CSIS Special Book Discussion: "On China," with Henry Kissinger (Interview with Henry Kissinger)

now no one here needs an introduction to Bob Schieffer and to Henry Kissinger you know Bob the quintessential media journalist of in Washington more than anything he asks the simplest questions and the hardest question simultaneously which is really a mark of ultra professionalism Bob will turn it to you to run this this whole program thank you thank you very much dr. Emery and it's really fun to be here and to have this association with with CAS CSIS and it's always fun to interview dr. Kissinger which I've been doing since back in the I didn't get to talk to him during the Nixon administration but I talked to him a lot during the Ford administration and sometimes he liked my questions and sometimes he didn't but we've been friends all along the way and I have there's no one in American life today that that I have more respect for than dr. Kissinger so that doesn't mean I'm I ask you an easy questions doctor oh I I do I kind of have known for asking the obvious question so everybody's been talking about you we've been talking about us-china relations today I want to ask you the obvious question how do you assess us-chinese relations right now today today both of our countries undergoing potential changes we have to face we have to face the fact that our relative position in the world is going to diminish in the sense that we're not going to be the dominant nation but we're still going to be an extremely powerful nation Chinese have a change of leadership coming up and they will have to face during that period how to bring their political Arrangements in line with their economic achievements so both sides will have a temptation to use nationalistic explanations for the difficulties associated with that process we can claim our economic crisis on the Chinese but we have to distinguish those things that are caused by our own failures from those that may be caused by the actions of others the Chinese have to adjust as was said in previous panels to an international environment in which for the first time in their history they have to deal with an international system composed of at least some states of of equal magnitude so I think the Chinese in the last year have gone through a process in which first feeling the impact of the economic crisis and feeling the confidence that that inspired in them relative to us of tend of testing their power and I think they were coming to the point of view that they need a substantial period of coexistence we in this country as far as the administration is concerned I believe has also come to this view but the internal debate about the ideological conflict with China it's growing rather rather than diminishing I don't know where we will be at the end of say 10 15 years but I believe that if we make a serious effort to deal with the unique aspect of the situation that we have two major current powers one of which is sort it's rising but two major powers who know the consequences of a country between them and the peanut at least prepared to take a look at what measures can be taken to alleviate these dangers that then at the end of that period cooperation of some kind may have become habit for me that is my objective objective we should one of the goals in this book for you is to help Americans understand China's strategic thinking what exactly do you mean by that and help us understand in American history and the American experience every problem that we have recognized as a problem has proved some servable so we tend to segment as well what has proved soluble soluble okay so we could or we could overwhelm it with resources and it has had a finite time limit that you could attach to it in Chinese history no problem has an ultimate solution of Chinese perception every solution is an admission ticket for another set of problems we tend to think that there is one interpretation of of a situation the Chinese tend to see the situation in a more complex way with various aspects let me give one example that struck me as I was actually writing in this book logistic different notions of deterrence as I am and America the American approach to deterrence is to identify the danger you amass resources and if the danger becomes acute you overwhelmed so it is address two capabilities the Chinese approach is also to identify the danger but then to deal with a psychological capability of implementing it so the Chinese are more apt to take a pre-emptive military action but it would be of a much more limited nature for example the war with India in 62 the war was Vietnam in 79 both were designed to affect the calculations of the adversary not to a chief of it a total victory in fact they achieve whatever military Col they said and then abandoned it because they were more concerned with a psychological impact and before that there's been some discussion of the difference between the game of chess in the game of God so this would be the difference in an approach you talk a lot about about China's great goal is to avoid to avoid encirclement is that sort of the basis of their foreign policy as you go back through history well somebody wouldn't we were standing around said to me that my book is it's being reviewed widely by sino files but the experts of my analogous I don't consider myself that's Chinese color I consider myself somebody who had had a lot of experience with Chinese leaders and who had thought a lot about how they evolved their thinking now the idea of