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

1. Introduction

1 chapter one Introduction This book treats U.S.-China negotiations from 1949 to 1972. During the heyday of the Cold War, Beijing (Peking) and Washington confronted one another on almost every front, but at the same time, conducted negotiations , open and secret alike. From the perspective of international con¶ict resolution through communication and negotiation, the decades-long U.S.China negotiation entailed the unusually complex and contingent dynamics of a de facto diplomatic discourse between the two countries whose differences in fundamental political, strategic, and cultural outlooks were compounded by the con¶icts of national interests and political ideology throughout much of the Cold War.1 Immediately after taking over Nanjing (Nanking), the capital of the Republic of China, in April 1949, the Chinese Communists anticipated a possible U.S. intervention on behalf of Jiang Jieshi (Chiang Kai-shek) and militarily prepared for the contingency.2 Yet, to their surprise, John Leighton Stuart, the U.S. ambassador to Nationalist China, stayed at the U.S. embassy in Nanjing after the Communists seized the city and held secret meetings with Huang Hua, a highlevel CCP foreign affairs of¤cial. They talked about how Washington might deal with a soon to be established new regime. While ¤ghting a “limited war” in Korea, U.S. and Chinese military representatives engaged each other in armistice negotiations from July 1951 to July 1953, ¤rst in Kaesong and then in Panmunjom. With no formal diplomatic relations, however, from 1955 to 1970, Chinese and American diplomats held altogether 136 ambassadorial-level talks in Geneva and Warsaw. Before reaching the bilateral “rapprochement” in 1972, Henry Kissinger, President Richard Nixon’s assistant for national security affairs, secretly ¶ew to Beijing and talked with Chinese premier Zhou Enlai 2 negotiating with the enemy (Chou Enlai) in July 1971. The secret contacts between the U.S. military attach é at Paris, Vernon A. Walters, and Chinese diplomats, and Kissinger’s secret talks with Huang Zhen, the Chinese ambassador in Paris, and Huang Hua, China’s ¤rst permanent representative to the United Nations in New York, paved the way toward the U.S.-China summit talks in 1972. The historic Mao Zedong (Mao Tse-Tung)–Nixon meeting on February 21 in Beijing marked a transition of the U.S.-China relationship from all-out antagonism to “limited partnership.” Exactly what role did the twenty-plus-year talks between the two Cold War adversaries play in shaping U.S.-China relations? There has yet to be a succinct answer. Previous studies viewed this period of Chinese-American relations primarily through the Cold War lenses of mutual containment, focusing largely on the role of ideological differences, with, however, little attention paid to how the talks ¤t in the overall puzzle.3 The few existing studies that deal with U.S.China negotiations in this period fall into two main categories. The ¤rst, mainly China introduction 3 by U.S. negotiators and diplomats, narrates their personal experiences and perceptions of Chinese negotiating styles. Admiral C. Turner Joy’s diary provides a fairly complete account of his ten-month experience as chief U.S. delegate in the Korean Armistice negotiation.4 Arthur Dean has written a brief account of his experiences in negotiating with Huang Hua during the post-armistice conference on Korea. Ambassadors U. Alexis Johnson and Jacob D. Beam, who participated in the ambassadorial talks, have written about their roles and experiences in the talks.5 Richard Nixon, Henry Kissinger, John H. Holdridge, and Vernon Walters, all published their recollections of the negotiations with the Chinese.6 A number of studies, largely by Western scholars, also analyze Chinese Communist negotiating styles or behaviors. These include several monographs on the Korean armistice talks.7 Basing his work mainly on published documents and newspapers, Kenneth T. Young has provided a detailed account of SinoAmerican ambassadorial talks through 1967. Using documents from Foreign Relations of the United States, Steven M. Goldstein has written an article on U.S.China ambassadorial talks from the American perspective.8 Having served on the National Security Council, with much experience at operational levels, Richard H. Solomon has produced an authoritative study on Chinese political negotiation with the United States. Originally published by the RAND Corporation , Solomon’s analysis has also been included in Hans Binnendijk’s National Negotiating Styles. In his 1999 published volume Chinese Negotiating Behavior, Solomon assessed the “unique” aspects of Chinese negotiating behavior as perceived...