NATIONAL CO

REMAR

Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentlemen, it is often said that few people need an
introduction less than I, but even fewer enjoy an introduction more than I do. I must tell
you, though, that I had a rather shattering experience once at a birthday party for me,
where Christopher Soames, son-in-law of Churchill, spoke. He went on to say what the
qualities of a great statesman are, and as he listed them I was looking more and more
humble. He proceeded while I was waiting for the punchline, which unfortunately was
that a man of such qualities was Winston Churchill.

Now speaking to a group dedicated to Chinese-American relations is always a
moving experience for me. Here I see associates of many years standing, friends who
have shared similar preoccupations, and I also see that the most consistent foreign policy
the United States has carried out on a bipartisan basis has been in the context of Sino-
American relations.

On this subject, every administration, however it started out, has wound up in
more or less the same place. I said so to our last distinguished ambassador --- from an
administration admittedly which was my second choice in the last election -- when he
was appointed. (I said to myself, good God, that's going to be something. And I have on
many occasions pointed out the distinguished service he rendered.) Yet, like all of us
who have dealt with the issue, the ambassador came to the same general conclusion.
Any thoughtful American who has practiced the relationship has reached this conclusion.

NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON US-CHINA RELATIONS

REMARKS BY DR. HENRY A. KISSINGER

Mr. Chairman and friends, I am pleased to be here to introduce less than I, but each of you, to an audience that is larger and more diverse. It is often said that few people need an introduction less than I, but I believe that, though, that I had a rather shattering experience once at a birthday party for me, where Christopher Soames, son-in-law of Churchill, spoke. He went on to say what the qualities of a great statesman are, and as he listed them I was looking more and more humble. He proceeded while I was waiting for the punchline, which unfortunately was that a man of such qualities was Winston Churchill.

GALA DINNER

SEPTEMBER 8, 1999

Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentlemen: It is often said that few people need an
introduction less than I, but even fewer enjoy an introduction more than I do. I must tell
you, though, that I had a rather shattering experience once at a birthday party for me,
where Christopher Soames, son-in-law of Churchill, spoke. He went on to say what the
qualities of a great statesman are, and as he listed them I was looking more and more
humble. He proceeded while I was waiting for the punchline, which unfortunately was
that a man of such qualities was Winston Churchill.

[1c]

The striking thing about this record of bipartisan policy is that no matter at what end of the spectrum the administrations started -- whether on the liberal side, as the Clinton administration, or the conservative side, as the Reagan administration -- they more or less converged on the same central point. And that central point is that Sino-American relations are in the fundamental interest of both countries and are necessary for the peace and stability of Asia and for peace and progress in the world.

That is the fundamental reality that no one has gotten around -- although I must say that at this moment heroic efforts are being made to avoid reaching that conclusion. I have a unique capacity for uniting the American people: the liberals attack me for being too realistic, and the conservatives attack me for being too sentimental. And they accuse me specifically of having been taken in by these wily Chinese.

Now I have written nearly innumerable books on the importance of the national interest. And one of my fundamental convictions is that America must avoid the wild oscillations between its extreme missionary spirit -- in which we want to redo the world in our image -- and extreme resentment of the inadequacies within us that make us fail in so heroic an effort.

It seems to me that Sino-American relations are a fundamental test case of our ability to keep our foreign policy on a steady course -on our ability to define what it is within our power to achieve and the goals we need to achieve it.

2

[10]

We are now in a period where the two presidents will soon meet amidst an accumulation of tensions, misconceptions and mutual threats that have a capacity to get out of control. And it's important to remind ourselves of a few basic facts. We are not doing China a favor by having cooperative relations with China. If we cannot define an American interest in it, we have no business in cultivating the relationship. China is not doing us a favor by fostering close relations with us. Since we have proceeded on this course all these decades -- through six administrations of both parties and of different shades of opinion within each party -- there must be some objective reasons for it. And I would like to discuss these.

In 1969, shortly after President Nixon entered office, we discerned the possibility that the Soviet Union might attack China. We had no relations with China. We did not even know at what door to knock to get our face slapped, and we knocked at a lot of them. Nevertheless, we decided internally that, first of all, we would do our absolute utmost to prevent such an attack. And, secondly, that if it did take place, we would do our utmost to prevent China from being overrun.

