IISS 28th Annual Conference - Kyoto, Japan, 8-11 September 1986

First Plenary Session

Presentation by Dr Henry Kissinger

Mr Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen:

I was a little shaken by the Chairman's admonition that our remarks be in the manner that is comprehensible to East Asians. I would like the East Asians to remember that I speak in English and I think perhaps in German, which has the practical consequence that verbs are sometimes difficult to find in my presentation - or at any rate only at the end of very long periods. If East Asians have some difficulty with my presentation, you are in distinguished company.

Last week I had the privilege of meeting Prime Minister Nakasone, and he asked me what I would speak about at Kyoto. And I gave him the topic, I said it was quite striking how different the perceptions of security were in Asia from Europe. And he said something to me which he permitted me to quote. He said "The difference is the difference between European paintings and Japanese paintings. In Europe, in a European painting every detail is filled in and very little is left to the imagination. In a Japanese painting it is the empty spaces which give meaning to the design and they leave a great deal therefore to the perception of the observer." He has authorised me to quote this, and I think it states the issue very well. When I am in the West I am reluctant really to talk about security issues, though I do it from time to time, because I believe that the Western debate on security has absolutely run into the sand. The positions of the chief protagonists are quite different. The basic theories were developed thirty years ago, and in strategy and in arms control they tend to be repeated almost by rote, in my view to the extraordinary detriment of the creative policy - and the fact that I may not know what a better policy is does not invalidate in my view the correctness of that observation. Now with respect to Asian security, it is at least something which has been less systematically addressed, at least in these circles.

Therefore let me begin by pointing out some of the key differences. In Europe there is a clear dividing line between opposing blocs. There is a definition of a potential aggressor. There is some debate about the intentions of the aggressor, but no debate about where the threat will come from should it take place. There is a large American troop presence. There is an integrated command, an attempt at a coordinated diplomacy, an

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attempt to achieve common East-West positions, and lately an increasing necessity on the part of almost all governments to present to their publics the progress towards an amelioration of tensions, a progress which is defined in the domestic debate almost entirely in terms of arms control issues, which in turn are entirely defined in terms of theories which as I said were developed thirty years ago and now seem to be quite unaffected by technological changes. In Asia none of these conditions exist. Of course many countries, if not most countries, realise that the Soviet Union is, or can be, a threat to their security. But it is also true that many countries perceive other threats to their security. Some are afraid of China. Some are afraid of Japan. Some are afraid of Vietnam. In the circles in which I move nobody admits to being afraid of the United States, which may be a worrisome phenomenon. But at any rate there is a complexity of security considerations. There are some alliances - the United States has an alliance with Japan - but not a common strategy, nor an integrated command, nor any of the machinery characteristic of Europe. The alliance with Japan has some of the aspect of a unilateral guarantee in the military field, though it is buttressed by an extremely/ system of political consultation. The United States has bases in the Philippines, but no common military policy; and indeed the Philippines in many respects, and especially now, is more like a member of the Non-Aligned grouping than a member of the alliance, and it does not necessarily share the perception of the dangers against which the use of our bases may be directed. China, the country that has culturally and spiritually been the most important factor in this region, is historically independent and self-reliant. South-East Asia exhibits the combination of motivations which I have already sketched. Only Korea has the aspect with which we are familiar in Europe of a clear dividing line protected by a present military force that is part of an alliance system in an integrated command. But the other side of that dividing line in Korea is a great deal more complex than it is in Europe, with a contest between China and the Soviet Union about major influence.

So the security situation in Asia, though it exhibits growing Soviet power, nevertheless has quite different aspects: no common threat, no attempt to combine forces, no common diplomacy. On the other hand an almost total reliance on conventional defence, however that defence is constituted. And a much greater reliance than in Europe on the protection that may be inherent in an increase of tension and a mobilisation of resources *after* the security problem appears. It is striking that when

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SS-20s appeared in Europe the Europeans asked for an equivalent weapon to be stationed in Europe as an answer. They later changed their mind, or at least retreated to the edge of changing their mind - one can never be sure since they were pretty confident we would not accept the change of mind. But in Asia no such demand ever emerged. Now it would be interesting to reflect whose perception of security was more nearly correct: the Europeans of the late 70s or the Asians of this whole period. And it is equally interesting that the response in the arms control field is quite the opposite: some Europeans seem quite willing to have us have a zero position in Europe and leave the deployment in Asia, as if the SS-20s were not mobile. As I understood the Foreign Minister, that appears to be a position not acceptable to Japan.

The result of all of this seems to be that the security and foreign policies of the Asian nations, different though they are, are more similar to what European foreign policy used to be in the Nineteenth Century, more dependent on a perception of the balance of power, a greater emphasis than has been the case in Western Europe on the political and geopolitical element, less insistence on American reassurance - perhaps because Asians believe that nations either understand their interests or they don't, but in any event making them repeat it does not add to their understanding.

