CHINA ENTERS THE POST-MAO ERA

I. INTRODUCTION

I returned to China on September 21, 1976 for the sixth time while the nation was still in deep mourning over the death, on September 9, of Chairman Mao Tse-tung. For three weeks, I travelled approximately 9,000 miles within the country, by plane, train, car and boat.1 While there I had an opportunity to talk to many Chinese leaders on the commune and factory and the national level. I had extensive discussions on foreign affairs and other matters with Vice Premier Li Hsien-nien, Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Wang Hai-jung, T'ang Wen-sheng, Deputy Director of the American and Oceanian Affairs Department of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Chou Pei-yuan, Vice Chairman of the People's Institute of Foreign Affairs, and, at the provincial level, with Mr. Ismayil Aymat, Vice Chairman of the Xinjiang (Sinkiang) Region's Revolutionary Committee and Mr. Feng Kuo-chu, Vice Chairman of the Shanghai Municipal Revolutionary Committee.

2

The Year of the Dragon has been a year of upheaval for China. Both its landscape and the political scene were shaken by earthquakes. The year 1976 witnessed the death of three giants of the Chinese Revolution, all comrades on the Long March, Premier Chou En-lai, Marshall Chu Teh, and the architect of the new China, Chairman Mao Tsetung. It saw also the cashiering of Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-peng, the rise from obscurity of Hua Kuo-feng, Mao's successor as party chairman, and the denunciation of a number of leaders of the party. Once more political events in China have surprised the outside experts.

Although the official mourning period for Chairman Mao ended on September 18, widespread unofficial mourning continued until October 1, China's national day, and beyond in some areas. From Peking to the rural areas of remote Xinjiang (Sinkiang) Region, the manifestations of loss were everywhere. In city and countryside, hundreds of millions of black armbands were worn during the mourning period. Factories, stores, schools, commune gates-practically every public facility-bore posters expressing grief at his passing. Crepe paper symbols of mourning adorned trucks, tractors, animals and carts. Never have I seen such widespread public manifestations at the death of a political figure. The personal loss obviously felt by so many was illustrated by the reaction of a veteran interpreter accompanying our group whose voice broke on a number of occasions when translating comments concerning Mao's passing. Wherever our group went, from fac

1 See Appendix A for a chronology and map of the visit.

2 Throughout this report the official Chinest spelling of place names is used, followed in parentheses, if necessary for clarity, by the spelling commonly used in the West.

tory, commune and national leaders, we heard the refrain: "We shall turn grief into strength."

Throughout my stay, I saw no manifestations of civic unrest or political disorder, although there appeared to be more military personnel on the streets of Beijing (Peking) than had been the case in 1974. While I was in China, it was made known that Premier Hua Kuo-feng had been selected to succeed Mao as Chairman of the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party and as Chairman of the Military Commission which controls the armed forces. During the days prior to my departure from the country, wall posters appeared calling for public support of the party's decision.

Both when I left Washington and as I emerged from China the news media were engaged in another round of speculation about political maneuverings within the Chinese leadership. In the report to the Senate following my 1974 visit to China, I said:

The constant speculation over what will happen in China after Chairman Mao Tse-tung retires from the scene, in my opinion, is largely an exercise in irrelevance. It ignores the depth and the reality of the revolutionary changes which have taken place in China during the last quarter century. Mao is esteemed almost to the point of reverence because he has pointed the way and his leadership has restored China's self-confidence. Mao's precepts can be expected to guide China's destiny for a long time to come. "Serve the people" and "self-reliance" are more than slogans, they are the guideposts of Chinese society for the present and future.3

It is highly unlikely that, for the foreseeable future, it will make any significant difference who controls China insofar as United StatesChina relations are concerned. "If we are to carry on the great cause of Chairman Mao," one high Chinese official said to me, "it means our internal and foreign policy will not change." The Mao legacy is large and no Chinese political figure will be able to stray far from the broad outlines of his policies, at home or abroad. The decision to build a memorial hall in Peking in which Mao's body will be enshrined will aid in perpetuating that legacy.

What is important to the American people about China is not the makeup of its leadership or who is on the way up or down. The significance of China's political scene is that the system Chairman Mao created for China is working. It is bringing about rapid advances throughout the land. It has harnessed the talents of 800 to 950 million people as never before in China's history to achieve common goals. These are the realities which carry great meaning for American foreign policy and the future course of the world.

I returned to the new China for this third visit in an effort to gain a deeper understanding of the meaning of the changes taking place in China. As the first American official to meet with Chinese leaders following Chairman Mao's death, I was there at a significant time for the course of American policy toward China in the months and years ahead. I came away with a strengthened conviction that America can and should come to terms with the realities of China without delay.

3 "China: A Quarter Century After the Founding of the People's Republic," Report to the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, January 1975, p. 1. See Appendix G.

II. THE STATE OF U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS

"What is past is prologue" and a comprehension of the State of U.S.-China relations today requires an understanding of the past. American images of China have fluctuated and shifted over the years. In a 1968 speech at the University of Montana, I said:

There has been the image of the China of Marco Polo, Pearl Buck, Charlie Chan, and heroic resistance to the Japanese during World War II.