We did this. None of us had met any Chinese leader at that point. But we did it because we thought that an attack against a country of the magnitude of China would bring about such a change in the perceptions of the world of what the trend was and of the balance of power that it was in our own selfish interest to prevent it.

3

[c]

We then dealt with the Chinese leaders under what are, for diplomats, almost ideal circumstances. That is, there were no tourists to worry about, no business, nothing to get mad about. We had no trivial subjects to discuss. We had only important subjects to discuss. Therefore we spent an extraordinary amount of the President's time, and of those of us who dealt with the Chinese leaders, discussing our perceptions of world affairs.

And we tried to explain to the Chinese as honestly as we could, what we understood to be the motivations of our policy and what they could expect from us, though that wasn't really as much of a major concern as how we interpreted the actions of various countries. And the Chinese did the same with us from their point of view.

And whenever I fell into American-style rhetoric – as when I once said to Deng Xiaoping that the good thing about our relationship was that we didn't want anything from each other -- I was immediately corrected. (As I was in this instance on the next day by Mao, who said: "I have read your conversation with the vice premier and said that that is not my consideration. If I wanted nothing from you, I would not have invited you. And if you wanted nothing from me, you shouldn't have come. That, I believe, is the basis of our relationship.")

Now what do we want from each other? People say that China was useful to block the Soviet Union. Now that the Soviet Union is gone, we don't need China. In fact, we have an even greater luxury. We can slap China into the space vacated by the Soviet Union and build our foreign policy around the containment of China. And if we are lucky, and if we are determined, we can achieve the same victory as we did over the Soviet Union.

4

[c]

This sort of talk is based on a number of propositions: that Chinese ideology is not acceptable to us; that China is growing at a rate which will make it a very great power and therefore a potential threat; and that there are a series of practical problems in which our relations are strained, including, of course, above all, the problem of Taiwan.

There's no question that our view of the appropriate domestic structure differs from that of the Chinese leadership. There's no question that, in our country, human rights has assumed a crucial importance and that we'll be vindicated in our statements by our policies and within margins consistent with other interests. But that is not the same as saying that it is our obligation to gear our entire foreign policy to the overthrow of a political system that is itself in the process of changing. Because this sets us on a course of global interventionism that is well beyond our capacity. And, secondly, it will almost surely backfire.

The Soviet Union was a different phenomenon from China. The Soviet Union avowed a universal ideology. It supported communist parties on a global basis. It avowed, as late as the 1970s, the goal of overthrowing the capitalist system, and it insisted on the right to defend the communist parties in power by force. None of this has been claimed by China.

The Chinese communist party has claimed relevance only for its own country. It is practicing a method of economy that would have been deemed totally heretical by the Soviet leaders of the 1970s. China has claimed no right to intervene in foreign countries on behalf of its ideology. It will no doubt grow in power but as a totally different phenomenon. The Soviet Union was surrounded by infinitely weaker countries it could threaten with large land armies, and it attempted to checkmate us with a huge nuclear capability.

5

[c]

China is surrounded by countries that are not impotent and that have significant military capacity. In my view, if one analyzed what really concerns Chinese leaders, it would be that a grouping might be formed of all the significant military countries against them. The irony of the situation is that one reason why the Chinese want better relations with the United States is because they are more concerned about their neighbors than they are about us as a security problem. We're in danger of achieving the remarkable feat of replacing Japan, Russia and India as the principal threat in the Chinese mind to Chinese security. And if that thought really gets established, it will bring about a revolution in Chinese diplomacy. The debate about an American containment policy is in a way irrelevant because there is not the same problem.

Now, anybody acquainted with my thinking, or anybody who knows the thinking and the performance of America, knows that when we signed the Shanghai communique against hegemony in Asia -- and later expanded it to hegemony in the world -- we did not make an exception for China. Surely the United States would resist any such attempt anywhere. Still, I do not, in the foreseeable future, see anything like this emerging. There are, to be sure, different perceptions about many problems and, without any doubt, China will gain in power if it continues to grow at anything like the rate of the last 20 years. But so will India, so will Brazil, so will a lot of countries. Of course, China has a population of a billion plus and is in a very central position to affect the Asian equilibrium.

