China Daily Global Edition (USA)
Experts: Courage needed to chart bilateral relations
Looking back at the history of the establishment of diplomatic relations between the US and China 45 years ago, American experts said that the courage displayed at the time by both US President Jimmy Carter and Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping should be emulated today to chart the relationship’s future path.
It wasn’t an easy decision for Carter to normalize relations. President Richard Nixon and his Secretary of State Henry Kissinger earlier had opened the door, but the moving forward was put on hold first by Nixon’s Watergate scandal, then by President Gerald Ford’s political caution that it was too risky, and he delayed it to his second term.
But Ford’s second term never came, said David Lampton, professor emeritus and former director of China studies at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies, at a forum commemorating the 45th anniversary of the normalization, at The Carter Center in Atlanta on Jan 9.
The audience was reminded that it was a much more difficult time politically when China and the United States were trying to normalize the relations.
Herbert Hansell, who was closely involved in agreements establishing diplomatic relations with China, was berated by senators from both parties for “selling out American interests”, recalled Stephen Orlins, chairman of the National Committee on US-China Relations.
Orlins, who was at the State Department at that time and present at the Senate hearing, said 60 percent of Congress opposed the move.
And there were other difficult issues such as the Sino-Vietnamese War (called Counterattack in SelfDefense on the Sino-Vietnamese Border by China), Taiwan and so on.
In 1978, the world was told that China and the US would normalize relations. After the announcement, Warren Christopher, then-deputy secretary of state, went to Taipei.
“His limousine was egged, and they cracked the windshield with government authorized demonstrations,” said author Jonathan Alter, who has published numerous books about various American presidents including Carter.
Carter had plenty of advice that he should put it on hold, just like Ford did, until his second term, which also didn’t come. However, “Carter was impatient and didn’t believe that deferring hard decisions get you to a better place,” Lampton said. “Carter ignored a lot of advice and did it in his first term.”
Susan Thornton, a former US diplomat and senior fellow at Yale Law School’s Paul Tsai China Center, said: “That may have made all the difference. The bravery that was displayed, the political courage on the part of both Chinese and American leaders at the time really deserves our incredible esteem.”
What changed with the normalization?
“The last four decades have seen the growth of China. It’s the fastest and most extensive economic growth in human history by orders of magnitude,” said Alter.
Hundreds of thousands of American and Chinese soldiers had died in battlefields when Carter went to Asia, Orlins said.
“Virtually no American and Chinese soldiers have died on the battlefields of Asia since the establishment of diplomatic relations, and Asia has been peaceful and prosperous for almost a century,” said Orlins.
The core principles that Carter had for normalizing relations could help to manage problems in today’s bilateral ties, the experts said.
Thornton said that when Carter sent Secretary of State Cyrus Vance to Beijing in August 1977 to negotiate the agreements, he gave him an instruction letter on his vision for how normalization would unfold and set the tone for the relations.
“Carter hoped that Vance’s visit would restore the momentum to the normalization process, increase the willingness of both sides to cooperate where they have common interests and expand our economic and cultural relations,” Thornton said.
Both Carter and Deng had a high degree of ability to entertain the lack of clarity, said Lampton. “Both were willing to leave important areas to future evolution, interpretation and adaptation” — such as what did they mean by peaceful resolution, official and unofficial relations and the one-China policy.
There is a lot of ambiguity to untangle, said Lampton, “but the important thing is we haven’t had any wars with China. That’s the central fact.”
Carter showed that you have to take risks for peace, and you have to try to build trust, he said.
Lampton recounted that when he went to China in 1979 with the US secretary of health and education to sign the education and health agreement, a CIA agent came along on the trip on a convert basis.
“At the farewell banquet, Minister of Health Qian Xinzhong stood up and said to the CIA agent: ‘We’re very glad that you came to China. We hope you learned everything you wanted to learn,’ and the crowd burst into laughter and applause. So, even the CIA can contribute to trust if you put it in the right framework,” Lampton said.
The experts called for courage in the current political climate to keep relations moving forward. “If we were more creative and braver, we would find many more areas of common interests to cooperate,” said Thornton.
Orlins said his organization gets criticized just for advocating communications with the Chinese and for hosting President Xi Jinping to give a speech to American civic and business communities.
“I never lose sight of the bravery not only of President Carter and Deng, but earlier of Nixon, Kissinger, Mao and Zhou and how they fought the political currents to do the right thing,” he said.
Pointing to the fact that China has done a lot to stop the export of precursors to fentanyl since the California summit in November, Orlins said: “Tell that to a parent of a kid who didn’t die from overdose of fentanyl. The benefit of the communications is absolutely tangible.”