On the other hand there has been the image of the China of cruelty, barbarism, violence, and faceless hordes. This is the China of drumhead trials, summary executions, Fu Manchu, and the Boxer Rebellion-the China that is summed up by the phrase "yellow peril."

These images of China have alternated until today. Since the beginning of United States contact with China two centuries ago, Americans feelings have been ambivalent. Generations of missionaries, traders, teachers, and travelers have created strong sentimental attachments to China which, on the one hand, provide a reservoir of goodwill and respect and, on the other, an attitude of superiority toward the Chinese. Paternalism has been the hallmark of American experience in China. Most Americans did not go to China to listen and learn but to preach, teach, and trade. They were the superiors, the Chinese the inferiors. Humanitarianism was mixed with a heavy blend of bigotry and greed.

Missionaries, not traders, did the most to shape American attitudes, toward China. It has been estimated that in 1925 there were 5,000 American missionaries in China. Their influence went far beyond their numbers, holding as they did key positions for the spread of western ideas and culture throughout the land. For decades until World War II, the pulpits of churches across America rang each Sunday with pleas for funds to feed, clothe, and save the souls of hundreds of millions of the "heathen" in China.

In the aftermath of World War II, admiration and affection turned to disappointment as the forces led by Chiang Kai-shek and Mao Tsetung resumed the civil war. American disappointment became hostility when the U.S.-supported Kuomintang armies were forced to retreat to the island of Taiwan in 1949. One consequence of this defeat was the poisoning of the American political system. A bitter personal debate began and lasted for years on the question: "Who lost China?" The ramifications were such that it resulted in a policy based on an official view that saw China as an aggressive, Soviet-dominated and directed giant posing a clear and present danger to its Asian neighbors. Secretary of State Dean Acheson, in releasing the Department of State's White Paper, said:

"The Communist leaders have foresworn their Chinese heritage and have publicly announced their subservience to a foreign power, Russia,..."

As late as 1960, in a television debate with John F. Kennedy, the then Vice President Nixon described the threat from China this way:

Letter of transmittal from Secretary of State Acheson to President Truman, "United States Relations with China," Government Printing Office, 1949, p. XVI.

Now what do the Chinese Communists want?

They don't want just Quemoy and Matsu. They don't want just Formosa. They want the world.5

This distorted and mistaken view of China led directly to the McCarthy era which after a quarter of a century still afflicts American foreign policy. United States relations with China today are on a plateau, reached more than three years ago with the opening of diplomatic liaison offices in Peking and Washington. President Ford has repeatedly stated that the United States is determined "to complete the normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China on the basis of the Shanghai Communique," However, steps to do so have been taken with great reluctance. In my judgment, there has been a policy of avoidance. With the principal antagonists in the Chinese civil war now gone, it would seem to be a most propitious time to wipe the slate clean, to fulfill the promise of the Shanghai Communique by completing the process of normalizing relations with the People's Republic of China.

A. TAIWAN: UNTYING THE GORDIAN KNOT

"Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it," George Santayana wrote. That is especially pertinent to the position in which the United States finds itself concerning the normalization of relations with the People's Republic of China. An understanding of how United States policy came to be what it is today is essential to finding a solution to the current problem. There is only one obstacle to normalization. It derives from the events of 1949 when the forces led by Mao Tse-tung drove Chiang Kai-shek from the Mainland to the offshore island of Taiwan.' In the final years of that civil war the United States poured $2 billion of aid into a doomed cause. It was an intervention in China's civil war and it persists today through continuing U.S. recognition of the Republic of China on Taiwan, through the furnishing of that government with military advice and arms, through the conduct of joint maneuvers with its armed forces, and through many ties between America and the Nationalist government which are designed to preserve Taiwan as an entity separate from the Chinese mainland.

President Truman announced in early 1950 that the United States would "not provide military aid or advice to Chinese forces on Formosa" or "pursue a course which will lead to involvement in the civil conflict in China." That policy was reversed six months later, following the outbreak of war in Korea, when President Truman ordered the U.S. Seventh Fleet to prevent a Chinese Communist attack on Taiwan and to stop Nationalist attacks against the Mainland. Intervention by Chinese forces in Korea in November locked in American support of the Nationalist regime. In his 1953 inaugural address President Eisenhower "unleashed" Chiang Kai-shek's forces, stating

5 Television debate with John F. Kennedy, October 10, 1960.

Speech at the University of Hawaii, Honolulu, Hawaii, December 7, 1975. See also President Ford's letters of April 11, 1975 and September 9, 1976, congratulating Hua Kuo-feng on his being named Premier of the People's Republic of China and of condolences on the death of Mao Tse-tung, respectively.

7 Called Formosa by the Japanese who governed the island from 1895-1945 after being ceded the island in the Treaty of Shimonoseki which ended the Sino-Japanese war. 8 Press Conference, January 5, 1950.