What worries me most is this: if China challenges the balance of power, it is clear we will resist. But is it to become America's mission to prevent China from becoming strong? Is it to be our duty to keep China weak forever? Is this the problem that we are facing?

6

[c]

If we go down that route, we are committing ourselves to world empire of a kind
that no nation in history has ever sustained. It is also against every American tradition. I
believe that the correct American policy is not to pretend that relations between us and
China depend on the personalities of the leaders; or to claim that we have a special magic
in our human relationships that will lure the Chinese into a different approach to life
without their noticing it, as it were.

I think the right way to deal with China is to remember that it survived 5,000
years of uninterrupted history and that from this, one has to assume they must have done
something right. And that they have survived by patience, by intelligence, by tenacity,
and by making time their ally. So the people who talk lightly about confrontation with
China should not ask themselves what the headline is today as some of these grandiose
actions are carried out -- but what they're going to do in the third year of a prolonged
confrontation. For that is much harder to answer.

My Chinese friends know that should there be a real challenge to the American
national interest, I will resist them, much as I respect China and like the way they look at
foreign policy. And they know that the same is true of all of us who have dealt with them.
But they must also know that we look at a community of interests which we will try to
extend. It is hard to imagine how one can have peace on the Korean peninsula, how we
can deal with the problem of proliferation, or how one conceives stability in Asia without
a cooperative relationship between China and the United States.

7

A cold war between China and the United States would radicalize all the rest of Asia. It would be a classic no-win situation in which our policy would lose flexibility. China's progress would be hampered. Everybody's temptations would be whetted. And at the end of it how would one define victory? And how would one define success? This is the challenge before us.

I have supported the general direction of the current administration's China policy, though I find its rhetoric find painful to get used to. But one has to separate the direction of policy from the way it is justified. When the two presidents meet next week, they have the huge task of starting a process; not of improving their personal relationships but of laying out a program that can be carried out in both countries and that starts out from the realization that, of course, we're going to have different views about many things.

But we are content with coexistence. We should, wherever possible foster cooperation. This is not just in our own national interest but in the interest of peace and stability in Asia and in the world. In this sense, Sino-American relations, precisely because the backgrounds are so different and precisely because it is so easy to misperceive each other, are a good test for us.

We now live in a world in which we have no clearcut enemy, in which we have to conduct a global foreign policy, in which there is no end to our challenges, where every solution is an admission ticket to another set of problems. And so it isn't just a question of a test of Sino-American relations. The ultimate challenge is that it is a test of ourselves. Thank you very much.

(DRAFT TRANSCRIPTION)

GALA DINNER

REMARKS BY DR. HENRY A. KISSINGER:

Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentlemen, It is often said that few people need an introduction less than I, but even fewer enjoy an introduction more than I do. I must that tell you, though I had a rather shattering experience once at a birthday party for me, where Christopher Soames, son-in-law of Churchill, spoke. And he said the qualities of a great statesman are, as he listed them and I was looking more and more humble, while he proceeded and was waiting for the punchline, which unfortunately was, such a man was Winston Churchill.

Now speaking to a group dedicated to Chinese-
American relations is always a moving experience for me. Here
Because I see associates of many years standing, friends who
have shared similar preoccupations and I also see that the
most consistent foreign policy that the United States has
has been in the context of
carried out on a bipartisan basis in Sino-American
relations.

On this subject, every administration, however it started, has wound up in more or less the same place. And I think it was said to our last distinguished ambassador from an administration which admittedly was my second choice in the last election.

