THE NORMALIZATION PROCESS Mr. HAMILTON. Do you suggest that we ought to announce that we are going to complete this normalization process in 2 years? Should the President do that as soon as he comes back from China or goes to China? Mr. HARDING. I think we can draw a distinction between public and private announcements. I would say the President should make it clear to the Chinese that he understands their concern and the United States does intend to complete the normalization process soon. I think that would reassure the Chinese of our good faith in carrying out the Shanghai Communique. We should communicate the same intention to Taiwan, to prepare them for the ultimate breaking of diplomatic relations. Mr. ECKSTEIN. I don't know how realistic this idea is, Mr. Chairman. But another possibility that might be worth considering, I don't know, but a bipartisan "sense of the Congress" resolution along the lines suggested by Mr. Harding, indicating that it is the sense of the Congress that the commitment ought to be made within a certain timeframe, which need not be too closely specified, that it is the intention of the United States to fully normalize relations with the People's Republic within a reasonable period of time. TERMS OF RECOGNITION Mr. HARDING. I am not sure that is a good idea, Mr. Chairman. Again, I want to distinguish between unconditional recognition and recognition based on certain terms that we insist upon. I think those terms are going to have to be negotiated, and so I can't really tell you what those terms are going to be. I think the Congress would find it difficult to write a resolution that would specify those terms, without tying the hands of whoever is negotiating them. Mr. ECKSTEIN. I think that is a problem. But what concerns me is that private assurance by the President to the Chinese when he doesn't know if he will be President next year, that isn't worth an awful lot. Mr. WINN. It is an election year for Congress too. I don't know how many Congressmen want to Mr. ECKSTEIN. I said I don't know how realistic it is. I said that, Mr. Chairman. Mr. HAMILTON. Gentlemen, you have both been extraordinarily helpful. We have appreciated your testimony. I will give you a chance to make any comments you want to close the record, if you think there is a comment you would like to make. Mr. ECKSTEIN. Just let me say we appreciate this opportunity. We enjoyed it very much. Mr. HAMILTON. You are both distinguished scholars. We are happy to have you with us this afternoon. Thank you very much. [Whereupon, at 4:32 p.m. the subcommittee adjourned, to reconvene at the call of the Chair.] UNITED STATES-CHINA RELATIONS: THE PROCESS OF NORMALIZATION OF RELATIONS MONDAY, DECEMBER 8, 1975 HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, COMMITTEE ON INTERNATIONAL RELATIONS, SPECIAL SUBCOMMITTEE ON INVESTIGATIONS, Washington, D.C. The subcommittee met at 2:07 p.m. in room H-236, the Capitol, Hon. Lee H. Hamilton (chairman of the subcommittee), presiding. Mr. HAMILTON. The meeting of the subcommittee will come to order. Today the Special Subcommittee on Investigations continues its hearings on United States-People's Republic of China relations. While we are interested in an assessment of the recent visit of President Ford to China we are equally concerned with the present status of overall relations and the prospects for improvements in the months ahead. Our witnesses this afternoon have been working closely with the Chinese on the practical interactions that have been the cornerstone of our improving relations with China since the 1972 Shanghai Communique. They have been involved with trade issues and various cultural, scientific, and technological exchanges that have occurred. We are happy to have with us Ambassador Christopher H. Phillips, president of the National Council for United States-China Trade, Anne Keatley, staff director of the Committee on Scholarly Communication with the People's Republic of China, and Douglas Murray, director of the United States-China Relations Program at Stanford University and vice chairman of the Board of the National Committee on United States-China Relations. Ms. Keatley is accompanied by Charles Slichter, a physicist at the University of Illinois and chairman of the China committee's most recent delegation to China. We welcome each of you here. You all have fairly lengthly statements. We would appreciate it if you would summarize those statements for us in approximately 10, not to exceed 15, minutes. Each of your statements will be made a part of the record in full. If you do that I think we will have more time for questions. Do you have any preference as to who leads off? STATEMENT OF DOUGLAS P. MURRAY, DIRECTOR OF THE UNITED Mr. MURRAY. Thank you very much. It is a privilege to be here. The reason for my speaking first is that I will make some general remarks about the exchange process, and Ms. Keatley will be talking specifically about scholarly exchanges and Ambassador Phillips about the trade dimension. Hopefully my introductory remarks will have some bearing on what follows in the other fields as well. THE UNITED STATES-CHINA EXCHANGE PROCESS I think it is important to look at the United States-China exchange relationship first as a symbolic phenomenon, symbolic