If President Ford’s discussions with Chinese leaders in Peking last week have been as unproductive as several commentators have suggested, he must be said to have been ill-advised to have undertaken the trip and they to have pressed the invitation. But it is possible that the visit is not being evaluated in the proper context.
A great deal of importance has been attached to the Chinese criticism of the US policy of detente with the Soviet Union. This is doubtless justified inasmuch as Peking itself has been at pains to emphasise its view that the Soviet Union is an expansionist power and that Washington is allowing itself to be bamboozled by its protestations of peaceful intentions. But one must be quite arrogant to believe that the Chinese leaders are naive and that a fairly sophisticated assessment of reality does not lie behind their seemingly simplistic public statements. It is, indeed, extraordinary that some otherwise well-informed western analysts should believe that the Chinese have a warped view of the world and judge their pronouncements accordingly.
If this assumption is rejected, it should be possible to recognise that the Chinese leaders have a legitimate interest in the revival of self-confidence in the United States and that their apparent criticism has helped the Americans put their crimes in Viet Nam behind them and address themselves to the present problems. The validity of this proposition should become obvious if it is recalled that many Americans were overwhelmed by a sense of guilt over what they and their compatriots had done in Indochina and that they needed to be told that they were by no means incapable of reasserting their old position, if only they were prepared to see the Soviet Union as it is.
In order to appreciate the Chinese interest in the renewal of American self-confidence, it is not necessary to believe that they are obsessed with the Soviet Union. In fact, one can take them at their word when they say that they no longer fear a Soviet attack on their country. They feel they have a stake in the overall power balance between America and Russia because a tilt in favour of Moscow would be highly inconvenient to them. No country wants an immediate neighbour, whatever its intentions, to be as powerful as the Soviet Union has become.
Hardware
Military hardware is without doubt the first most important constituent of the balance of power and it is not an arguable proposition that the Soviet arsenal in both conventional and nuclear fields has grown much faster than that of the United States in the past one decade! As against an inferiority of at least one to four in respect of nuclear weapons at the time of the Cuban crisis in 1962, Moscow has now achieved parity with Washington. And the same is true in respect of the navy.
But this may not be the only or even the main anxiety of the Chinese leaders. They may well be more worried over other developments in the United States like the continuing tussle between the US administration and Congress, the effort the former has had to make to carry the latter with it on so crucial an issue as military aid to Turkey, and the sensational exposures of the CIA. Thus the Chinese leaders may well have convinced themselves that American society cannot overcome these debilitating divisions within it so long as it does not perceive a major external threat to itself.
It is difficult for foreigners to say how far Chinese propaganda reflects their understanding of American psychology. But it will not be altogether surprising if they feel that America’s is a soft society – after all the death of about 40,000 US soldiers in Viet Nam played a critical role in turning the people against the war – that it could confront the Soviet Union in the past solely on the strength of an overwhelming nuclear and naval superiority, and that in view of the changed and changing military balance it might back down in future.
On this reckoning, it is as important for the Chinese to help the Americans regain their self-esteem and self-confidence as it is for them to support those Americans like Senator Jackson and Mr. Schlesinger who deeply distrust the Soviet Union and wish to step up their country’s military capability and preparedness. That is presumably why they have, on the one hand, by and large desisted from rubbing in the US defeat in Indochina and, on the other, spared no opportunity to point out that American presence in Western Europe and Asia is wholly defensive in character.
Debacle
All this is not to suggest that after the debacle in Indochina the Americans would have packed off from Asia and gone home if the Chinese had not endorsed their continuing presence. But there can be little doubt that in that eventuality the pressure to do so would have been much greater both at home and abroad. Apart from Chairman Mao Tse-tung, only President Sadat can be said to have provided a noticeable boost to America’s self-esteem and morale in recent years.
The Chinese risk looking foolish when they play hosts to right-wing West European leaders like Mr. Edward Heath and Mr. Joseph Strauss and read lectures to others on the possibility or even inevitability of armed conflict with the Soviet Union. Most West Europeans reject the possibility of Soviet aggression and they do not need to be reminded that they cannot match Soviet military power on their own and that without a firm alliance with the United States and continuing American presence, they face the unpleasant prospects of what is popularly, though erroneously, called Finlandisation. But there may be a method in Chinese “madness”. Several facts need to be noted in this connection.
Anti-Americanism has been widespread among the left in Western Europe and the pro-Peking new left was virulently anti-American during the past one decade of direct US involvement in the Viet Nam war. Clearly this trend needed to be checked from the Chinese viewpoint and only a dramatisation of the danger facing Western Europe by Peking could enable it to help stem what appeared to be a rising tide in the late ‘sixties. The Chinese leaders are too hard-headed to worry too much about the discomfiture of their unthinking admirers in the West.
The pressure in favour of unilateral cuts in military expenditure has also been strong in most West European countries so much so that in the ‘sixties even the West Germans wanted their forces to be reduced under the proposed agreement between the NATO and the Warsaw Pact. Chinese statements may not materially have affected this trend, but their support to the EEC has undoubtedly enhanced its stature and made it easier for it to play the kind of role it has in recent months in Portugal.
Objective
This poses a serious problem for the Chinese leaders. For, the very pursuit of the larger objective of helping the United States contain the growth of Soviet influence and power obliges them not to embarrass it on the issue of Taiwan. Indeed, they cannot be insensitive to the possibility that if Washington suddenly reneges on its commitments to Taiwan under pressure from them, its credibility can be further eroded, specially in Japan, with consequences which may not be welcome to them.
The point that is sought to be made here is not that the Chinese do not attach much importance to Taiwan, but that they regard the preservation of US power and credibility far more significant right now and that this attitude is to no small extent influenced by their view that America has long passed the peak of its economic and military strength. They may not be unduly impressed by the Soviet Union’s economic performance either. Indeed, they are not. But clearly they do not seem to believe that the Soviet system is facing a crisis or that the Soviet economy is apt to break down under the burden of the military build-up. In plain terms, they appear to take the view that Soviet power will continue to expand for quite some time.
On the other side of the fence, the US interest in a smooth transition in China from the Mao-Chou leadership is too obvious to need discussion. But it may perhaps be pertinent to say that Washington appears to have concluded that Mr. Teng Hsiao-ping and men who have come out of the wilderness of the so-called cultural revolution with him are its best bets. In other words, President Ford may well have chosen this time to visit Peking with the definite objective of enhancing Mr. Teng’s stature. The requirements of protocol cannot override the national interest in such case. In any event, the former could not afford to rebuff the latter by refusing his invitation. Mr. Teng may lack Mr. Chou En-lai’s charm and sweep. But he is likely to keep China on the present track which is all that the US administration can wish and hope for.
The Times of India, 10 December 1975