Chapter 9: Resumption of Relations: First Encounters with Mao and Zhou
1 Gao Wenqian, Zhou Enlai: The
Last Perfect Revolutionary, trans. Peter Rand and Lawrence
R. Sullivan (New York: PublicAffairs, 2007), 162.
2 “Answers to the Italian Journalist Oriana
Fallaci: April 21 and 23, 1980,” in Selected
Works of Deng Xiaoping (1975–1982), vol. 2, trans. The
Bureau for the Compilation and Translation of Works of Marx,
Engels, Lenin and Stalin Under the Central Committee of the
Communist Party of China (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1984),
326–27.
3 Gao Wenqian’s Zhou Enlai:
The Last Perfect Revolutionary offers a complex and at many
points admiring portrait of Zhou. It ultimately adopts a different
conclusion than Deng about Zhou’s participation in Mao’s domestic
upheavals. A recent work on the Cultural Revolution by Hu Angang,
Mao Zedong yu wenge [Mao Zedong and the Cultural Revolution] (Hong Kong:
Da Feng Chubanshe, 2008), passes a somewhat harsher verdict on
Zhou’s role in this period. For an English-language discussion, see
Yafeng Xia, moderator, H-Diplo Roundtable
Review 11, no. 43 (October 6, 2010), http://www.h-net.org/~diplo/roundtables/PDF/Roundtable-XI-43.pdf
4 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, July 9,
1971, 4:35–11:20 p.m.,” in Steven E. Phillips, ed., Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS),
1969–1976, vol. 17, China
1969–1972 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 2006), 363.
5 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, October 21,
1971, 10:30 a.m.–1:45 p.m.,” FRUS 17,
504. The original American records of these conversations list the
name “Zhou” using the then-prevalent Wade-Giles transliteration
“Chou.” To avoid frequent shifts in spelling between the present
volume’s main text and the quoted conversations, in passages
excerpted from American transcripts the names of Chinese
interlocutors, as well as Chinese-language words originally spoken
by Chinese parties, have been rendered using pinyin
spellings.
6 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, February
17–18, 1973, 11:30 p.m.–1:20 a.m.,” in David P. Nickles, ed.,
Foreign Relations of the United States (FRUS),
1969–1976, vol. 18, China
1973–1976 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing
Office, 2007), 124.
7 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, July 9,
1971, 4:35–11:20 p.m.,” FRUS 17,
367.
8 Ibid., 390.
9 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, July 10,
1971, 12:10–6:00 p.m.,” FRUS 17,
400.
10 Shortly after my July 1971 visit, Zhou flew to
Hanoi to brief North Vietnamese leaders on China’s new diplomatic
posture. By most accounts, these talks did not proceed smoothly;
nor did Zhou’s subsequent discussions with Madame Nguyen Thi Binh,
the implacable shadow foreign minister of the Hanoi front
“Provisional Revolutionary Government” of South Vietnam. See Chen
Jian, “China, Vietnam and Sino-American Rapprochement,” in Odd Arne
Westad and Sophie Quinn-Judge, eds., The Third
Indochina War: Conflict Between China, Vietnam and Cambodia,
1972–1979 (London: Routledge, 2006), 53–54; and Qiang Zhai,
China and the Vietnam Wars, 1950–1975
(Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000),
196–97.
11 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, July 9,
1971, 4:35–11:20 p.m.,” FRUS 17,
367–68.
12 Ibid., 367.
13 Ibid.
14 Ibid., 369.
15 “Memorandum of Conversation: Shanghai, February
28, 1972, 8:30–9:30 a.m.,” FRUS 17,
823.
16 A partial record of this luncheon discussion is
available in FRUS 17, 416.
17 In the years since, Fujian has become a center
of cross-Strait trade and tourism links, including via Quemoy and
Matsu.
18 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, July 10,
1971, 12:10–6:00 p.m.,” FRUS 17,
403–4.
19 Chen Jian, Mao’s China and
the Cold War (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina
Press, 2001), 267.
20 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, July 10,
1971, 12:10–6:00 p.m.,” FRUS 17,
430–31.
21 Margaret MacMillan, Nixon
and Mao: The Week That Changed the World (New York: Random
House, 2007), 22.
22 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, February
21, 1972, 2:50–3:55 p.m.,” FRUS 17,
681.
23 Ibid., 678–79.
24 Ibid., 681.
25 Ibid., 680.
26 Ibid., 681–82.
27 Edward (Ted) Heath, British Prime Minister from
1970 to 1974. Heath would later visit Beijing and meet with Mao in
1974 and 1975.
28 Charles de Gaulle, French resistance leader and
President from 1959 to 1969. Paris had recognized the People’s
Republic of China in 1964.
29 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, February
21, 1972, 2:50–3:55 p.m.,” FRUS 17,
679–80.
30 Ibid., 684.
31 Ibid., 683.
32 Ibid.
33 “Conversation Between President Nixon and the
Ambassador to the Republic of China (McConaughy): Washington, June
30, 1971, 12:18–12:35 p.m.,” FRUS 17,
349.
34 Ibid., 351–52.
35 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, February
21, 1972, 5:58–6:55 p.m.,” FRUS 17,
688.
36 Ibid., 689.
37 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, February
22, 1972, 2:10–6:00 p.m.,” FRUS 17,
700.
38 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, February
24, 1972, 5:15–8:05 p.m.,” FRUS 17,
770.
39 “Memorandum of Conversation: Washington,
February 14, 1972, 4:09–6:19 p.m.,” FRUS 17, 666.
40 See, for example, Gao Wenqian, Zhou Enlai, 151–53, 194–200.
41 See Kuisong Yang and Yafeng Xia, “Vacillating
Between Revolution and Détente: Mao’s Changing Psyche and Policy
Toward the United States, 1969–1976,” Diplomatic History 34, no. 2 (April 2010):
407.
42 “Joint Statement Following Discussions with
Leaders of the People’s Republic of China: Shanghai, February 27,
1972,” FRUS 17, 812–16.
43 Ibid., 814.
44 “Memorandum of Conversation: Beijing, February
22, 1972, 2:10–6:00 p.m.,” FRUS 17,
697.
45 “Joint Statement Following Discussions with
Leaders of the People’s Republic of China: Shanghai, February 27,
1972,” FRUS 17, 815.
46 CCP Central Committee, “Notice on the Joint
Sino-American Communiqué, March 7, 1972,” as translated and quoted
in Yang and Xia, “Vacillating Between Revolution and Détente,”
395.