Now of course this emphasis on the empty spaces, as Prime Minister Nakasone says, runs a risk of faulty analysis both by the defender as well as by the aggressor. And the United States got itself involved in two wars in this area, and so did the Communist countries, indeed the only wars America has fought in the post-war period, to its enormous frustration, because it was very hard to reconcile the American perception of security with Asian realities. For the United States, this situation that I have described presents enormous intellectual problems. If I have understood what I have described it is that Asian nations have a belief that the national interest of states is more or less permanently fixed, that they therefore assume that the basic interest of countries will be protected in part by the geopolitical understanding of other members of the system (which is one reason incidentally why the Soviet peace offensives seem to me to have less impact in Asia than in Europe). But for the United States this is a complicated issue. It raises the question what will the United States not permit to happen - no matter how it happens, how apparently legally, by what apparent methods?

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In fact what many Americans at least subconsciously believe, and much of our literature implies, is that whether the United States defends a country or a region depends on our legal obligation. And the impression is often created that the first thing a President does in case of aggression is to call up his lawyers to see what the document says. In 1936, when the Germans reoccupied the Rhineland, President Roosevelt asked the Secretary of State for an analysis of the implications of this action; and he received a two-page memorandum that went into all the treaties that were broken by this act and then explained that the United States was not party to any of them. Therefore, it said, no US action of any kind can be considered. The fact that this action changed the strategic realities of Europe and made the smaller East European states defenceless and destroyed the French system of alliances was not even mentioned in this memorandum. It was not rejected that we had an interest in this, that interest or even that reality was not even mentioned!

So that is one of our problems today. We have the strange phenomenon that Soviet bases are spreading through South-East Asia. At the precise moment when the Soviets are extending their strategic position the United States abjures any military or strategic position in South-East Asia. Our position is that we will help economically, humanly, all the nice things that one enjoys doing when one has the money. But the dirty work of defence has to be left to somebody else. It is an interesting attitude, and it is heavily affected by the lessons of Vietnam, whatever they may be and which it is not now important to discuss, and by the old slogan that America must never be involved on the mainland of Asia, a slogan that to any analyst of strategy is almost inexplicable. Why must we not be involved on the mainland of Asia, if the mainland of Asia is important? And it is difficult to argue that part of the centre of world attention is moving from the Atlantic to the Pacific without establishing a priority and at the same time say America has no direct relationship.

Now I am not arguing that the United States should have a military establishment on the mainland of Asia; the conditions that I have described make that unlikely, and indeed undesirable. I am trying to discuss the intellectual approach to the issue. Let me illustrate this with the problem of China.

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LC

I confess that I have a considerable sentimental interest in China.
But I also understand that China did not survive for three thousand years
by being itself sentimental. I in my experience have been struck by the fact
that the most sophisticated analysis of the requirements of survival are made
in Beijing, based on a strong sense of cultural identity and a long
experience in dealing with - let's face it, manipulating - foreigners.
In this sense China moved towards the United States not because it was
unfulfilled by the absence of American visitors but because of the Brezhnev
Doctrine, the border clashes and the need to establish a balance of power
for its own protection. At the same time it is inconceivable that China
will make a military alliance with any other country. And it is undesirable
for the United States or any other nation to think in those terms in
relation to China. One can co-operate with China by establishing through
extensive dialogue a sense of common purposes in specific areas. It is
absurd to think that China is a card that can be used for Western, Japanese
or anybody else's purposes. One has to rely on a sophisticated understanding
of those areas where objectives coincide or where objectives coincide even
when methods differ. But it will never be expressed in a legal obligation
that an American legal adviser can show a President in a crisis. China,
as it has been through much of its recent history, is also obviously involved
in a complex process of modernisation, a process in which the only
Communist country in which the role of the Communist party in economic
management of the state has been systematically reduced, a process which
runs counter not only to classic Stalinist economics but also to Chinese
historical tradition because if it succeeds it will make China like every
other nation in its economic structure and some of its priorities and make
it part of a world economy, something it has always resisted. And therefore
in China foreign policy will be used by some of those opposed to these
tendencies as part of a structural and ideological debate, a fact which the
West must very importantly understand. But our assignment here is not
domestic politics; I want to return to the foreign policy issue.