That is the fundamental reality that no one has *that* got *around* although I must say at this moment heroic *reaching* efforts are being made to avoid that conclusion. I have a *for* *inc* unique capacity *to* unite *the American people* *the liberals* attack me for being too realistic and the conservatives attack me for being too sentimental. And they accuse me specifically of having been taken in by these wily Chinese.

nearly

Now I have written innumerable books on the *n*

*its*

oscillations between *an extreme missionary spirit* *in which*

*the*

we want to redo the world in our image *or extreme resentment*

*within us*

*the*

*our inadequacies that made us fail in so heroic an*

*effort.*

[Y]

It seems to me that Sino-American relations
are a fundamental test case of our ability to keep our
foreign policy on a steady course -on our ability to define
what it is within our power to achieve ~~at~~ and the goals we need
achieve it.
to define for ourselves.

If we cannot define an American interest in
it
doing this, we have no business in cultivating the
relationship. China is not doing us a favor by fostering
Since
close relations with us. and therefore if we have proceeded
on this course for all these decades through six
administrations of both parties and of different shades of
opinion within each party there must be some objective
reason for it. And I would like to discuss this.

In 1969, shortly after President Nixon
discerned
entered office, we conceived the possibility that the Soviet
Union might attack China. We had no relations with China.
We did not even know at what door to knock to get our face
slapped and we knocked at a lot of them. Nevertheless,
that
internally, first of all, we would do our absolute
utmost to prevent such an attack. And secondly, that if it
did take place, we would do our utmost to prevent China from
being overrun.

We did this. None of us had met any Chinese leader at that point. We did it because we thought that an attack against a country of the magnitude of China would bring about such a change in the perceptions of the world of what the trend was and of the balance of power that it was in our selfish interest to prevent it.

We then dealt with the Chinese leaders under what for diplomats are almost ideal circumstances. That is, to worry about there were no tourists, there was no business. There was nothing to get mad about. We had no trivial subjects to discuss. We had only important subjects to discuss. And therefore we spent an extraordinary amount of the President's time and those of us who dealt with the Chinese leaders on discussing our perception of world affairs.

And we tried to explain to the Chinese as
honestly as we could, what we understood the motivations of
our policy were and what they could expect from us though
wasn't really much of a major concern how we interpreted
the actions of various countries. And so did the Chinese
Same
with us from their point of view.

And whenever I fell into American style
rhetoric like when I once said to Deng Xiaoping the good
thing about our relationship is that we don't want anything
from each other I was immediately corrected the next day
by Mao who said I have read your conversation with the vice
premier and said that is not my consideration. If I wanted
nothing from you, I would not have invited you. And if you
want nothing from me, you shouldn't come. That I believe is
the basis of our relationship.

that
Now what do we want from each other? People
the +
say China was useful to block the Soviet Union. Now the
^ Soviet Union is gone, we don't need China. In fact we have
an even greater luxury. We can slap China into the space
vacated by the Soviet Union and build our foreign policy
around the containment of China. And if we are lucky, and
if we are determined, we can achieve the same victory as we
over
did with the Soviet Union.

sort of talk
This is based on a number of propositions:
^ that Chinese ideology is not acceptable to us; that China is
-growing at a rate which will make it a very great power and
therefore a potential threat; and that also there are a
series of practical problems in which our relations are
strained, including of course above all, the problem of
Taiwan.
(^-)

[Y]

9

There's no question that our view of the
appropriate domestic structure differs from that of the
Chinese leadership. There's no question that in our
country, human rights has assumed a crucial importance, and *that*
we'll be vindicated in our statements and within margins
consistent with other interests by our policies. But *it* is
not the same as saying that it is our obligation to gear our
entire foreign policy to the overthrow of a political system
that *itself* is in the process of changing. Because this *gets*
us on a course of global interventionism that is well beyond
our capacity. And secondly, *it* will almost surely backfire.

[Y]

Now, anybody who knows my thinking or anybody
who knows the thinking and the performance of America knows
that when we signed the Shanghai communique against hegemony
in Asia and later expanded it against hegemony in the world,
we did not say, with the exception for China. Surely
the United States would resist any such attempt as long as I
do not in the foreseeable future see anything like this
emerging. There are, to be sure, different perceptions
about many problems and without any doubt, China will gain
in power if it continues to grow at anything like the rate
of the last 20 years. But so will India, so will Brazil, so
will a lot of countries. Of course, China has a population
of a billion plus and it is in a very central position to
affect the Asian equilibrium.

