Last year saw the publication of China Confidential , a scholarly collection of interviews with influential movers and shakers in the United States' relations with the PRC. It offers fascinating insights into the minds and motives of the State Department's "China hands," although the gaps can be as intriguing as the contents.
Several years ago, this reviewer chanced to meet the former deputy director of an American clandestine organization, whom she had read about in a book on that agency, and mentioned that she had read the book. Noting the former deputy director's pained expression, she asked if the author's portrayal of her had been inaccurate. No, replied the woman, it was not. But in reading the book, the former deputy director noticed that its analyses relied exclusively on documents, and that its author had therefore missed entirely the differences of opinion and clashes of personality that lay behind the production of those documents. What had really concerned her, she confided, was that nearly all we think we know about history has been the result of the same flawed process.
Nancy Bernkopf Tucker's book ensures that our understanding of United States relations with China will not suffer from a similar distortion. Tucker, a professor of history at Georgetown University and former State Department employee, has drawn together interviews with over fifty of the more influential individuals concerned with US-China relations over the past half-century. All, she notes with regret, are Americans: the Chinese voice is lacking. One can only hope, as Tucker does, that some day a mainland scholar will be able to compile a comparable book from the perspective of the players on the Chinese side.
The book is arranged chronologically, beginning with the 1940s and ending in the mid-1990s. Its author originally anticipated that, with the interviews already collected, this would be an easy project that could quickly be delivered to the publisher. In the end, as virtually all writers discover, manuscripts languish and linger, hostage to other projects and events in their lives. The arrival of this volume is all the more meaningful in that, in the interim, sadly, a number of its dramatis personae have passed from the scene.
The author provides a concise background to the events she is about to introduce, as well as short biographies of the people being interviewed. The reader learns that, in the earlier part of the period being discussed, US diplomats concerned with China tended to be born into the language and culture. Many were missionaries, or the children of missionaries or military officers stationed in China. In later years, diplomats were more likely to have been attracted to the study of China in college, hoping but never being quite certain that the Foreign Service would assign them there rather than another area of the world that might interest them less. The interviewees talk freely and articulately about what they regard as the most significant, stressful, and rewarding moments of their service in China.
Differences of opinion emerge on both personalities and policy. Naval Attaché John Lacey is quite negative about Madame Chiang Kai-shek, while Political Officer John Melby, though scarcely positive, expresses sympathy for her. Chinese, he remarks, found her too Westernized, while Westerners found her too Chinese. Apart from her husband, who relied heavily on Madame Chiang's advice, she was isolated. With regard to the Chinese Communists, Arthur Hummel, who lived with the Communist partisans in the 1940s and later served as US ambassador to China, found them deceitful, full of tricks, and perfectly capable of breaking their word. Melby, on the other hand, states categorically: "You knew the Nationalists were lying most of the time. The Communists never lied." As for the prospects of success of the coalition government between the Nationalists and the Communists, consular official Everett Drumwright believed that it was doomed to failure, while General George Marshall's deputy, Walter Robertson, was convinced that the coalition could be made to work.
In the 1970s, as common fear of the Soviet Union began to draw the United States and the People's Republic of China together, diplomats agree that the architect of the rapprochement, Henry Kissinger, was an exceptional individual, both for the strength of his intellect and for his difficult, arrogant personality. During his tenure as national security adviser, Kissinger deliberately kept Secretary of State William Rogers uninformed of his demarches to the Chinese. Not surprisingly, Kissinger did the same with lower-level State Department officials. For example, when aide and future Assistant Secretary of State for East Asia John Holdridge mentions to the interviewer that Kissinger had asked him to draft a cable to the Chinese suggesting that they improve relations, Marshall Green, his predecessor in the job who was part of the same interview group, exclaims that this is the first time he had heard of such a cable. In another example, the diplomats work hard to ensure that the Republic of China on Taiwan can retain its membership in the United Nations after the People's Republic of China is admitted. What they did not know, and were not to know until Jim Mann published his book About Face in 1999, was that Kissinger was privately working to undermine Taiwan's UN membership.
