II. Nixon and Kissinger pander to the Communist Party and sell out Taiwan
On July 15, 1971, U.S. President Richard Nixon suddenly announced that he would visit the People’s Republic of China in the coming spring. This news shocked North America and stirred the world.
Since the Korean War, the U.S. and Communist China had been in a state of bitter hostility for more than 20 years. Nixon was a hard-line Anti-Communist in the U.S. government, and his photo of him examining evidence of Communist spies with a magnifying glass during the McCarthy era was widely circulated. So his announcement that the U.S. would change its national policy and instead reconcile with its arch-rival, the Chinese Communist Party, caused a strong psychological shock in the U.S. political and public circles. But it did not take long for public opinion in the United States to converge on the view that only Nixon was qualified and capable of dealing with Communist China.
Six months later, President Nixon, as the leader of the free world, visited Communist China, which had not yet established diplomatic relations, for eight days, shaking hands with Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai and having a good conversation, in what he himself defined as a world-changing week. Although Nixon was later unable to complete the normalization of relations between the two countries himself because of the Watergate scandal and stepped down, the thaw he led to Communist China has been considered the Nixon administration’s shining diplomatic achievement.
Nixon did change the world. But how did Truman and Marshall not change the world? Whether Nixon’s policy was a positive or negative asset depends on whether it was in line with the values espoused by the United States and the moral image of the “City on the Hill”, whether it would harm the fundamental interests of the United States and the free world, and whether it contributed to the growth and expansion of the communist forces of evil. Nixon’s diplomatic adventure, even if it was what he thought was wise at the Time, will stand the test of history. But whether his decisions can stand the test of history is the decisive factor in evaluating his merits and demerits.
(I) Nixon’s Détente Strategy
Why did Nixon want to cultivate rapprochement with the Chinese Communist Party? That was part of his overall détente strategy. When Nixon became president, the U.S. military had been engaged in the Vietnam War for four years and anti-war sentiment was growing at Home. Nixon’s campaign slogan was to end the war with dignity. To put it bluntly, he wanted to get out of the war as soon as possible because he had no hope of winning, but it would be beneath his dignity to withdraw the troops automatically, so he proposed in his inaugural speech to negotiate instead of confrontation and détente instead of the Cold War strategy of retreat. This is a far cry from JFK’s grand inaugural address a few years ago. The Nixon Doctrine, which was later introduced, even more explicitly called for the recipient countries to assume primary responsibility for confronting the communist forces, while the United States would no longer directly contribute troops, but only provide economic and military assistance.
The Nixon Doctrine was essentially a kind of defeatism and surrenderism, which was tantamount to shirking America’s natural responsibility as the leader of the free world to uphold justice and defend against evil. The reason the U.S. sent troops to Korea and South Vietnam was because the weak countries were not capable of resisting communism alone. Nixon underestimated the overall strength of the United States and the free world while harboring illusions about the forces of communist evil. The ceasefire in the middle of the Korean War and the halfway failure of the Vietnam War were not due to the strength of the opponents, but to the fear and weakness of the U.S. will. The Nixonian rapprochement with the Chinese Communist Party was marked by failure and surrender from the very beginning.
There is no excuse for the United States to acknowledge the existence of the CCP. But dealing with the evil communist forces cannot be done with unprincipled concessions, much less at the expense of the long-term interests of the United States and the free world. For many reasons, the Nixon administration failed to hold the above-mentioned bottom line in its contacts and negotiations with the CCP.
Although Nixon was known as an anti-communist, he did not have a clear understanding of the nature and evil of the CCP, and still treated them as normal human beings, coming with full of good intentions, showing the usual American ignorance and gullibility toward the communists. And as president of the United States, any illusions about the communists are even more dangerous. His strategy of negotiation instead of confrontation bore a striking resemblance to Marshall’s strategy of peace talks more than two decades earlier, both at the cost of abandoning their anti-communist allies. As hindsight has shown, the North Vietnamese Communists signed the Paris Accords and the U.S. eventually won the Cold War on strength, not negotiation.
Moreover, the U.S. took the initiative to make overtures to the Communist Party, which was not a high profile gesture in the first place. Nixon also needed the understanding and cooperation of the CCP in order to mitigate political risks and ensure the success of his visit. In addition to national interests, he also hoped to make use of the Beijing visit to gain political capital and increase his chances of winning re-election. So for both public and private reasons, Nixon had a strong incentive to curry favor with the Chinese Communist Party. As a result, the U.S. failed to be tough when it should have been tough, and gave in easily where it should not have, leaving many problems that have not yet been overcome.