What
But the thing that worries me most is this:

[Y]

13

OCT-11-99 MON 21:46

GOLDHAMMER

FAX NO. 501-745-0358

P. 31

[Y]

I think the right way to deal with China is to remember it has survived 5,000 years of uninterrupted history. From this one has to assume they must have done something right. And they have survived by patience, by intelligence, by tenacity, by making time their ally. So the people who talk lightly about confrontation with China should not ask themselves what the headline is today as some of these grandiose actions are carried out - but what they're going to do in the third year of a prolonged confrontation. And that is much harder to answer.

15

My Chinese friends know that ~~is~~ there is a
the
real challenge to American national interest, I will resist.
them, much as I respect China and like the way they look at.
the same is true
foreign policy. And they know ~~that~~ of all of us who have
~~that~~ dealt with them. But they must also know that we look at a
community of interests which we will try to extend. It is
hard to imagine how one can have peace on the Korean
peninsula, how we can deal with the problem of
proliferation, or how one conceives stability in Asia
without a possible cooperative relationship between China
and the United States.

[Y]

But we are content with coexistence. We should foster wherever possible, cooperation. This is not just in our own national interest, but for peace and stability in Asia and in the world. In this sense, Sino-American relations, precisely because the backgrounds are so different and precisely because it is so easy to misperceive each other, are a good test for us.

We now live in a world in which we have no clearcut enemy, in which we have to conduct a global foreign policy, in which there is no end to our challenges, where every solution is an admission, to another set of problems. And so it isn't just a question of a test of Sino American relations. The ultimate challenge is that it is a test of ourselves. Thank you very much.

SEP-23-1999 18:50

KAI DC

212 753 7248 P.02

(DRAFT TRANSCRIPTION)

GALA DINNER

Mr. Chairman and ladies and gentlemen, it is often said that few people need an introduction less than I, but even fewer enjoy an introduction more than I do. I must tell you though I had a rather shattering experience once at a birthday party for me, where Christopher Soames, son-in-law of Churchill spoke. And he said the qualities of a great statesman are...and he listed them and I was looking more and more humble as he proceeded and was waiting for the punchline, which unfortunately was, such a man was Winston Churchill.

Now speaking to a group dedicated to Chinese-American relations is always a moving experience for me. Because I see associates of many years standing, friends who have shared similar preoccupations and I also see that the most consistent foreign policy that the United States has carried out on a bipartisan basis is Sino American relations.

Every administration, however it started, has wound up in more or less the same place. And I've said to our last distinguished ambassador from an administration - which admittedly was my second choice in the last election -

SEP-23-1999 18:50

KAI DC

212 753 7248

P.03

[Y]

when he was appointed, I said to myself, good God, that's going to be something. (And I have on many occasions pointed out the distinguished service he rendered there.) Yet, like all of us who have dealt with the problem, the ambassador came to the same general conclusion. Any thoughtful American who has practiced the relationship has reached this conclusion.

The strange thing is, that given this record of bipartisan policy, and the fact that no matter at what end of the spectrum the administration started - whether on the liberal side as the Clinton administration, or the conservative side as the Reagan administration - they more or less converge on the same central point. And that central point is that Sino-American relations are in the fundamental interest of both countries and are necessary for the peace and stability of Asia and for peace and progress in the world.

That is the fundamental reality that no one has got around. Although I must say at this moment heroic efforts are being made to avoid that conclusion. I have a unique capacity to unite the American people. The liberals attack me for being too realistic and the conservatives attack me for being too sentimental. And they accuse me specifically of having been taken in by these wily Chinese.

2

SEP-23-1999 18:50

KAI DC

212 753 7248

P.04

[Y]

Now I have written innumerable books on the
importance of the national interest. And one of my
fundamental convictions is that America must avoid the wild
oscillations between an extreme missionary spirit in which
we want to redo the world in our image or extreme resentment
at our own inadequacies that made us fail in so heroic an
effort.

It seems to me that Sino-American relations
are a fundamental test case of our ability to keep our
foreign policy on a steady course -on our ability to define
what it is within our power to achieve of the goals we need
to define for ourselves.