This was not the only instance in which Taiwan was deliberately lied to. Chas Freeman, an interpreter on Nixon's historic 1972 trip to China and later Deputy Chief of Mission in the US Embassy in Beijing, describes being instructed not to speak honestly to Taiwan's representatives about what the future might hold. Conversely, the Republic of China had its own plans, which it did not necessarily share with the Americans. One of these concerned the country's missile development program. Freeman recalls discovering that the Chung Shan Institute of Science and Technology had cleverly, one by one, inserted its entire missile-design team into the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. One student, with no obvious connection to any other student or larger plan, would apply to study nose-cone design, another to research guidance technology, a third to learn about rocket fuel, a fourth for fuselage metallurgy, and so forth. The ROC also carried out effective espionage, which Freeman opines was stimulated by the official lack of candor that characterized US-ROC relations in this period.
The same secrecy applied to the establishment of full US-PRC diplomatic relations under the Carter administration. According to Harry Thayer, director of the State Department's Office of Chinese Affairs during this period, it was not only Taipei that was not kept informed: neither was the Policy Planning Staff at the State Department, nor was the legislature. When normalization was finally announced, a day after Congress had adjourned for the Christmas holidays, its members were predictably furious at having been excluded from the decision-making process. This anger was exacerbated after the administration sent a draft of the Taiwan Relations Act to Capitol Hill. In Thayer's words, "we got torn apart by the Congress for this." The Taiwan Relations Act that the legislature passed a few months later went far beyond the Carter administration's intentions. Freeman credits ROC negotiator Yang Hsi-k'un with one of the most brilliant diplomatic performances he has ever seen, recalling that Yang "came to the negotiating table with virtually no cards, and he manufactured cards." Contrasting the diplomatic styles of the ROC and the PRC, he sees the former as employing all the skills of interpersonal relations that Chinese culture embodies, while the mainland's methods resemble those of Qing emperor Qianlong, who "told George III to take his trinkets and buzz off, because China had no need for intercourse with barbarians."
Hummel, on the other hand, has a different perception, seeing nothing uniquely Chinese about the PRC's negotiating style: "any clever negotiator--and many American lawyers--know[s] all of these tricks as well. One of them is to shame the other side, pulling out some ancient statement that you made two months before and pretending high indignation because you were now saying something else. Another one is trying to get matters of principle established before the negotiations started and, buried in these principles, of course, are the elements that they want to insist on."
The 1982 communiqué limiting arms sales to Taiwan is presented as resulting from a tough ultimatum from Chinese foreign minister Huang Hua that, unless the United States agreed to set a date for ending all arms sales to Taiwan, there would be a downgrading of diplomatic relations between the PRC and the United States. Secretary of State Alexander Haig was able to persuade President Ronald Reagan that the administration could not afford a public relations setback like this in its first year in office. Unfortunately, the diplomats do not speculate on what might have happened had the administration called Beijing's bluff. In the end, after more than a year of intense negotiations and the resignation of the increasingly unpopular Haig, a communiqué was signed giving each side less than it hoped for. American arms sales to Taiwan were to be reduced in quantity and quality--which in essence did not happen since, among other things, the Chinese side would not commit itself to a peaceful solution of the dispute over the island. Contrary to Beijing's wishes, no date was set for cessation of the arms sales. Even so, the communiqué caused a firestorm of bipartisan opposition, with Assistant Secretary of State Gaston Sigur recalling outraged telephone contacts from "people you would not think of that way at all," including a leading Democratic senator.
With regard to Taiwan, then-head of the American Institute in Taiwan and later ambassador to China Jim Lilley recalls being told in 1982 of Chiang Ching-kuo's plans for the Republic of China, including democratization, Taiwanization, and opening up to the mainland. Lilley, normally parsimonious in his use of compliments, refers to Chiang as "a brilliant man, a real visionary."
One of the other more interesting recollections are those of US Ambassador Winston Lord to a 1989 incident in which dissident Fang Lizhi was invited to a dinner in honor of visiting President George Bush, but prevented by Chinese security forces from actually attending. The administration blamed the embassy. His normally impeccably diplomatic manners not withstanding, Lord remains angry even after so many years. ("My embassy was about ready to lob nuclear bombs on Washington.") He agrees that at times there must be a scapegoat for the president and that an ambassador should take that role. However, he argues, the Bush administration's response put America on the defensive rather than, as would have been appropriate, the PRC. The administration's gesture made the United States look weak to the Chinese, discouraged the country's reformers and dissidents, and diminished the American president's credibility with human rights groups and members of Congress.