of an ongoing relationship that does not yet involve full diplomatic ties, full diplomatic "normalization." But in doing so, it is easy to overlook the very great substantive value that exchanges have-as a means of working out potential cooperation between two very dissimilar peoples, and communicating across a divide that is not only cultural but political, a combination that may make it the most unique and serious kind of divide in the world today, that between Chinese and Western civilization and that between Western democratic forms and Chinese communism. The effort and the skill needed to bridge that divide through the exchange process is perhaps unique. EXTENT OF EXCHANGE RELATIONS I would characterize the exchanges in the last several years in several dichotomous ways. First, by saying that it is, relatively, surprisingly large. It may be that the United States is second only to Japan in the volume of its exchange relationship with China, in the number of people going back and forth. But absolutely it is extraordinarily small, 10,000 to 12.000 private Americans having visited the PRC in the last 5 years, and only about 700 Chinese citizens having come here. Put in an order of magnitude, something like 1 in every 20,000 Americans has visited China and 1 in every 1 million PRC citizens has come to the United States. PERSONAL RELATIONSHIPS Another dichotomy here is that these exchanges have been extraordinarily valuable as personal, professional experiences, setting up networks of personal relationships between people that I think could have very great importance in the years and decades ahead. The Americans involved have been musicians, athletes, journalists, scholars, local civic leaders, university presidents, national leaders, Congressmen and Congresswomen, among others. The sense of how China operates, the sense of reality that these exchanges have produced within the United States, I think, simply cannot be overestimated. PROBLEM OF SUPERFICIALITY Yet one of the major problems of this exchange relationship has been a tendency toward superficiality, derived in large part from China's social system, which does not easily open up aspects of its own development to close scrutiny by foreigners. This has led to the effort on the American side being conducted with great persistence and a good deal of frustration in trying to deepen and improve the quality and substance of the exchange process. PROCESS AND PROBLEMS A third dichotomy is to say that these exchanges in all fields are so important, and so much a part of the political relationship, that they necessarily will continue and develop further to some degree, although they will most likely change primarily in their nature and quality rather than in their volume. But this process is going to be filled with difficult problems, problems that are identified in my paper and seem to me to fall into the categories of reciprocity, that is, being sure there is an equal benefit on each side of this exchange relationship; of content, making sure that what does go on in these exchanges is of real value to the American participants, as we hope it is to the Chinese; and of integrity, making sure we do not surrender our own values, do not surrender our willingness to speak candidly about our experiences with China, or to speak frankly with the Chinese, for fear that the exchange relationship will somehow be damaged. EXCHANGE IS NOT TOURISM An important point, I think, is that we are not talking here about tourism of any sort. Tourism per se has not developed between the United States and China, or with China and virtually any other country. We are talking about a carefully planned and executed program by which China engages in cultural diplomacy. Since we, as a people, inundate them with visa requests, millions of them, and since we do not refuse visas to the fairly small number of Chinese citizens wishing to come here, the practical result is that the Chinese largely control the flow in both directions. They are able to pick, from the vast supply of Americans who apply, those whom they want to visit China; and by controlling very carefully those who seek to come here they give us no reason to refuse them entry. PURPOSES OF EXCHANGE I think the principal purposes of the exchange process apply to all three areas I will let Ms. Keatley and Ambassador Phillips correct me-trade, scholarship, and culture. I list these purposes, as seen from Peking and perhaps Washington, under four headings: First, the symbolic value, the need of both countries to symbolize the ongoing relationship. Second, the substantive technological or functional value of the information and views that are gained through the exchange process. Third are the efforts to influence and cultivate public opinion, certainly an important goal of Chinese policy in dealing with us, and I would suggest not entirely absent from our purposes in dealing with China. Several American visitors, especially Chinese-Americans who have perhaps toured more informally within the PRC, have suggested that the impact of exchanges has been even more profound within China than it has been within our country. Fourth, on the U.S. side, is simply the curiosity and interest of private citizens which has little to do with national policies. |