3

SEP-23-1999 18:51

KAI DC

212 753 7248

P.05

[Y]

If we cannot define an American interest in
doing this, we have no business in cultivating the
relationship. China is not doing us a favor by fostering
close relations with us. And therefore if we have proceeded
on this course for all these decades, through six
administrations of both parties and of different shades of
opinion within each party, there must be some objective
reason for it. And I would like to discuss those.

In 1969, shortly after President Nixon
entered office, we conceived the possibility that the Soviet
Union might attack China. We had no relations with China.
We did not even know at what door to knock to get our face
slapped and we knocked at a lot of them. But we decided
internally, first of all, that we would do our absolute
utmost to prevent such an attack. And secondly, that if it
did take place, we would do our utmost to prevent China from
being overrun.

We did this. None of us had met any Chinese
leader at that point. We did it because we thought that an
attack against a country of the magnitude of China would
bring about such a change in the perceptions in the world of
what the trend was and of the balance of power that it was
our selfish interest to prevent it.

4

SEP-23-1999 18:51

KAI DC

212 753 7248

CYJ

We then dealt with the Chinese leaders under what for diplomats, are almost ideal circumstances. That is there were no tourists, there was no business. There was nothing to get mad about. We had no trivial subjects to discuss. We had only important subjects to discuss. And therefore we spent an extraordinary amount of the president's time and those of us who dealt with the Chinese leaders on discussing our perception of world affairs.

And we tried to explain to the Chinese as honestly as we could, what we understood the motivations of our policy were and what they could expect from us but that wasn't really much of a major concern but how we interpreted the actions of various countries. And so did the Chinese with us from their point of view.

And whenever I fell into American style rhetoric like when I once said to Deng Xiaoping, the good thing about our relationship is that we don't want anything from each other. I was immediately corrected the next day by Mao who said I have read your conversation with the vice premier and said that is not my consideration. If I wanted nothing from you, I would not have invited you. And if you want nothing from me, you shouldn't come. That I believe is the basis of our relationship.

SEP-23-1999 18:51

KAI DC

212 753 7248 P.07

Now what do we want from each other? People say China was useful to block the Soviet Union. Now the Soviet Union is gone, we don't need China. In fact we have an even greater luxury. We can slap China into the space vacated by the Soviet Union and build our foreign policy around the containment of China. And if we are lucky, and if we are determined, we can achieve the same victory as we did with the Soviet Union.

This is based on a number of propositions that Chinese ideology is not acceptable to us. That China is growing at a rate which will make it a very great power and therefore a potential threat. And that also there are a series of practical problems in which our relations are strained, including of course above all, the problem of Taiwan.

CYI

SEP-23-1999 18:51

KAI DC

212 753 7248 P.08

There's no question that our view of the
appropriate domestic structure differs from that of the
Chinese leadership. There's no question that in our
country, human rights has assumed a crucial importance. And
we'll be vindicated in our statements and within margins
consistent with other interests by our policies. But it is
not the same as saying that it is our obligation to gear our
entire foreign policy to the overthrow of a political system
that itself is in the process of changing. Because this gets
us on a course of global interventionism that is well beyond
our capacity. And secondly, will almost surely backfire.

The Soviet Union was a different phenomenon
from China. The Soviet Union avowed a universal ideology.
It supported communist parties on a global basis. It
avowed, as late as the 1970s, the goal of overthrowing the
capitalist system and it insisted on the right to defend
communist parties in power by force. None of this has been
claimed by China.

[Y]

SEP-23-1999 18:51

KAI DC

212 753 7248 P.09

The Chinese communist party has claimed relevance only for its own country. It is practicing a method of economy that would be described as totally heretical by the Soviet leaders of the 1970s. It has claimed no right to intervene in foreign countries on behalf of ideology. It will no doubt grow in power but it is a totally different phenomenon. The Soviet Union was surrounded by countries infinitely weaker than it which it could threaten with large land armies and attempt to checkmate us with a huge nuclear capability.

