Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (59 page)

Deng began his discourse with a broad tour of the international political landscape that focused on the overall balance of power between the West and the Soviet Union and on their relative strength in Africa, the Middle East, and Eastern Europe. He concentrated on two issues: how to respond to the Soviet challenge and how to resolve the Taiwan issue. Deng, who had been critical of the United States for being too soft on the Soviet Union since 1974 when he had criticized Henry Kissinger for promoting détente, was especially critical of U.S. passivity toward the Soviet Union after it withdrew from Vietnam.
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He charged that Presidential Memorandum No. 10, concerning the Soviet Union, amounted to appeasement. Letting the Soviets have control of over a third of Germany after World War II had given the Soviets effective
control over the Balkans, which in turn had had a huge influence on southern Europe. Although he did not mention the board game
weiqi
, in effect Deng was telling Vance that the Soviets, who already had pieces in Yugoslavia, were beginning to place others in Austria and would move from there to other parts of Western Europe. Deng warned against continuing concessions to the Soviets: “You will end up with a Dunkirk.”
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Concerning Taiwan, Deng referred to two documents: a summary of the presentation by President Ford in December 1975, and a statement by Kissinger that Deng asked Nancy Tang to read aloud to Vance. In these two statements, Kissinger and Ford both indicated that the United States was ready to accept the Japanese formula for normalization that would keep only unofficial American representatives in Taiwan. Deng claimed that, at present, the United States was occupying Taiwan, which was a part of China, and so was blocking Taiwan's unification with the mainland. Further, he said that the U.S. request for China not to use force to absorb Taiwan amounted to interference in the internal affairs of another country. In answer to Vance's assertion that the United States was concerned about the security of Taiwan, Deng told him that “the Chinese people themselves are more concerned about the issue pertaining to their own country than the United States.” China was patient, Deng explained, but America should realize that the Chinese would not put off the resolution of this question indefinitely.
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Deng criticized Vance's proposal for trying to maintain personnel in Taiwan as creating, in effect, a “flagless embassy.”
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But he added that if the United States still wanted to hold on to Taiwan, China would wait.
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Deng concluded: “I would like only to point out that your present formula is a retreat from the previous state of affairs. . . . To be candid, we cannot agree to your formula. But we still look forward to further discussions.” On August 28, after Vance returned to the United States, officials who had traveled with him tried to give a positive spin to the visit despite Deng's rejection of Vance's position. They told reporters that Vance had successfully conveyed the U.S. perspective. Reporter John Wallach, who listened to a government official's explanation, wrote that China was softening on the Taiwan issue. Vance, despite valiant efforts, could not stop Wallach's inaccurate report from being published and from receiving a great deal of attention.
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Deng, not about to soften on Taiwan or to tolerate this misunderstanding, angrily denounced the Wallach report as completely inaccurate.

Deng still wanted progress on the relationship with the United States, so he tried other approaches. Believing Vance was a bad partner, he sought to
involve the White House in the negotiations and have Brzezinski as his counterpart. He also went directly to the U.S. media and to the U.S. Congress to build support for normalization. At a time when China was just beginning to emerge from isolation, there was not yet a mainland China lobby to match the Taiwan lobby in the United States; in fact, the Chinese Liaison Office in Washington had scarcely begun to build a staff to work with Congress or the U.S. media. The best single channel China possessed for influencing the U.S. media and Congress was Deng himself. He made full use of U.S. curiosity about China and of his frankness, charming wit, and feistiness. On September 6, Deng hosted a high-level U.S. media delegation headed by Keith Fuller, managing editor of the Associated Press, which included Arthur O. Sulzberger, publisher of the
New York Times
, and Katharine Graham, publisher of the
Washington Post.

In their wide-ranging discussion, Deng talked of the problems left over from Lin Biao and the Gang of Four, the need to send Chinese students abroad for advanced training to help China overcome its backwardness, and the need to provide material incentives to Chinese workers. But above all, Deng zeroed in on the Taiwan issue, declaring flatly that Vance's proposal regarding Taiwan represented a step backward that China could not accept. To normalize relations with China, the United States had to end its military pact with the Nationalist Chinese, break diplomatic relations with them, and withdraw all its troops from the island. China would strive to resolve the Taiwan issue peacefully, but the matter was entirely a domestic one and China would not accept foreign interference.
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On September 27, Deng saw Republican leader and future president George H. W. Bush, whom he had known since 1975, when Bush had headed the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing. Deng repeated to Bush what he had told Vance—U.S. policy toward the Soviet Union amounted to appeasement. As reinforcement, an authoritative editorial in the
People's Daily
stated: “Certain leading figures of the U.S. monopoly bourgeoisie have forgotten the lessons of Munich.”
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Deng told Bush that in normalizing relations, China had no room to maneuver on the Taiwan issue.
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Democratic senators Ted Kennedy and Henry M. Jackson, known to favor normalization, were also invited to visit Beijing. On January 4, 1978, Deng stressed to Kennedy that he wanted an agreement as soon as possible. The chief barrier was Taiwan and, Deng repeated, the Taiwan problem was an internal issue. As China anticipated, Kennedy, upon returning to Washington, drew on his visit with Deng to advocate speeding up normalization. On February 16, 1978, Deng met with
Senator Henry Jackson, an ally in taking a hard line toward the Soviet Union. Meanwhile, Deng and his foreign policy team kept up their criticism of U.S. appeasement of the Soviet Union and the failure of the United States to push ahead on normalization.