Nixon’s engagement with the CCP had three purposes. The first was to increase the bargaining power with the Soviet Union by playing the Chinese Communist card, that is, to unite (Communist) bandits to control Russia. The second was to make up with the Chinese Communist Party in exchange for its pressure on the Vietcong to reach an early peace agreement with the United States. The third is to induce change through contacts with the CCP.
The first U.S. objective can be said to have been largely achieved. The U.S. decision to improve relations with the CCP itself put pressure on the Soviet Union. As soon as Nixon announced his visit to Beijing, the Soviet Union softened its attitude and invited Nixon to visit the Soviet Union only four days later, which had an immediate effect. At that time, the Soviet Union had no way of knowing what concessions the U.S. would make to the CCP.
The second objective of the U.S. was ineffective. Nixon clearly overestimated the influence of the CCP on the North Vietnamese Communist Party, just as Bush Jr. and Obama later counted on the CCP to restrain the North Korean hooligans. North Vietnam already had a grudge against the CCP over the Geneva Accords. By colluding with the U.S., the CCP would be seen as a betrayal by the Vietcong, and relations between the two countries would only deteriorate. Moreover, neither the CCP nor the Vietcong will play by civilized rules. The only language they understand is deadly force. Any goodwill from the civilized side will be seen as weakness and will instead fuel the folly of evil. This was the case when the U.S. put itself down on the mainland and pushed for peace talks with the CCP, only to be humiliated by the “paper tiger”.
This is indeed the case. Kissinger made a promise to the Chinese Communist Party during his first secret visit to Beijing that the United States would begin withdrawing its troops from South Vietnam as soon as the North Vietnamese agreed to a ceasefire and released the prisoners of war. Regardless of the eventual victory or defeat of North and South Vietnam, the United States, which was thousands of miles away, promised not to intervene again. [27] But Zhou Enlai’s reply was quite forceful: the U.S. could not leave a ‘tail’ in addition to withdrawing its troops, and the Communist Party could not accept the continued existence and oppression and massacre of the people by the Nguyen Van Sao government in South Vietnam and the Long Nol government in Cambodia. He demanded that the U.S. directly overthrow the pro-U.S. governments in both countries. He threatened that North Vietnam would fight to the end without sacrificing another million people. As long as the war did not end, the Chinese Communist Party continued to support the Indochinese people. [28]
The U.S. expected a quick agreement, which was indeed misinterpreted by its adversaries. A month after Nixon’s visit to Beijing, the North Vietnamese Communists launched the largest Easter offensive since the Vietnam War, invading South Vietnam and occupying large swaths of land. Nixon had to order the U.S. military to launch massive air strikes (LinebackerI) to assist the South Vietnamese government forces to counterattack and bombard the North Vietnamese mainland, forcing them to give up their unreasonable demand to overthrow the Nguyen Van Thieu government.
In December of that year (1972), the North Vietnamese again unilaterally ended negotiations, and Nixon ordered a second, larger wave of air strikes (Linebacker II), along with a minefield in the port of Hai Phong. This time, instead of the gentlemanly warfare method of shrinking and avoiding North Vietnamese targets, the front-line commanders were fully authorized to bomb all strategic targets in and around Hanoi, the capital of North Vietnam, on a scale and power unprecedented since the beginning of the war, demonstrating the unparalleled military power of the United States. The result was the complete destruction of the North Vietnamese Communist will to resist in just eleven days. This air strike was perhaps the single best decision Nixon made during the Vietnam War. A month later, the Paris Peace Accords were signed and the Vietnam War ended. Thus, the reason for the North Vietnamese to give up resistance was the will and force of the United States, and the role played by the Chinese Communist Party was probably counterproductive.
The role of the Chinese Communist Party is likely to be counterproductive. As for the change of the Chinese Communist Party through contact with it, it is basically a joke. The U.S. fantasizes about changing the CCP, but first takes the initiative to soften its anti-communist stance, but the CCP’s evil nature and anti-American policies never change. The original intention of the U.S. was to use the CCP, but it turned out that it was not only greatly used by the CCP, but also greatly changed by the CCP, to the point that the country would almost be no country after decades. This is an afterthought.
For the Chinese Communist Party, Nixon’s appeasement policy had the effect of sending charcoal in the snow in the short term, but in the long term, it gained a strategic advantage on the Taiwan issue and easily kept the U.S. in its grip until today.
Recent Comments