China is surrounded by countries with significant military capacity that are not impotent and in my view if one analyzed what really concerns Chinese leaders is that a grouping might be brought about of all of the significant military countries against them. In my view, the irony of the situation is that one reason why the Chinese want better relations with the United States is because they are more concerned about their neighbors than about us as a security problem. We're in danger of bringing about the remarkable feat of replacing Japan and Russia and India as the principal threats to Chinese security in the Chinese mind. And if that thought really gets established it will bring about a revolution in Chinese diplomacy. The debate about an American containment policy is in a way irrelevant because there is not that problem.

SEP-23-1999 18:52

KAI DC

212 753 7248 P.10

Now, anybody who knows my thinking or anybody who knows the thinking and the performance of America knows that when we signed the Shanghai communique against hegemony in Asia and later expanded it against hegemony in the world, that we did not say, with the exception for China. Surely the United States would resist any such attempt but also I do not in the next foreseeable future see anything like this emerging. There are, to be sure, different perceptions about many problems and without any doubt, China will gain in power if it continues to grow at anything like the rate of the last 20 years. But so will India, so will Brazil, so will a lot of countries. Of course, China has a population of a billion plus and it's in a very central position to affect the Asian equilibrium.

But the thing that worries me most is this: if China challenges the balance of power, it is clear we will resist. But is it to be America's mission to prevent China from becoming strong? Is it to be our duty to keep China forever weak? Is this the problem that we are facing?

SEP-23-1999 18:52

KAI DC

212 753 7248 P.11

Because if we go down that route, we are committing ourselves to world empire of a kind that no nation has ever sustained in history. This is against every American tradition. I believe that the correct American policy is not to pretend that relations between us and China depend on the personalities of the leaders, or to claim that we have a special magic in our human relationships that will lure the Chinese into a different approach to life without their noticing it.

I think the right way to deal with China is to remember it survived for 5,000 years of uninterrupted history. From this one has to assume they must have done something right. And they have survived by patience, by intelligence, by tenacity, by making time their ally and so people who talk lightly of confrontation with China should not ask themselves what the headline is today as some of these grandiose actions are carried out - but what they're going to do in the third year of a prolonged confrontation. And that is much harder to answer.

[Y]

SEP-23-1999 18:52

KAI DC

212 753 7248

My Chinese friends know that if there is a
real challenge to American national interest, I will resist
them, much as I respect China and like the way they look at
foreign policy. And they know that of all of us who have
dealt with them. But they must also know that we look at a
community of interests which we will try to extend. It is
hard to imagine how one can have peace on the Korean
peninsula, how we can deal with the problem of
proliferation, or how one conceives stability in Asia
without a possible cooperative relationship between China
and the United States.

A cold war between China and the United
States would radicalize all the rest of Asia. It is a
classic no-win situation in which our policy will lose
flexibility. China's progress will be hampered.
Everybody's temptations will be whetted. And at the end of
this how would one define victory? And how does one define
success? This is the challenge before us.

I have supported the general direction of the
current administration, though its rhetoric is something
that I find painful to get used to. But one has to separate
the direction of the policy from the way it is justified.

SEP-23-1999 18:52

KAI DC

212 753 7248 P.13

When the two presidents meet next week, they have a huge
task of starting a process, not of improving their personal
relationships but of laying out a program that can be
carried out in both countries and which starts from the
realization that of course we're going to have different
views about many things.

But we are content with coexistence, we
should foster wherever possible, cooperation. This is not
just in our own national interest but for peace and
stability in Asia and in the world. In this sense, US-
Chinese relations, precisely because the backgrounds are so
different and precisely because it is so easy to misperceive
each other, are a good test for us.

We now live in a world in which we have no
clearcut enemy, in which we have to conduct a global foreign
policy, in which there is no end to our challenges, where
every solution is an admissions ticket for another set of
problems. And so it isn't just a question of a test of
Sino-American relations. The ultimate challenge is, it is a
test of ourselves. Thank you very much.