encirclement arose in my mind when I wrote this book I asked the question why did the Chinese intervene in the Korean War and I tried to trace what it was that made the Chinese take that decision and like most American intellectuals I used to think that it was the advanced the Yellow River then was the decisive element and that that was an example of American rationale that triggered and in Chinese reaction but that isn't what happened when when you said it what happened was that the that when Truman we when the North Koreans invaded the south and Truman unexpectedly for the Chinese and Russians responded by sending troops to South Korea and then followed this up by what Truman thought was a conciliatory move namely moving the seventh Fleet into the Taiwan Straits and saying he was keeping both sides from attacking the Chinese Taiwan and Taiwan the mainland in the Chinese mind this meant that America had ended the Civil War and it was ahead put a market down in the Straits and it had put another market down in Korea and it would as they said in their internal discussions put another market into Vietnam and if they didn't give us a shocking response we would keep that process going and the planning for the invasion of whatever you call it of Korea started within a week of fleet in in the trades and of our troops while we were still in the Poussin in the Pusan Perimeter the implementation then was probably speeded up by moving up to the yellow but even then I'm not a hundred percent 100% sure and the same was true in Vietnam in 1979 they had been allies of Vietnam until 1975 and then almost immediately they fell out with with Vietnam because they interpreted Vietnamese moves in Cambodia and Laos as a prelude to taking over all of North South East Asia and then when Vietnam made an alliance with the Soviet Union they decided to strike and this is a good example of this pre-emptive deterrence that I'm talking about most Western nations would say that when we have not made an alliance with the Soviet Union it had become impregnable here was a Soviet Union to the north and but within a month the Chinese attacked Vietnam with as much of an eye on the Soviet Union as on Vietnam and one could argue although it wasn't recognized as such that the decline of the Soviet Union as a superpower began when they acquiesced in the attack on a on an ally that they had just recently made and immediately northern provinces to be totally devastated and then withdraw the Chinese paid a horrendous price for it and in most of the Western military literature this is described as the Chinese defeat but if you look at it in strategic terms it was from the point of view of what I would what I call an offensive deterrence it was successful speaking of Vietnam in what you just said what what does that mean to how we react to China's assertive actions in the South China Sea I mean is there a danger that we might back China into a corner here I might say during the Vietnam I mean it's not your question but I think when I had to say this we did not it's a country adequately analyzed the impact the relationship of China and Vietnam a succession of American administrations believed that Vietnam was an extension of Chinese policy and that it was all part of a grand strategy in which Moscow Beijing and Hanoi we're working together and nothing could have been that could have been further from the truth so in the nature of things Vietnam and China strategic opponents in this sense that Vietnam is assertive insisting on its autonomy we of course have an interest in the independence of the countries of Southeast Asia but we should not treat Vietnam as if it were an ally against China and well I agreed with what was said about freedom of sees in southeast South China Sea I did not think I know it was the ideal place to make that declaration and we should avoid we should find political and economic means of cooperating with the countries of South Asia we should avoid the impression of a military containment policy and China should accept our having these relationship without trying to push us out of Asia those are the two limits no containment no Chinese had jumped a Germany over all of Asia well but are you saying that that some of this some of what we're seeing in that area today goes back to to the Vietnam War and no I don't think it goes back to the Vietnam War it said yeah it is but people who think that the conventional wisdom is to say China is a rising power we are an established power it's rising powers usually in conflict with established powers and therefore it's like true in many in Britain in a way that's true but in a way trynna does not think of itself as a rising power China thinks of itself as a country that was preeminent for 1800 of the last 2,000 years and it's returning to its traditional preeminence in its traditional preeminence that states surrounding it were treated as a kind were treated as tributary States and indeed the notion of sovereign states did not exist Vietnam had actually been a part of the Chinese Empire so that relationship is it's particularly tense if if I look back on the Vietnam War something I did not fully understand at the time was the Chinese strategic interest in Vietnam was really the same as ours they would have liked to see an outcome of force States from a strategic point of view but from a but they didn't want an American strategic presence there having but once we were withdrawn from Vietnam some of the traditional Chinese notions of how surrounding states would behave