resources and power towards Moscow
over a period of time. Hence the United States has a vital
interest in the security and territorial integrity of China.

2) China knows--even when it does not avow--that its
frontier of over 4000 miles with the Soviet Union is its
fundamental security problem. And that problem can be eased,
never eliminated, by Moscow-Beijing diplomacy. No talks
can shorten the frontier; no troop withdrawal can prevent
their return. Just as the US--if it is rational--cannot
push detente to the point of endangering Chinese security;

11

so China--if it is farsighted--cannot wish to forfeit American
interest in its fate.

Reality thus imposes limits on each side's flexibility.
Yet reality is not self-implementing. Differences in national
style, history and geography represent obstacles to an automatic
identity of views either with respect to security or more
long range objectives. The American approach to policy is
episodic and personal. Each new Administration proudly proclaims
the folly of its predecessor and its determination to start
afresh--oblivious that this must unsettle all those with
a stake in American consistency. The Chinese style is aloof
and systematic; the Middle Kingdom has a horror of appearing
as a supplicant. Beijing assumes that its interlocutor has
done his homework and will understand subtle indirections.
Washington acts as if good faith and bonhomie supply its
own rationale. To the Chinese, Americans often appear unstable
and slightly frivolous. To Americans Chinese occasionally

12

present themselves as either inscrutable or arrogant.

Both these views--as all extremes--are caricatures.

Secretary Shultz's preeminent objective will be to remove them. Each side has seen many changes of leaders. The Chinese have had to deal with four Presidents and five Secretaries of State in a little over ten years. The United States has encountered fewer changes of personnel (though four foreign ministers) but dramatic alterations in programs. Too much attention has been devoted to peripheral issues. What is imperative now is a careful analysis of the international situation in which both sides put forward fully and honestly how they analyze the world and view the future. We have to face the fact that the Chinese have developed serious doubts about our political or even emotional stability. They may accept our dedication to the international equilibrium but they almost surely doubt whether we are able to interpret it exactly in concrete circumstances. A country with the

13

longest tradition of self-government in history is loath
to entrust its fate to the vagaries of personalities; Beijing
is convinced that we have jeopardized the balance of power
by thoughtlessness if not design.

China, at the same time, must accept that for Americans
the frequently allusive style of Chinese argumentation can
be grating, especially if propositions are advanced as eternal
truths not subject to discussion. Beijing cannot simply
act as a critic of our guardianship of the balance of power;
it has to assume some responsibilities of its own.

Fortunately the interlocutors on both sides are outstanding
men. Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping is a great man who has survived
experiences that few could have endured and is aiming at
one of the great transformations of human history: the modern-
ization of China. Secretary Shultz is a man of wisdom and
character. Both understand that in reconciling the intangibles
on both sides they are engaged in a process which cannot

14

be concluded in a single visit. Senior Chinese--preferably the Prime Minister Zhao Ziyang--should continue the dialogue in Washington.

I am convinced that the visit by the Secretary of State to Beijing can turn into a major achievement. Once the conceptual approaches are harmonized trade relations should rapidly fall into place. Especially important to the Chinese is the issue of transfer of technology. It will affect not only the pace of modernization, it will also symbolize our commitment to it. The obstacles so far have been both bureaucratic (on both sides) and philosophical. The bureaucratic problems usually melt when it is understood that the top leadership is determined to proceed.

The philosophical issue goes deeper. The rules on trade with Communist countries have as their purpose to prevent the strengthening of Soviet strategic capabilities. But China is neither a Soviet ally nor in the same category

15

of military power. It cannot represent a military threat
to American interests for the rest of this century by which
time current technology will be superseded. In any event,
statesman can stultify themselves by seeking to preempt the
distant future as well as by not seeing far enough ahead.

China, in my view, should be given the same status as India
and Yugoslavia as far as technology is concerned. It would
symbolize that we take seriously a parallelism of interest.

Many American leaders have visited Beijing in the past
decade. All have been impressed by their hosts' thoughtfulness
and meticulousness. None have come at a more propitious
juncture than Secretary Shultz. Having had the privilege
to make the first journey, I have every hope that this one
will make a major step forward on what has been a long and
important journey.