In the wake of the Vladivostock speech by Mr Gorbachev one is often
asked whether this means a rapprochement between China and the Soviet Union.
My assessment is that certainly relations will improve. Equally I believe
that the Chinese did not survive for all these millenia by being prone to
sentimental illusions. They know that the Sino-Soviet frontier will not
get any shorter, no matter how well relations improve, and that troops being
withdrawn can always return. From this I conclude that precisely because
there is no alliance and can be no alliance between the non-Communist
countries and China, China will take great care not to diminish the interest

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of those countries in its own positions; and therefore while I
expect relations with the Soviet Union to improve and while we should
show no nervousness, and what is more important feel no nervousness,
I believe that the Chinese short of a tremendous upheaval in Beijing,
and even then, will not drive that to the point where the West's interest
in a cohesive China will be eroded by loss of confidence. The fact is
that no responsible Chinese leader as no responsible Japanese or American
leader, can ever exclude that relations with the Soviet Union can worsen
again, no matter what detente achieves in any temporary period. It
would seem to me that the critical period in Sino-Soviet relations will
come when the Chinese modernization is on the verge of succeeding.
When it becomes apparent - if it becomes apparent - that in a foreseeable
future the Chinese economy will be on the road of the South Korean or
even the Japanese economy of the Sixties, whether at that point the
Soviet Union will act to prevent this, not wishing to have powerful
countries on all its borders, or whether it will recoil before the
magnitude of this task I do not care to speculate on.

I do wish to say that prudent Chinese leaders will not exclude the
possibility, and that this will affect their action. For those of us
here interested in strategic issues the question arises, in the admittedly
improbable event of a Soviet attack on China, what is going to be the
Western response? Now when I say improbable we have to ask ourselves,
is it more or less improbable than an attack on Europe. On the face of
it it seems to me no less improbable, it may be both improbable and I am
not predicting either, I am talking about contingencies. What should the
Western response be? Those who go to their lawyers and those who say
we must not be involved on the mainland of Asia have absolutely no question:
we have no obligation. Even the hint of any obligation is rejected in
China. Those of us like myself who contribute to American unity by
infuriating both liberals and conservatives have a different view.
I believe the weight of China is as great as the weight of Europe.
Therefore a military attack on China has in terms of the geopolitical
equilibrium at least the same impact as an attack on Europe. In my
view it has to be resisted by the United States. Now how? By what
methods? In what manner? I have no answer. Nobody has studied it as
far as I know. It is a forbidden subject. I can understand that
governments do not want to study it; but I do not understand why the
Institute here cannot have somebody reflect on it. It doesn't mean the
Chinese want it; it doesn't mean we say it is going to happen; but it
would be interesting to know what one would do. I cannot believe that

were it to happen, and I repeat, we don't want it to happen, and it
may not happen, but were it to happen for the democratic world to do nothing
would be an abdication of historic consequence. But what that something is,
is not now something for me to say.

In the meantime, I think it is important to have a dialogue with China
about the nature of the world so that at least there is clarity about
objectives, methods. It cannot be done only by economics. And it is not
always eased by the excessively pragmatic approach of the West and the
centre-of-the-universe approach of China that will not admit that it needs
to discuss its own requirements.

Let me say a few words about US or Western-Japanese relations.
Organizers made a terrible mistake in asking me to speak for 45 minutes!
If you want 45 from me you must ask for 20! I have already said that Japan
is an ally, legally like NATO allies, in practice different in the military
field. Like China, I think its leaders have a greater confidence in our
ability to assess the international environment than European leaders
possess. They do not ask us for a formula of reassurance. The dialogue is
complicated by many factors including the fact that culturally dialogue may
not be the Japanese method of communication which seems to me to be geared
more toward gaining consensus than debating different points of view.
And it is for each new wave of American policy-makers to learn that when
a Japanese says yes it means he has understood you, not that he will do
what you have said, or that he will report what you have said. It is,
again, an interesting fact that the greatest threat to our relationship is
not as in Europe debate about East-West issues and foreign policy issues,
but how to construct a world economy in which American and Japanese interests
can be made congruent. And I must say the present method of dialogue in
which the weakest American industries are those that are suffering most from
Japanese inroads are asking the strongest Japanese industries to accept
self-restraint cannot solve the problem. And some kind of global solution
must be found that puts an end to these industry by industry battles that
are endless and that may in time undermine the possibility of consensus.

I want to address however one issue that is relevant to the Institute
and that is the issue of Japanese military force. I was told today at a
press conference that some of our people who were over here last week put
forward the proposition that the strong Yen should make it possible for
Japan now to increase its defence expenditures, and that to aid our trade
balance or to reduce Japanese competitiveness Japan should build up its
military forces. I found myself in the embarrassing position as a former

Secretary of State of having to disagree with the views. Japanese
defence policy must be guided by Japanese national security. It has
nothing to do with trade policy with the United States. A nation that
next to China has the longest history of independence will not defend
itself, if it does, for American purposes. And it would be naive to
believe that if and when the Japanese build up their own forces they
will do so to carry out designs established in the Pentagon. For that
reason it is my view that we cannot prevent, or should not seek to prevent,
Japanese rearmament. But it should not be an American initiative.
It should be left to Japanese decisions in which the Japanese will no
doubt consider the impact of excessive levels on historical memories and
on precisely the political relationships that are important for long-
term security. And this again seems an area in which the implications
of a rearmament done for Japanese motives might well be a subject for
scholarly attention.

