The Shanghai Communiqué
Normally, communiqués
have a short shelf life. They define a mood rather than a
direction. This was not the case with the communiqué that summed up
Nixon’s visit to Beijing.
Leaders like to
create the impression that communiqués emerge full-blown from their
minds and conversations with their counterparts. The popular idea
that the leaders write and agree on every comma is not one they
discourage. Experienced and wise leaders know better. Nixon and
Zhou understood the danger of obliging leaders into drafting
sessions on the short deadlines inherent in a summit. Usually men
of strong will—why else would they find themselves where they
are—may not be able to resolve deadlocks when time is short and the
media insistent. As a result, diplomats frequently arrive at major
meetings with communiqués already largely drafted.
I had been sent to
Beijing by Nixon in October 1971—on a second visit—for that
purpose. In subsequent exchanges, it was decided that the code name
for this trip would be Polo II, our imaginations having been
exhausted by naming the first secret trip Polo I. The chief purpose
of Polo II was to agree on a communiqué that the Chinese leadership
and the President could endorse at the conclusion of Nixon’s trip
four months later.
We arrived in Beijing
during a time of upheaval in the Chinese governmental structure. A
few weeks earlier, Mao’s appointed successor, Lin Biao, had been
accused of a plot whose full dimensions have never been officially
revealed. Different explanations exist. The prevalent view at the
time was that Lin Biao, the compiler of the “Little Red Book” of
Mao’s sayings, seemed to have concluded that China’s security would
be better assured by returning to the principles of the Cultural
Revolution than by maneuvering with America. It has also been
suggested that, by this point, Lin actually opposed Mao from
something closer to the pragmatist position of Zhou and Deng, and
that his outward ideological zealotry was a defensive tactic.40
Vestiges of the
crisis were still all around us when my associates and I arrived on
October 20. On the way from the airport, we passed posters that
proclaimed the familiar slogan “Down with American Imperial
Capitalism and its Running Dogs.” Some of the posters were in
English. Leaflets with similar themes had been left in our rooms at
the State Guesthouse. I asked my staff assistant to collect and
return them to the Chinese protocol officer, saying that they had
been left behind by a previous occupant.
The next day, the
acting Foreign Minister escorting me to a meeting with Zhou at the
Great Hall of the People took note of the potential embarrassment.
He called my attention to a wall poster that had replaced an
offending one, which said in English: “Welcome to the Afro-Asian
Ping Pong Tournament.” All other posters we passed had been painted
over. Zhou mentioned as if in passing that we should observe
China’s actions, not its “empty cannons” of rhetoric—a forerunner
of what Mao would say to Nixon a few months later.
The discussion on the
communiqué began conventionally enough. I tabled a draft communiqué
that my staff and I had prepared and Nixon had approved. In it,
both sides affirmed their devotion to peace and pledged cooperation
on outstanding issues. The section on Taiwan was left blank. Zhou
accepted the draft as a basis for discussion and promised to
present Chinese modifications and alternatives the next morning.
All this was conventional communiqué drafting.
What happened next
was not. Mao intervened by telling Zhou to stop the drafting of
what he called a “bullshit communiqué.” He might call his
exhortations of Communist orthodoxy “empty cannons”; he was not
prepared to abandon them as guidelines for Communist cadres. He
instructed Zhou to produce a communiqué that would restate
Communist orthodoxies as the Chinese position. Americans could
state their view as they chose. Mao had based his life on the
proposition that peace could emerge only out of struggle, not as an
end in itself. China was not afraid to avow its differences with
America. Zhou’s draft (and mine) was the sort of banality the
Soviets would sign but neither mean nor implement.41
Zhou’s presentation
followed his instructions from Mao. He put forward a draft
communiqué that stated the Chinese position in uncompromising
language. It left blank pages for our position, which was expected
to be comparably strong to the contrary. There was a final section
for common positions.
At first, I was taken
aback. But as I reflected, the unorthodox format appeared to solve
both sides’ problem. Each could reaffirm its fundamental
convictions, which would reassure domestic audiences and uneasy
allies. The differences had been known for two decades. The
contrast would highlight the agreements being reached, and the
positive conclusions would be far more credible. Without the
ability to communicate with Washington in the absence of diplomatic
representation or adequate secure communication, I was confident
enough of Nixon’s thinking to proceed.
In this manner, a
communiqué issued on Chinese soil and published by Chinese media
enabled America to affirm its commitment to “individual freedom and
social progress for all the peoples of the world”; proclaim its
close ties with allies in South Korea and Japan; and articulate a
view of an international order that rejected infallibility for any
country and permitted each nation to develop free of foreign
interference.42 The Chinese draft of the communiqué was,
of course, equally expressive of contrary views. These could not
have come as a surprise to the Chinese population; they heard and
saw them all day in their media. But by signing a document
containing both perspectives, each side was effectively calling an
ideological truce and underscoring where our views
converged.