reemerged but I read today that the Chinese defense minister in Singapore said that the issue of freedom of disease is not the issue and if that is true then we are dealing with a whole set of complicated abstruse issues having to do with economic economic zones around some rocks in some cases that some islands there that islands only at low tide on one of them in fact the Chinese have built a platform so my point is the South China Sea issue we we will defend freedom of disease we cannot abandon that I think this is one of those issues where the Chinese will come maybe and the Chinese will come to an understanding and in which I believe they have already modified the attitude of last year then there'll be a whole set of issues about these these various islands and and and that will involve the Philippines Vietnam China Indonesia and that will be a very complicated diplomacy but I don't think it was written the peace of the world do you do you think that China's strategic approach will change as their stature in the world changes I mean you say they don't see themselves as a rising power they see themselves returning to their a place where they they once were but they recognize that there's change and will that change their approach to these things but this is one of those questions which I meant in my earlier remarks that will have to evolve over the next 15 years I think the natural instinct of the Chinese with respect to surrounding countries it's it will take a effort to get to treat them as fully equal sovereign countries they can't they know the language of doing it I think it will happen and I think it's probably happening now but the basic witness as their power grows my interpretation of their thinking is they will want to be treated with respect and respect will be related to their strengths so if we keep going down internally and they keep going up our negotiating position will be much more difficult for any observer of China the financial crisis of 2007 had more to do with our political difficulties than the actual issues that arose the Chinese had believed that the Americans knew how to run the global financial system and they had actually geared a lot of their policies to that belief so when it became apparent that we didn't know it not only did we lose faith one can use that word but also the people that had been associated with the policy of cooperating with the United States lost some of their prestige so we cannot ask the Chinese to solve our own domestic problems for us we have to distinguish those things they do that our remediable by decides if American or long-range American policy and those foreign policy and those which we need to deal with by making ourselves truly competitive that second part we cannot ask for them to solve for us what does it do to the relationship that we borrow so much from the Chinese has that changed the relationship you seem to kind of suggest that perhaps it might have been because way it was the way it was until about 10 years ago I don't think it was damn it was even in a way helpful to the relationship but when a nation keeps parang in a profligate way and heads itself for a demonstrable financial crisis then it it means you are tying yourself to a potential wreck it isn't that they can use what the money we own them in a strategic way because we can then cut off their exports and it's sort of a mutual suicide pact but it that's not enhance our capacity to convince him of the desirability of moving on I'd joined approach I agree with with what's fix it in the previous session namely that the region between the Himalayas and however far west you want to go it's emerging into such a state of chaos that the that it needs some reordering I'm not saying the United States alone can reorder it in fact it's it's an area where sooner or later we are going to be driven and they are going to be driven and every other country in the region India it's going to be driven to that but the to come up with some concept always will become more and more chaotic it's in this sense that the respect for American thinking in Beijing not in the sense I don't know of a military attack on the international system I think that is nearly inconceivable to me anyway let me just ask you about North Korea and China's relationship with North Korea do we are they being helpful to us what should we be doing that we're not doing what would we like for them to do that they're not doing in order to I understand their position on North Korea one has to recall what I said earlier about the Korean War which is in Chinese consciousness a big event no they are not helpful to us if we mean are they helpful to us in getting the nuclear weapons away from North Korea they are marginally helpful but they fade sit still Emma as in a way to me which is that the only successful thing the Korean regime has done in its long and unattractive history it's to build nuclear weapons almost everything else domestically it's been a catastrophe therefore the Chinese probably recognize that the pressure required to get nuclear weapons away from North Korea it's almost identical with pressures needed to collapse the North Korean regime if one could create a North Korean regime that operates like the Tong reformed system and that gives up nuclear weapons and that develops its economy I think the Chinese would be delighted well such a regime wouldn't be the current North Korean regime and so I believe at some point there has to be an understanding between China and the United States