Now if this were a speech at a European meeting of the IISS I
would have had to begin with the Soviet Union. And I now end with it,
because strangely enough to most of these considerations the endless
European debate whether Gorbachev is a new man or not is not so relevant.
I do not believe that in Asia people think foreign policy problems will
be ended by conversion, and that foreign policy is a psychiatric or
theological problem in which one day somebody changes and adopts a
totally new approach. I read the Vladivostock speech as all of you did.
I notice that Mr Gorbachev protested his peaceful intentions in the South
Pacific. A few months ago I read - I wanted to understand how the
Russians got to the borders of Afghanistan, because they obviously did
not start out there, and if one reads the Soviet advance through the
various principalities that were conquered in Asia in the Nineteenth
Century the language was almost exactly the same as the Gorbachev speech.
They had no intention of annexing countries. They sent fulsome messages,
usually to London, explaining that this was commercial, protecting some
eventual commercial interest. Now I am not saying that this is the same;
but I do not assume that it is necessarily different. The Vladivostock
speech is interesting, because the first half of it which deals with
economic problems shows in what great difficulty the Soviets find
themselves when a national leader has to insist that no qualitative
progress has been made at all. The second half which applies various
Soviet schemes to Asia has its interesting aspects. I have already
defined the limits within which Chinese initiatives or initiatives toward
China must be confined [see the sophistication of Chinese leadership and

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Chinese political realities. The speech of the Foreign Minister here makes it clear that Japan too is not likely to be placed beyond what reality makes possible by formalistic declarations.

So we get back in Asia to the same problem as in Europe. Indeed we may find the ironical situation that the real audience for the Vladivostock speech is Europe and not Asia. And the question in Asia is the same as in Europe: it is yes, in my view, the Soviets need a period of relaxation; yes, we in the West and in Asia should encourage a period of relaxation. But are we able to express this desire in a concrete policy that in fact improves the situation, or are we simply going to make agreements, simply because they have been declared attainable, and thereby sweep every problem under the rug? In Asia the Chinese have said, as far as they are concerned there are three conditions. That is at least a picture of the world that admits criteria. Nobody else has yet come up with something equivalent. I would suggest, having just come from Korea, that one very relatively easy place to begin a process would be by adopting the German solution to Korea: a recognition of both Korean states, their admission to the UN, and the recognition by Communist countries of South Korea and democratic countries by North Korea. That is not a final solution, but it would remove one of the great sources of potential danger, especially in the next two years when South Korea will undergo serious domestic problems, coupled with the temptation that if the Olympic Games can be made to fail a major crisis could arise. In Korea one must remember all the super powers have fought wars at one time or another: the Soviet Union, China and Japan, and it would be reckless to believe that one can encourage crises in Korea that are easily contained.

So I think all of us who are concerned with the Soviet Union should keep in mind that Gorbachev may not know what he wants, that Gorbachev may face the reality that to change his economic structure he needs the military and the secret police. In competition with the outside world and understand some of it. But to change the foreign policy direction he may need the Communist Party, and to walk through this minefield he may change nothing and just get a psychiatric relaxation. I must say, at the risk of being accused of excessively hard-line tendencies, I find the arms control programmes of the West nearly incomprehensible. Their chief attribute is that they are attainable. I do not understand the difference between 8,000 warheads and 11,000 warheads as contributing to security

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in any sense other than a psychological sense. And I find it difficult
to believe that we can at one and the same time argue that it is a
great opportunity and then not be able to express that opportunity in a
concrete programme. I will leave open the possibility that Vladivostock
may be an aspect of an opportunity; and it may be an aspect of a
strategy of expansionism, depending on which proves easier to accomplish.
Our task is to steer it in a direction that contributes to security.
In Asia it may be easier to think clearly about this than in Europe and
America where we all run to familiar barricades mouthing familiar
slogans with intellectual communities torn between sharp applicants in
government and potential revolutionaries.

I would like to thank you for giving me this opportunity for some
reflections. I have not attempted, and I do not pretend that I have the
answer
to these questions. But it would not be the first time in history
(a) that I do not have the answer, but it would not be the first time in
history either that the impetus for fundamental change came from
conditions in Asia and from people who have had to think about the
problems of their independence and their security for thousands of
years. Thank you very much.