By far the most
significant of these convergences was the article on hegemony. It
read:
—Neither [side] should seek hegemony in the Asia-Pacific region and each is opposed to efforts by any other country or group of countries to establish such hegemony.43
Alliances have been
founded on far less. For all its pedantic phraseology, it was a
stunning conclusion. The enemies of a little more than six months
earlier were announcing their joint opposition to any further
expansion of the Soviet sphere. It was a veritable diplomatic
revolution, for the next step would inevitably be to discuss a
strategy to counter Soviet ambitions.
The sustainability of
the strategy depended on whether progress could be made on Taiwan.
By the time Taiwan was discussed during the Nixon trip, the parties
had already explored the subject, starting with the secret visit
seven months earlier.
Negotiations had now
reached the point where the diplomat has a choice to make. One
tactic—and indeed the traditional approach—is to outline one’s
maximum position and gradually retreat to a more attainable stance.
Such a tactic is much beloved by negotiators eager to protect their
domestic standing. Yet while it appears “tough” to start with an
extreme set of demands, the process amounts to a progressive
weakening ushered in by the abandonment of the opening move. The
other party is tempted to dig in at each stage to see what the next
modification will bring and to turn the negotiating process into a
test of endurance.
Rather than exalting
process over substance, the preferable course is to make opening
proposals close to what one judges to be the most sustainable
outcome, a definition of “sustainable” in the abstract being one
that both sides have an interest in maintaining. This was a
particular challenge with respect to Taiwan, where the margin for
concession for both sides was narrow. We therefore from the
beginning put forward views on Taiwan we judged necessary for a
constructive evolution. Nixon advanced these on February 22 as five
principles distilled from previous exchanges during my July and
October meetings. They were comprehensive and at the same time also
the limit of American concessions. The future would have to be
navigated within their framework. They were: an affirmation of a
one China policy; that the United States would not support internal
Taiwan independence movements; that the United States would
discourage any Japanese move into Taiwan (a matter, given history,
of special concern to China); support for any peaceful resolution
between Beijing and Taipei; and commitment to continued
normalization.44 On February 24, Nixon explained how the
Taiwan issue might evolve domestically as the United States pursued
these principles. His intention, he affirmed, was to complete the
normalization process in his second term and withdraw American
troops from Taiwan in that time frame—though he warned that he was
in no position to make any formal commitments. Zhou responded that
both sides had “difficulties” and that there was “no time
limit.”
Principle and
pragmatism thus existing in ambiguous equilibrium, Qiao Guanhua and
I drafted the last remaining section of the Shanghai Communiqué.
The key passage was only one paragraph, but it took two nearly
all-night sessions to produce. It read:
The U.S. side declared: The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China. The United States Government does not challenge that position. It reaffirms its interest in a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves. With this prospect in mind, it affirms the ultimate objective of the withdrawal of all U.S. forces and military installations from Taiwan. In the meantime, it will progressively reduce its forces and military installations on Taiwan as the tension in the area diminishes.45
This paragraph folded
decades of civil war and animosity into an affirmative general
principle to which Beijing, Taipei, and Washington could all
subscribe. The United States dealt with the one China policy by
acknowledging the convictions of Chinese on either side of the
Chinese dividing line. The flexibility of this formulation
permitted the United States to move from “acknowledge” to “support”
in its own position in the decades since. Taiwan has been given an
opportunity to develop economically and internally. China achieved
recognition of its “core interest” in a political connection
between Taiwan and the mainland. The United States affirmed its
interest in a peaceful resolution.
Despite occasional
tensions, the Shanghai Communiqué has served its purpose. In the
forty years since it was signed, neither China nor the United
States has allowed the issue to interrupt the momentum of their
relationship. It has been a delicate and occasionally tense
process. Throughout, the United States has affirmed its view of the
importance of a peaceful settlement and China its conviction of the
imperative of ultimate unification. Each side has acted with
restraint and sought to avoid obliging the other side to a test of
wills or strength. China has invoked core principles but has been
flexible as to the timing of their implementation. The United
States has been pragmatic, moving from case to case, sometimes
heavily influenced by domestic American pressures. On the whole,
Beijing and Washington have given priority to the overriding
importance of the Chinese-American relationship.
Still, one must not
confuse a modus vivendi with a permanent state of affairs. No
Chinese leader has ever abandoned the insistence on ultimate
unification or can be expected to do so. No foreseeable American
leader will jettison the American conviction that this process
should be peaceful or alter the American view on that subject.
Statesmanship will be needed to prevent a drift toward a point
where both sides feel obliged to test the firmness and nature of
each other’s convictions.