and other countries on in Northeast Asia arrangement into which North Korea fits and of course South Korea has to be integral part of this so that the nuclear question can be solved without chaos in North Korea but the Chinese fear is chaos in North Korea they have to know the nuclear weapons in North Korea are infinitely more dangerous to them than to us and and we have not yet found the right way to talk to the Chinese about this oh no have they found that ID way to talk to us about it because they're too many inhibitions on both sides but it seems to me I mean and I think you hit the nail right on the head there and and I think that's what Kunsan causes a lot of Americans to just just wonder about this answer they don't seem to be as worried about nuclear weapons in North Korea or in Iran for example as we are and are they or are they not I mean they they don't have the cosmic view under liberation that we have I agree with the administration that the proliferation of nuclear weapons is one of the gravest dangers that they will faces the Chinese look at it more from a local strategic point of view I've described the Korean issue on Iran they they went along with us on the last sanctions if we can segment it into individual steps like many governments they they do not want to give up the access to Iranian oil and they're balancing they're balancing it but in the long run they will face the question they'll have to face the question of okay are they Middle Eastern region but it would be a big change in their historic approach obviously they're playing a larger role in the Middle East when I go ahead they will not do it when I talk to people he in washing their would say they are not helpful to us they do not conceive foreign policy in terms of being helpful to us they they conceive foreign policy in terms of their own strategy so what we have to learn to do is to merge our strategy and their strategy so that it leads to two common results when we said they should be stakeholders we decide the thing and they make a contribution in that concept they have to be made part of the design just while we're in the Middle East do you expect China to continue to play more of a role in the Middle East than they had yes I think China is going to be forced to oil when Wendy Christ when the crisis of good in Egypt and the way the Saudis interpreted it I thought it was almost inevitable then a new relationship would begin with Saudi but they're doing it primarily to protect their energy resources but it is a vital area for them they prefer it if we took care of the security I thought one of the most interesting thoughts in your book you say that American exceptionalism is missionary Chinese exceptionalism is cultural let's talk about that of course again I have to tell you I do not pretend to be a Chinese scholar and there are several former speech writers of mine sitting around here moving their lips well you probably know another Olas so with these qualifications let me make my Americans believe that our values are universally valid and can be applied by anybody by any society and moreover that we can teach any society to adopt these values and finally that the prospects of peace are enhanced if we accomplished this task the Chinese belief in the superiority of their cultures the uniqueness of their culture and they are they delighted and proud if you respected but there's no way you can become a Chinese it is not a if you are not part of the Chinese culture born into the Chinese culture you cannot become one so it hardly mattered Chinese armies intervening somewhere to make Chinese culture the Calcutta Chinese governing principles that is not a Chinese way of thinking the Chinese way of thinking is that the majesty of the Chinese conducting the achievement of Chinese society will inspire respect which leads to a cooperative action but it's not one that they have historically attempted to bring about by military force they'll use military force if they feel themselves and but it's hard for me to visualize a Chinese military strategy designed to back up a Chinese world government even in the name of universal peace so you talked in the beginning about how you know we have to look for things that we can agree on and all of that do you do you think the two sides recognize how dangerous a rivalry between China and the United States could become or do you think that could did post it you know what I think should look I think the best thing that was done at the beginning of the relationship was not just the discovery of the importance of the relationship because that was sort of going to happen even though the best thing was that we that we sort of put aside all the technical issues that had impeded previous discussions and said let's talk about fundamentals what are we really trying to do and luckily since there had been no diplomatic relations there was no agenda to impede it so if you read the transcripts of the first years of conversations they were almost like college professors discussing but it had the advantage that it concept formed now to talk about the current situation from my knowledge of both government and having talked about the importance of what I've said is recognized I don't think there is anyone who says it it's not important in the government have several confrontationally people outside but what tends to happen now as each government faces more and more problems is that they make a communique and then not much happens until the next communicate but it's not happening