When Ambassador Leonard Woodcock returned to the United States for a brief trip in early 1978, he publicly expressed his impatience with the lack of progress toward normalization. Before Woodcock had accepted his assignment in Beijing, Carter had offered him a number of cabinet posts that he had turned down, and he had agreed to head the U.S. Liaison Office with the understanding that he would carry on negotiations toward normalizing relations with China. On February 1, 1978, in an address to the United Auto Workers in Washington, Woodcock said that U.S. policy toward China was based “on an obvious absurdity”: since the end of World War II, the United States had recognized the Nationalist government as representing all of China, but in fact the Nationalists could only represent the small island of Taiwan. Woodcock's statement about the absurdity of U.S. policy received wide publicity, causing Woodcock to worry that he might have upset Carter, who remained concerned about the SALT talks with the Soviet Union. But when Woodcock met Carter shortly after the speech, Carter told him privately that he agreed with him.
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Unlike Vance, who worried about being able to move forward on the SALT talks with the Soviet Union if normalization talks with China began, Carter decided that his administration could push forward on normalization negotiations with China at the same time it conducted the SALT talks. Another potential barrier, however, had to do with relations with Vietnam. Some in the administration were advocating that the United States respond to Vietnam's desire to normalize relations with the United States, but given the growing tensions between Vietnam and China, it seemed as though the United States had to choose to hold normalization talks with either one country or the other—not both. Carter resolved the debate by saying that U.S. interests would be better served by pursuing normalization with China. Carter thus gave the go-ahead for normalization talks with China. But fearing that the Taiwan lobby in Congress could derail their discussions, he insisted they be kept secret—that is, they had to be conducted by a small group of White House officials rather than by the State Department. To prepare for discussions on normalization, Carter dispatched to Beijing a White House official whose tough stance on the Soviet Union and readiness to hasten the normalization of U.S.-China relations were similar to Deng's. He was also
the very person Deng had hoped to have as his counterpart: National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski.

Zbigniew Brzezinski's “Step Forward,” May 1978

In mid-November 1977, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Michel Oksenberg, his deputy for Chinese issues, had begun to explore with Chinese representatives in Washington the possibility of his visiting Beijing in early 1978. He initially announced that his goal in visiting was to hold broad consultations on global issues; the issue of normalization was not mentioned.
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But as soon as the Chinese Liaison Office in Washington was notified of Brzezinski's interest in visiting, Deng immediately responded that China would welcome him, and he lost no time in planning the trip; Deng would receive him as soon as the United States was ready.
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On March 17, 1978, the day after Congress passed the first Panama Canal Treaty, the Chinese Liaison Office was notified that Brzezinski was ready to make the trip, and on April 19, the day after the second and final Panama Canal Treaty was signed, a date was set.
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President Carter authorized Brzezinski to lay the groundwork for negotiations on normalization. From Carter's perspective, the ideal time to complete such negotiations would be just after the November 1978 Congressional elections. He felt optimistic that, with the Panama Canal treaties successfully concluded, he could obtain Congressional support for both a SALT treaty with the Soviet Union and a formal agreement to normalize relations with China.

When President Carter privately told Congressional leaders from both parties about his intention to begin talks on normalization, they responded positively; they believed that doing so was in the best interest of the United States. But the issue was still politically charged. As one congressman added: if the issue became public, he would have to oppose it.
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In his talks in Beijing, Brzezinski communicated this concern to Deng, saying, “I would like to suggest that these discussions be confidential and that no advance publicity be issued . . . [this] would minimize some of the political complications . . . in our country.” Deng replied, “Please rest assured that in China there are better conditions to maintain secrecy than there are in the United States.” Brzezinski agreed: “I am afraid you are absolutely right. That is why it is better to conduct . . . [the negotiations over normalization] here rather than in Washington.”
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Though Vance was personally concerned about upsetting the Soviet Union during the continuing sensitive disarmament talks, he was a loyal official and
followed Carter's instructions; he had his staff draw up a plan for U.S.-China discussions on normalizing relations. When Carter received Vance's June 13, 1978, memo on the matter he penned in his comments: “Leaks can kill the whole effort. We should limit the dispatches and negotiating information strictly. . . . Avoid any public hints of degree of progress. I don't trust: 1) Congress, 2) the White House, 3) State, or 4) Defense to keep a secret.” Like the Republicans, Nixon and Kissinger before them, the Democrats—Carter, Brzezinski, and Vance—all believed that even in a democratic country, strict secrecy would be necessary.
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And just as in Kissinger's White House days, the highly secret channel to Beijing from the White House worked to reinforce the influence of the White House National Security staff in personal and institutional rivalries relative to their State Department counterparts.
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Deng, for his part, supported using the White House channel instead of going through the State Department.

On May 21, 1978, the first morning after arriving in Beijing, Brzezinski met with Foreign Minister Huang Hua. As Kissinger and Zhou Enlai had done before, Brzezinski and Huang Hua exchanged views on global developments, discussing key issues on each of the continents, with particular emphasis on the prevailing balance of power between the Soviet Union and the West. As Brzezinski observed in responding to Huang Hua's presentation, the two agreed on a wide range of issues, but there were some important differences: the United States did not seek to establish hegemony and accepted a world of diversity; the United States did not believe that war was inevitable; and the United States was not appeasing the Soviet Union but rather competing with the Soviets on a worldwide scale. Knowing that the results of their conversation would be passed on to Deng, whom he would be seeing later that afternoon, Brzezinski told Huang Hua that Carter had authorized him to say that the United States accepted the three Chinese conditions concerning Taiwan, but that the United States would reserve the right to announce that resolution of the issues between mainland China and Taiwan should be achieved peacefully.
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