Negotiating with the Enemy: U.S.-China Talks during the Cold War, 1949–1972 (review)

The 1971–1972 negotiations between Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon and their Chinese interlocutors have been analyzed in great detail by James Mann, Nancy Bernkopf Tucker, and Margaret McMillan, among others. Since 1999, when William Burr published the transcripts of Kissinger’s conversations with the Chinese, few if any scholars have continued to give much credence to the notoriously self-serving memoirs written by the principal U.S. participants. At this point, the benefits from further study of the American side of those meetings are likely minimal. By contrast, there is always value to adding texture to the Chinese side. Yafeng Xia, a former Chinese foreign service officer, is uniquely positioned to shed greater light on the aims and methods of Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong, and their subordinates—and he does not disappoint. He offers no great surprises, no extraordinary documents, and no provocative interpretations, but Negotiating with the Enemy is the most thorough study to date of Beijing’s perception of the talks with Americans from 1949 to 1972.

Xia’s central contention is that the largely fruitless Chinese-American meetings from 1955 to 1968 actually paved the way for Kissinger and Nixon to meet with Zhou and Mao. Each side, he writes, learned something about the other’s priorities and negotiating style, enabling them to achieve success at the high-level talks of 1971 and 1972. Given the continuity in Beijing throughout the years covered in the book, with Mao and Zhou in charge of foreign policy, it is certainly plausible that the Chinese leaders gained insight into the American approach. Students of the American side have reason to be skeptical, especially because of the disdain both Kissinger and Nixon displayed toward the efforts of their diplomatic corps and their doubts that the past work of foreign service officers could teach them much.

Consistent with what other Chinese scholars and officials have been telling us for some time, Xia insists that Mao was the “decider” and that Zhou’s primary responsibility was to manage day-to-day operations. Xia concedes that Zhou had the opportunity to influence Mao subtly by controlling most of what Mao read. Xia clearly has a highly favorable view of Zhou and excludes the portrait of Zhou as a sycophant that has emerged in recent years. In the Chinese effort to achieve rapprochement with the United States, Zhou as depicted here was the man who had to persuade the ultra-leftists of the need to reverse policy.

Xia understands the importance of the relationship between domestic politics and decisions about foreign policy. He passes lightly over the familiar American context and tries to see what was going on in the corridors of power in Beijing. In this effort he is less successful than Li Jie in his valuable essay published in William Kirby, Robert Ross, and Gong Li, eds., Normalization of U.S. China Relations: An International History (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Asia Center, 2005). Li Jie traced the factions within the Chinese leadership and the role they played from 1969 to 1979. Nonetheless, Xia transcends the frequent Chinese insistence that no differences or conflicts existed between the men who attempted to influence policy toward the United States.

Why were the Chinese so receptive to rapprochement with Washington in 1971? Xia rightly stresses security concerns and provides ample evidence of Mao’s and Zhou’s realization that playing the American card was their best bet for deterring a major Soviet attack. Xia also demonstrates the salience of Chinese pride: Mao and Zhou perceived Nixon’s desire to fly to Beijing as an act of homage and evidence that the United States was at last according China its rightful place in the universe. The leader of the “free world” had asked to be allowed to meet with them, to seek their assistance in checking Soviet power. China had indeed “stood up”—and Nixon’s visit signaled China’s great-power...