yet fully it's the kind of dialogue that enables us to deal with this question of North Korea in its ultimate sense and of the Middle East in an ultimate sense that's where the big gap is it's not that people don't want an understanding it's that they have not yet found them method but even the people to do it the United States I mean this is one of the questions that some of the folks at CSIS and along one of them was in I thought this was interesting the United States was historically isolationist enforced until forced out on the world stage by a series of great Wars do you do you see a similar impulse toward the world stage in China now you've talked a little about this but it isn't the China didn't have was in its history it had many wars in its history but it never had to deal with sovereign state that notion of sovereignty was unknown in China they didn't have a foreign ministry until the end of the 19th century and then the foreign ministry was supposed to deal only with the invading Europeans all other things that we consider Foreign Affair were assigned to different departments so this notion of of a sovereign of a sovereign well not will it require wards to force China into that I don't think that because the Chinese are really careful students of foreign policy and old strategy but they undoubtedly have different interpretations now of their opportunities and of their necessities and I would expect that the new administration that is coming into power next year in China will Faith's have to face this the current administration after going through a huge Intel administration after going through a period that could be compared with a elbowing of the Truman's before World War one however made it turn which the Germans never made and I've been quo there the state council in charge of foreign policy has made a very thoughtful speech and the theme now that the Chinese also at that Singapore conference as I said a peaceful rise and and of a cooperative relationship and even of Pacific community and undoubtedly their country reviews in China and in my view it should be the objective of American policy to enhance the plausibility of the view that wants cooperation but in they have to do the same thing it's needed on both sides it would be a unique experience in history it's not yuge it's not happened before but it also hasn't been necessary before and I keep saying in this not keep saying I'd say my last chapter in my book what would have happened if the European leaders who drifted into war in 1910 when from the period said 1910 to 14 had known what the world would look like in 1990 would they have done it in that case Germany was the princely responsible country it was not it here we are I think on an equal basis in having to make a judgment I just ask you one more question you've you been to China what 50 times now since you made that first trip I just wonder as you were on that airplane going to China that first time what did you what was going through your mind did you you knew this was on the cusp of something grand no did you have any idea it would come out the way it did and we would be here today talking about what's happened just to keep Winston Lord from rushing up on this stage he was my principal associate at the time and the quality of our sword was shown by the fact that he went up to the pilot's seat while I was resting in the rear of the plane so that he could say he was the first vagina which will show you the okay I think that we knew it was a momentous event we did not know its magnitude we looked at it primarily in terms of three things of balancing the Soviet Union isolating North Vietnam and giving the American people a demonstration that even in the middle of a divisive war its government could come up with a comprehensive notion of peace none of us certainly not I expected a China of the magnitude that had since risen and even after we saw it but it was we were all lucky in the sense how often in life you get a chance to do something unique and something that you know is going to make a huge difference if I'm mission had failed it also would it's much bigger difference but the odds were that then it would would succeed and just to show the Chinese style they had sent a team of people that had to escort us from Pakistan into Indochina which we didn't know until we got to to Pakistan so we knew from them on the plane that this was not going to be a confrontational meeting if it if it was avoidable no it was a it was from that point of view a great experience but we had others one great moment was when we knew the Vietnam War would end and that didn't end so we thought it was a great achievement and that failed and that blew up but we knew it would to make a historic change but a number of things we couldn't imagine it predict for example we thought that there was a possibility and all our experts had told us that if we move towards China relationship with the Soviet Union will deteriorate and we thought we would get into a period of increased tension within Soviet Union the exact apples had happened the opening to China greatly improved our relations with the Soviet Union and in fact made it possible to have a global policy of what was then called invidiously they thought but which we thought represented some significant problems dr. Henry Kissinger

Channel: Center for Strategic & International Studies

Views: 25,843

Keywords: csis, henry kissinger, china, bob schieffer

Id: USnFeox1DDM

Length: 47min 6sec (2826 seconds)

Published: Fri Jun 24 2011