The New Nixon

Creating the Shanghai Communiqué

May 8, 2013 By Ian Delzer

President Nixon and Dr. Kissinger with Premier Chou En-lai meeting on the Shanghai Communiqué.

The Joint Communiqué of the United States of America and the People’s Republic of China, more commonly referred to as the Shanghai Communiqué, is one of the most important diplomatic achievements of the 20^th century, but its creation did not come quickly or smoothly. Drafting this groundbreaking document was just as delicate a process as securing the Presidential invitation to China, and became the critical component on which the journey would be judged. If the two parties failed to come together, as Chairman Mao pointed out to President Nixon, people would ask, “Why are we not able to succeed the first time? The only reason would be that we have taken the wrong road.”

This simple question, and its inevitable conclusion, had the potential to derail the dialogue of hope for a better and more open world, which had been a foundational reason to normalize relations with China.

Early drafts of the Communiqué were rejected by both sides. While on Polo II—the first officially announced trip of American officials to China by the Nixon administration—Henry Kissinger presented the Chinese with a draft version of the Joint Communiqué that had been approved by President Nixon but the administration’s early attempt to focus on areas of common interest was quickly refused by the Chinese. Premier Chou said that “unless [the Joint Communiqué] expressed our fundamental differences, the wording would have an ‘untruthful appearance.’ He dismissed [the] proposed draft as the sort of banal document the Soviets would sign without meaning it and without planning to observe it.”

The draft proposed by the Chinese, however, was highly problematic for the US. As President Nixon recalled in his memoirs, “If ours had smoothed over differences, theirs underscored them.”

Henry Kissinger was forced to politely reject the Chinese draft, telling Chou,

“We cannot have an American President sign a document which says that revolution has become the irresistible trend of history, or that ‘the people’s revolutionary struggles are just’!”

Fortunately, tensions began to ease after this initial negotiation as both sides made compromises to their position and language. The final version of the Communiqué was the result of continued refinement, not only by Henry Kissinger and Premier Chou En-lai, but also by President Nixon himself. The emphasis and language of the final Joint Communiqué was not on the areas where the United States and China differed—as the Chinese had initially proposed—although those differences were clearly noted. It was the areas of agreement where real progress toward peace and stability between the two countries could be found:

“With these principles of international relations in mind the two sides stated that:

• progress toward the normalization of relations between China and the United States is in the interests of all countries
• both wish to reduce the danger of international military conflict
• neither should seek hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region and each is opposed to efforts by any other country or group of countries to establish such hegemony
• neither is prepared to negotiate on behalf of any third party or to enter into agreements or understandings with the other directed at other states.”

The Communiqué continued:

“The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves.”

These two sentences on Taiwan, the primary point of conflict between Washington and Beijing, exemplify the diplomatic ingenuity of President Nixon. The wording simultaneously recognized Chinese sovereignty, while being ambiguous enough not to redirect American foreign policy away from support for Taiwan. In an article written for the Council on Foreign Relations forty years after the first Joint Communiqué was released, Jerome A Cohen, NYU law professor and co-director of its US-Asia Law Institute, stated that it was this section of the Communiqué that had truly “cleared the path for progress that has plainly changed the world.”

Dinner with Andre Malraux

April 29, 2013 By Ian Delzer

Andre Malraux, French Minister of Information and Culture

After accepting the invitation to visit China, President Nixon began to prepare himself for exchanges with the Chinese leadership. One of the most important, and most difficult, aspects of the preparation was learning about Chairman Mao. As the leader of China and the Communist Party, Mao had become deified. No Americans could provide insight into his character or thinking. Furthermore, as a consequence of the Cultural Revolution Mao had severed his foreign relationships. Facing this predicament President Nixon turned to Andre Malraux, author and former French Minister of Information and Culture, who had a long-standing relationship with Mao prior to the Cultural Revolution.

On February 14, 1972, President Nixon hosted a dinner in the White House Residence to honor Andre Malraux, to help lift the veil of confusion and seeming inconsistencies that marked Chinese politics and culture. President Nixon knew that having a foundational of understanding of the Chairman’s philosophy was necessary for the success of the person-to-person diplomacy. Having already read Malraux’s Anti-Memoirs, the President considered it “among the most valuable and fascinating reading” he had done in preparation for his trip.

Malraux, however, did not appear to be forthcoming in all of his answers to the President’s questions. He would respond with specifics when generalities were called for, and fit ted his answers to the premise of questions never asked. For example, when the President asked if China had an ‘expansionist’ foreign policy, Malraux replied for Mao, saying that China was a continent, and that actions viewed in the West as the execution of foreign policy were, in fact, only extensions of Chinese domestic policies. These types of responses frustrated John Scali—Special Consultant to the President—who later described Malraux in a memo as “confusing, contradictory and too single minded in his viewpoint when it was understandable, and too reminiscent of French intellectuals who believe they are ordained with the divine answer to baffling questions.”

President Nixon was able to discern Mao’s mentality from the conversation, but he was still unsure about his greater motivation hosting an American diplomatic delegation. Malraux described Mao’s motivation as stemming from his domestic policies, which “for the past 20 years” was not a “revolutionary policy at all, but one of raising the standard of living.” To achieve this would require the industrialization of the agricultural sector, which in turn would require heavy machinery only the United States could supply. When President Nixon pointed out that this was contradictory to the Chinese philosophy of self-reliance, Malraux replied, “That would depend on the President’s dialogue with the Chinese.”

The success or failure of the President’s trip would be contingent upon his conversations with the Chinese leaders, epitomizing the importance of people-to-people diplomacy. There were no compelling market forces, or international imperatives forcing a union between the United States and China. If the talks fell apart, Malraux contended the Chinese would say exactly what they said about their relationship with the Russians, “All right, we’ll do it all alone.” If this was the outcome, it would constitute a failure.

Understanding the difficulty President Nixon had taken on, Malraux channeled the French leader DeGaulle, saying, “If he were here, he would say, ‘All men who understand what you are embarking upon salute you!’”