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Taiwan Expendable? Nixon and Kissinger Go to China
Nancy Bernkopf Tucker
| There were two stories of Sino-American relations in the 1960s and 1970s, the oft-told tale of normalization with the People's Republic of China and the less-noted saga of friction with, and final abandonment of, the Republic of China. These chronicles of triumph and tragedy progressed simultaneously, with nearly identical casts of characters on the American side and with the pivot of action for both the decision to alter Washington's official commitments in East Asia. For the United States this could be seen as a coming-of-age story: the Americans finally facing reality, accepting the People's Republic's existence after decades of denial, triggering choruses of relief worldwide. In fact, because the change in policy was so radical, a myth came to surround it, originated and cultivated by Richard M. Nixon and Henry Kissinger, that told of a bolt-from-the-blue initiative undertaken at great political risk but carried out with consummate skill by the only individuals who could have realized it. One day the United States was wedded to its ally, the Republic of China situated on the island of Taiwan, and the next it had opened relations with the People's Republic, which dominated the mainland.1 |
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As is true of myths in general, this one encompassed elements of truth and of fiction, papering over sins and weighing heavily on future efforts to understand, not just the development of U.S. relations with China, but especially the trajectory of U.S. relations with Taiwan. The legend of Nixon and Kissinger's outwitting the American China lobby, slaying the Taiwan dragon, and storming the Gate of Heavenly Peace in Beijing to engage Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai leaves a variety of issues obscure. Reexamination of the opening to China clarifies the dynamics of foreign policy making at a watershed in the Cold War. Once Kissinger went to Beijing and reached an understanding with his Chinese hosts, after all, the United States had more Communists on its side than did the Soviet Union. |
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Analysts generally agree that Nixon and Kissinger acted in the national interest when they launched normalization.2 The central argument of this study, however, is that the means to that laudable end were deeply flawed, that they fundamentally undermined U.S. credibility and sowed the seeds of continuing distrust in United States-Taiwan and United States-China relations. Nixon and Kissinger wanted so intensely to realize their goal that they surrendered more than was necessary to achieve it, and the price was paid, not in the near term by the Nixon White House, but over the long term by the people of Taiwan and by U.S. diplomacy writ large. Indeed, their promises were bigger, their compromises more thoroughgoing, and their concessions more fundamental than they believed the American people would readily accept. Thus, they relied on secrecy and "China fever" to mask the collateral damage. Subsequently, they ensured that for decades the historical record would remain inadequate and inaccurate. What biographers, commentators, and historians wrote under such circumstances continued to mislead, subject to the complex interplay of misunderstanding, misperception, and falsehood. |
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To Nixon and Kissinger the overarching geopolitical significance of a relationship with China justified eliminating all intervening obstacles. Thus the effort to replace an established relationship with the Republic of China in favor of an exciting new tie with a more exotic mainland China progressed in secret, involving a minimum of staff to provide analysis.3 The pace was grueling, and the focus relentlessly on Beijing. Although Nixon understood that to placate domestic political constituencies he had to create an appearance of concern about Taiwan, neither he nor Kissinger actively worried about the survival of the government under Chiang Kai-shek or thought seriously about the will of the people on the island. Indeed, the record that can be assembled today shows that Nixon and Kissinger rarely reflected on Taiwan at all.4 |
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