12

TOTAL P.13

SEP 14 1999

NATIONAL COMMITTEE ON UNITED STATES-CHINA RELATIONS

71 West 23rd Street, 19th Floor, New York, NY 10010-4102 (212) 645-9677 FAX: (212) 645-1695 e-mail: info@ncuscr.org

BOARD OF DIRECTORS

**Chairman**
BARBER B. CONABLE, JR.

**Vice Chairmen**
CAROLINE L. AHMANSON
A. DOAK BARNETT
CARLA A. HILLS
ROBERT A. LEVINSON
ROBERT S. MCNAMARA
LUCIAN W. PYE
HENRY P. SAILER

**Treasurer**
HERBERT J. HANSELL

**Secretary**
KATHRYN D. CHRISTOPHERSON

NANCY KASSEBAUM BAKER
BRIAN W. BARRETT
JULIA CHANG BLOCH
W. WAYNE BOOKER
DAVID L. BOREN
MARY B. BULLOCK
GARETH C.C. CHANG
ELAINE L. CHAO
JEROME A. COHEN
CHARLES J. CONROY
DOUGLAS N. DAFT
JAMES E. FLUGG
GERALD R. FORD
BARBARA H. FRANKLIN
PETER F. GEITNER
DAVID R. GERGEN
SAM GIBBONS
MAURICE R. GREENBERG
HARRY HARDING, JR.
ERIC HOTUNG
ARTHUR W. HUMMEL, JR.
DAVID E. JEREMIAH
DAVID A. JONES, JR.
JOYCE K. KALLGREN
VIRGINIA KAMSKY
GERALDINE S. KUNSTADTER
DAVID M. LAMPTON
NICHOLAS R. LARDY
JONATHAN S. LINEN
ELIZABETH S. MACMILLAN
RICHARD P. MADSEN
D. BRUCE MCMAHAN
DOUGLAS P. MURRAY
KEVIN O'BRIEN
MICHEL C. OKSENBERG
DOUGLAS H. PAAL
GEORGE A. PEAPLES
DWIGHT H. PERKINS
ARTHUR H. ROSEN
COURTNEY SALE ROSS
JAMES R. SCHLESINGER
BRENT SCOWCROFT
RAYMOND P. SHAFER
H. KERNER SMITH
RICHARD H. SOLOMON
EZRA F. VOGEL
SUSAN ROOSEVELT WELD
WILLIAM YU
MADELEINE ZELIN

**Chairman Emeritus**
RAYMOND P. SHAFER

**Directors Emeriti**
ROBERT O. ANDERSON
EVERETT CASE
THEODORE M. HESBURGH, C.S.C.
PHILIP M. KLUTZNICK
ROBERT A. SCALAPINO
CARL F. STOVER
TANG TSOU
LEONARD WOODCOCK

**President**
JOHN L. HOLDEN

**Vice President**
JAN CAROL BERRIS

**Vice President for Administration and Development**
ROSALIND DALY

**Program Manager**
DEBRA KAM

**Program Associates**
MARIILYN BEACH
SHENYU BELSKY

September 12, 1999

The Honorable Henry A. Kissinger
Kissinger Associates
350 Park Avenue, 26th Floor
New York, NY 10022-6022

Dear Dr. Kissinger,

On behalf of Barber Conable, and the Board of Directors, members and staff of the National Committee, I would like to thank you for your outstanding contribution to the success of our fundraising dinner last week. You are a great "draw," first of all, and helped us get the commitments of support that resulted in this dinner generating more revenue for us than any other. Equally important, however, was the quality of your remarks, which were perfectly tailored to the audience and the occasion. They provided what I thought was an excellent *vademecum* for the conduct of American foreign policy, one that should receive wider distribution.

On this latter note, I would like to ask your permission to edit your speech for posting on the National Committee web site, and to distribute it to interested parties in hard copy as well. Of course, we would provide you the text for your own editing and approval. I expect, by the way, that we will have the transcript edited this week, and will send it to you for your comments.

I also wish to thank you for the deft way you handled the discussion of the merger, and to say how much we look forward to a closer association with you and your colleagues in the America-China Society. I have received a great deal of positive feedback about the merger, by the way.

Finally, as promised please find enclosed an "advance copy" of the report of the Airlie House conference we organized in late July. This report overlaps to some extent the content of your syndicated piece last week, though it is nowhere near as elegantly reasoned and written.

Sincerely yours,

Encl.

Cc: Mr. Barber B. Conable, Jr.