The Foreign Service Journal, September 2012

S E P T E M B E R 2 0 1 2 / F O R E I G N S E R V I C E J O U R N A L 25 define our national interests and the way the Chinese define theirs in these last four decades? To what extent do you think we have gotten what we were expecting and they feel they have gotten some measure of what they were hoping for? HK: We both achieved what we were aiming for at the beginning. Our challenge was, we had to end the war in Vietnam. We had to re- store American confidence that a global policy was pos- sible. We had to show to the American public that peace could be the overriding objective of American foreign policy. And we had to conduct the Cold War. So, to the extent that we restored fluidity to the international sys- tem, and that we brought in a country that had been ex- cluded, we affected the calculations of the key players and we limited the confrontational aspect of the Cold War. China was facing the concentration of a large Soviet army on its borders and had some real reasons, which be- come more and more apparent today as more documents appear, to fear an imminent invasion of their territory. So they operated in the classic Chinese style of getting the distant barbarian to confront the nearby barbarian. We attempted to be closer to each side than they were to each other. They attempted to line us up on their side in a quasi-alliance posture. We couldn’t go that far, but we found enough common ground so that a good part of the design was achieved. Now we are in a different world. There is no com- mon security danger, but a whole set of common prob- lems — like energy, environment, proliferation. There is the issue of China emerging as an economic competitor, as well as a growing military power, side by side with other emerging countries like India and South East Asia. Therefore the key problem becomes: Is it possible for each of us to achieve basic national objectives without turning the relationship into a military confrontation? And is it possible for us to sustain this over an extended period of time, so that in time, cooperation becomes a fundamental commitment on both sides? Or are we doomed to irritate each other for such an extended pe- riod that, at the end, it winds up in a conflict? And as I said, to me the model of World War I is the one that we must avoid. SJ: Four decades after your his- toric initiative to establish diplo- matic relations with the People’s Republic of China, is there any- thing you have found particularly surprising? Or have most develop- ments followed along expected lines? HK: During the Cold War, ex- cept for a little hiccup when the Gang of Four was dominant in China, things moved in the direction we were hoping they would move — almost the optimum direction in which we were hoping they would move. The current period was not expected; if someone had shown me a picture of Beijing today in 1971, and said this is what Beijing will look like in 40 years, I don’t pretend that we foresaw any of that. We did foresee that China would become a more important country and that it would grow. That was not surprising; but the speed and magnitude of it are surpris- ing to me. SJ: Let me shift gears a little bit. Against that back- drop, how do you assess the importance of diplomacy for the United States today since we are also the world’s pre- mier military power? HK: I don’t like to treat diplomacy and military power as alternatives. We are in the habit of saying that the mil- itary fight up to a certain point, and then the diplomats take over, or the other way around. I think the two should be linked. At all times, diplomacy is extremely important, and should be pre-eminent. In the present world, where the number of problems that one can even imagine solv- ing with military means is shrinking, the role of diplomacy is even greater. Where I sometimes get into disagreement with the Foreign Service, as much as I admire its talents, is the temptation to turn diplomacy into a sort of a technical ex- ercise consisting entirely of day-to-day negotiations. Diplomacy has to start with a strategic vision of where the country and the world should go. The day-to-day prob- lems should be seen in relation to this overall strategy. Of course, this is difficult to achieve when there are thou- sands of cables coming in every day, and most of them are framed as issues requiring immediate attention. I was talking the other day to a German, head of the Pi- rate Party, and their motto is “every document should be F OCUS The key problem is how to achieve basic national objectives without turning the relationship into a military confrontation.