Cooperate with China or World War 3: Kissinger
by Gordon G. Chang • November 23, 2020 at 5:00 am
[I]n a little over 14 minutes Kissinger managed to totally misinterpret Chinese history, support Beijing's most important foreign policy goal, and give deeply misguided advice to Joe Biden. Kissinger has evidently learned nothing from years of dangerous Chinese behavior, which is partly the result of his policy formulations.
China's troubled past, in short, is an excuse. What, after all, is it in history that justifies present-day Chinese aggression against India, Bhutan and Nepal, or its designs on Tajikistan, the Philippines and Malaysia? Moreover, what justification is there for the Communist Party's declaration of a "people's war" on the United States in May of last year?
Xi Jinping, the one man in China's system, is now propagating the audacious concept of tianxia, that "all under heaven" owe allegiance to Beijing.
There are, unfortunately, some points in history when dialogue makes matters worse because hardline leaders perceive others' desire to talk as a sign of weakness.
What is the best indication that Kissinger is wrong? Beijing at the moment is waging a concerted propaganda campaign to push his views as widely as possible. When your enemy wants you to do something, it is almost always not in your interest.
"I would think we need first of all a dialogue with the Chinese leadership in which we are defining what we're attempting to prevent and in which the two leaders agree that whatever other conflicts they have they will not resort to military conflict," Henry Kissinger told Bloomberg News Editor-in-Chief John Micklethwait on November 16 at the Bloomberg New Economy Forum. "Unless there is some basis for some cooperative action, the world will slide into a catastrophe comparable to World War I."
Of course no one wants war of any type with China, but in a little over 14 minutes Kissinger managed to totally misinterpret Chinese history, support Beijing's most important foreign policy goal, and give deeply misguided advice to Joe Biden. Kissinger has evidently learned nothing from years of dangerous Chinese behavior, which is partly the result of his policy formulations.
