One of the few weighty issues on which Democrats and Republicans agree and have no problem approving bipartisan resolutions is the one related to the Chinese enemy.
At the end of February, when the echoes of the crisis of the spy balloon launched by Beijing and detected in the sky of the United States were still echoing, a parliamentary committee formed by the two formations to face the competition of the Asian giant declared that the confrontation with the distant country is “an existential struggle about what life will be like” during the remaining time of the century. Then the White House, the CIA and the FBI launched a whole battery of accusations against Xi Jinping and his people: covid originates “in an incident in a laboratory controlled by the Chinese Government” and those responsible know it and they hide it; Beijing has plans to “arm” Russia in the war against Ukraine; Xi has ordered the military to be “ready to invade Taiwan in 2027,” they said.
Without doubting that Washington ended up being right in all this, it was striking the level of aggression and the lack of diplomatic caution with which, in an atmosphere of unusual consensus, the Joe Biden Administration and the conservative opposition pressed then the second power on the planet, something they continue to do.
Almost no major figure in the United States has so far questioned the continuous pum-pum-pum against the country that the first power has gradually turned into its number one enemy, ahead of Russia. And it has had to be the dean of Western diplomacy who, reappearing on the occasion of his imminent 100th birthday next Saturday, has sounded a note of caution to call for caution.
Henry Kissinger is not a saint or a dove of international relations. His decisive intervention as an accomplice and partly instigator of the dictatorships in Chile and Argentina is documented, as is his support for the repression of the Pakistani dictatorship against the Bengalis in 1971. And his role in the bombings of Cambodia and Laos between 1969 and 1970 is still under scrutiny. The digital magazine The Intercept, key in the leak of documents by ex-CIA agent Edward Snowden, plans to publish an investigative report on Tuesday that will leave Kissinger in a worse place than he already occupies in the history of these attacks designed to slow down the North Vietnamese Army and the Viet Cong in the midst of the Vietnam War.
But who was National Security Advisor (1969-1975) and Secretary of State (1973-1977) under the terms of Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford, as well as an informal adviser and friend of former Democratic Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, he is also one of the most heard voices on US foreign policy. And his legacy includes repairing, through a covert visit to China in July 1971, the détente between Washington and Beijing in what would be the first official visit by a US president, Richard Nixon, to the People’s Republic by Mao Zedong: a key operation for the future of the cold war with the Soviet Union and, from the current perspective, an inescapable reference for the handling of the US relationship with the Government of Xi Jinping.
In the interview with The Economist published today by La Vanguardia, he suggests that detente be restored with China with objectives that, in part, and saving the distances due to the great changes in the geopolitical board, can recall those achieved in 1972; in particular, with a view to restraining Russia.
The veteran diplomat calls for “lowering the temperature” with Beijing instead of repeating again and again the memorial of China’s grievances to the US. He advocates that “common territories†be sought to avoid a disaster in Taiwan. And he suggests that, if fifty years ago the rapprochement with Beijing helped Washington gain ground against the USSR, perhaps now the close, but wary, relationship between China and Russia might not be entirely negative; in this sense, the former Secretary of State distances himself from those who simply despise Xi’s negotiation offers to end the war in Ukraine.
Kissinger is blind in his right eye, has hearing problems and has undergone several heart operations. But, according to the CBS reporter who has followed him for half a century and also interviewed him a few days ago, Ted Koppel, the influential former Secretary of State works 15 hours a day, maintains lucidity and remains fully attentive to the current affairs
So the winner of one of the most controversial Nobel Prizes in the history of the award, which he won in 1973 for negotiating a peace in Vietnam that did not come until two years later, is obsessed with the dangers of artificial intelligence His development seems difficult to control and he believes that it is another of the issues that Washington and Beijing must discuss to prevent the new technology from exacerbating their confrontation and, as could also happen in the wake of tensions over Taiwan, leading to a world War.
Kissinger is not only listened to attentively in the United States and its wide area of ​​influence.
Beijing is also considering it. The international Chinese television channel under the control of the country’s Communist Party, CGTN, usually echoes his views. Because “the United States and China must understand each other more fully and cultivate a relationship more compatible with peace and progress in the world,” which the former Secretary of State said in January when he received the annual award from the China-USA Chamber of Commerce.
Kissinger is not a paragon of virtue, but he knows what he’s talking about.