As events become more current, the diplomats' discussion thereof becomes less analytic, assuming a tone of "this event took place; we did our best." Hence, this section is the least edifying part of the volume. For example, the diplomats watch as the Tiananmen demonstrations unfold around them, but do not comment on the flow of cables that must have gone back and forth from Beijing to Washington during this period. It is unfortunate that, even though Jim Lilley is one of the people interviewed for this book, his reminiscences from this period, when he was ambassador, are not included. The interviewees also comment on, but do not probe, the motivations behind the growth of nationalism in post-Tiananmen China. Presumably there is an explanation for this reticence. Perhaps the diplomats are reluctant to criticize recent personalities and policies; perhaps they feel that they do not yet have a clear perspective on them. An exception that may prove relevant for an understanding of the George W. Bush administration is Chas Freeman's characterization of current Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz as taking "a very jaundiced, rather ideological view of China, and [being] inherently suspicious of any initiative that originated with the Chinese."
Though thoroughly professional, the diplomats are not unremittingly serious. There are light moments as well, some because of genuine gaffes and others because of cultural miscommunication. Under the classification of gaffes, a disoriented American ambassador explains to bemused Chinese leaders in 1972 that the thing both countries need to worry about most is Japan and Germany. In another example, visiting President Gerald Ford misses the thrust of Mao Zedong's remark that he will soon receive an invitation from God, and says that he hopes the call will come soon (an alert interpreter saved the day by substituting the translation "The president wishes you 10,000 years of life"). As for culturally-based problems, American diplomats struggle to explain to Chinese entrepreneurs why it would be unwise to market their batteries under the trade name "White Elephant": after all, the elephant is a symbol of longevity, and a white elephant is not only long-lived, but prized for its unusual color. It proves similarly difficult to explain why American males might not wish to buy leather shoes conspicuously marked with their Chinese name, "pixie." ( Pi = leather; xie = shoes.) Progress in negotiating a civil aviation agreement is stalled for a time because the Chinese representatives are not sure how to deal with a country that does not have an official national carrier. Their confusion is compounded by representatives of Pan American Airlines, who seem to be doing their best to convince the Chinese that they are the official carrier.
The book closes with a chapter entitled "Concluding Thoughts," in which the diplomats view the future of Sino-American relations, most of them with some apprehension. John Holdridge observes that the Chinese are very much in the mood that Japan was prior to World War II. They have, he says, a terrible chip on their shoulder and act and react in a very bellicose and belligerent manner. If they were confident of themselves and of their own system and situation, they would not be so difficult to deal with. Winston Lord agrees, pointing to the mainland's "combination of arrogance, xenophobia, and national ism." Chas Freeman seems slightly more optimistic, opining that political change will come, albeit slowly. The Chinese, he predicts, will look to Taiwan and South Korea for models that first create economic prosperity and only then deal with political pluralism. Meanwhile, dissidents will continue to be repressed and imprisoned. Still more optimistic is former director of the American Institute in Taiwan David Dean, who suggests that the Taiwan problem might be solved through the creation of a confederation or commonwealth which would give the island sovereignty in everything but name. Unfortunately, at least for now, the Beijing government has rejected that plan.
Author Tucker states at the outset that she has, in order to make the material more readable, dropped or rewritten the questions asked of the interviewees, and in some cases added in brackets a comment or question that was not in the original transcript. The result is rather like being able to eavesdrop on a conversation among interesting people--relaxed and free-flowing, yet focused and insightful. Tucker makes it look easy; assuredly, it is not. Even those who are already well-informed on US-China policy will learn from this volume. It is, quite simply, an enjoyable read.
June Teufel Dreyer, professor of Political
Science at the University of Miami, is
author of China's Political System:
Modernization and Tradition, and a senior
fellow of the Foreign Policy Research
Institute. She is a member of the US-China
Security Review Commission.
Copyright 2001 by June Teufel Dreyer.