Download 1 DOUBLE DÉTENTE The Role of Gaullist France and Maoist China

DOUBLE DÉTENTE
The Role of Gaullist France and Maoist China in the Formation of Cold War Détente,
1954-1973
by
Alice Siqi Han
A thesis submitted to the
Department of History
in partial fulfillment of
the requirements for the
Degree of Bachelor of Arts
with Honors
Harvard University
Cambridge
Massachusetts
10 March 2016
1
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Détente in Three Parts: The France-China-U.S. Triangle ........................................ 3
1. From Paris to Pékin .................................................................................................................. 17
2. “Opening” the China Box ......................................................................................................... 47
3. The Nixon Administration’s Search for Détente ...................................................................... 82
Conclusion: The Case for Diplomacy ......................................................................................... 113
Works Cited ................................................................................................................................ 122
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Introduction
Détente in Three Parts: The France-China-U.S. Triangle
Did the historic “opening to China” during the Cold War start with the French?
Conventional Cold War history portrays President Richard Nixon and his chief national
security advisor, Henry Kissinger, as the principal architects of the U.S. “opening to
China.”1 Part of the Nixon administration’s détente strategy, the China initiative began in
1971 with Kissinger’s secret visit to Beijing and was designed to improve relations with
the Chinese communists in order to exploit the growing Sino-Soviet split and facilitate
Nixon’s promised “peace with honor” exit from Vietnam.2
What, then, did the French have to do with this world-shaping meeting between
President Nixon and Chairman Mao Zedong in February 1972? Part of the answer lies in
another top-secret visit to Beijing that occurred eight years before Kissinger’s mission in
1971. On the evening of October 19, 1963, former French Minister of State, Edgar Faure,
landed in Beijing, acting as President Charles de Gaulle’s secret envoy. In his hands he
held a handwritten letter from the French president addressed to Chairman Mao,
expressing his interest in improving relations with the Chinese communist regime in “all
domains.”3 Under de Gaulle’s express instructions, Faure pursued talks concerning the
1
The prevailing narrative is also that the Nixon administration catalyzed Cold War détente through their
détente strategy. For a standard account of this, see Jussi M. Hanhimäki. The Rise and Fall of Détente:
American Foreign Policy and the Transformation of the Cold War. (Washington: Potomac Books, 2013).
H.W. Brands notes that the Nixon administration’s euphemism for détente was its “structure of peace”
policy. H.W. Brands, The Devil We Knew: Americans and the Cold War (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1994), 130.
2
The strategy also had domestic political motivations for Nixon’s re-election in 1972.
3
“Report Sent to General de Gaulle, President of the French Republic, by Edgar Faure, on his Mission
to China,” November 07, 1963, Documents Diplomatiques Français, 1963, Tome II, ed. Maurice Vaïsse,
(Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 2001), 469-478 (hereafter cited as DDF).
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prospective establishment of official diplomatic relations between the French Republic
and the People’s Republic of China. After two or so weeks of high-level discussions with
Beijing foreign policy elites, Chairman Mao and Premier Zhou Enlai, an agreement was
struck that would involve full diplomatic recognition of the PRC and the exchange of
Ambassadors in Beijing and Paris. This would make France the first major Western
nation to establish full ambassadorial relations with the PRC.4 In a rapid span of three
months, Faure and de Gaulle were able to achieve the full normalization of relations
without having to withdraw recognition of Chiang Kai-shek’s government (ROC). The
result was an astonishingly brief two-sentence joint communiqué announcing the full
normalization of Sino-French relations on January 29, 1964.5
Shocking in its subtext as much as in its brevity of content, the joint
announcement astonished the world and, in particular, many Americans who viewed it as
a betrayal of “Atlantic values.” Within the Johnson administration, this French diplomatic
démarche, committed with little forewarning to Washington, was “against security and
political interests of free world” and risked “further degrading U.S.-France relations.”6
4
While Great Britain recognized China in 1950, it only enjoyed semi-diplomatic status with a chargé
d’affaires in Beijing. One reason was that Britain refused to formally break ties with Taiwan. The only two
other Western countries to have complete diplomatic relations with China by 1964 were Sweden and
Finland. The French feared that the Chinese would place the same conditions on France as they had on
Great Britain by insisting that the French sever diplomatic relations with the Republic of China before
establishing diplomatic relations with the PRC.
5
Text of the joint communiqué announced on January 27, 1964: “The Government of the French Republic
and the Government of the People's Republic of China have jointly decided to establish diplomatic
relations. To this effect, they have agreed to designate Ambassadors within three months.” “Joint
Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between the People's Republic of China and
the French Republic,” Beijing Review 7 (1964): 10.
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The Johnson administration was noticeably angered with the French recognition, describing it as a move
that would only “damage free world interests,” born out of a “total disregard of important U.S. interests.
France will be throwing away a great deal of good will and affection here in the U.S. only for the sake of
demonstrating its independence of U.S. policy.” Telegram From the Department of State to the Embassy in
the Republic of China, 16 January 1965, Foreign Relations of the United States, 1964-1968 (Washington:
4
What then, it is worth asking, compelled France to make such a bold strategic move when
there was so much pressure from Washington against it? More importantly, what interests
did Gaullist France have vis-à-vis “Red China” when a decade before 1964 the French
had packed up its empire in Indochina and seemed focused on building and dominating a
fledgling Europe?
To understand why France pursued normalizing relations with China in 1964 and
why, perhaps more surprisingly, it sought to facilitate a rapprochement between the U.S.
and PRC in the late 1960s, it is necessary to consider the historical backgrounds of each
country in brief succession. In the 1960s, all three leaders - de Gaulle, Mao, and Nixon confronted their own sets of challenges and limitations. They each looked to “grand
diplomacy” where military coercion or displays of material power were either unfeasible
or prohibitively costly. Moreover, they all considered the construction of some kind of
“third force” for the design of an architecture of “political multipolarity” to be a more
stable structure of world order than the bipolarity of the status quo.7 All these similarities
point to the central argument of this thesis: that the convergence of Gaullist and Maoist
foreign policy strategy in the 1960s facilitated the shift toward greater multipolarity and
détente in the 1970s. In other words, the French and the Chinese were important shapers
of the global architecture of Cold War détente.
U.S. Government Printing Office, 1998), XXX, 611 (hereafter FRUS, with appropriate year, volume, and
page numbers).
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Both Mao and de Gaulle recognized that the bipolar US-USSR dominated world they lived in was neither
stable nor fair. There each saw their own nations as the “third alternative” or an “anti-hegemonic third
force” counterbalancing the bipolar hegemons. For France, this initial vision was to be a Europe led by a a
Franco-German axis. For China, it was China-led “third world.” Although, over time, there was greater
convergence between these two visions. For the French perspective, see Marc Trachtenberg, “The French
Factor in U.S. Foreign Policy during the Nixon-Pompidou Period, 1969–1974,” Journal of Cold War
Studies 13 (2011): 4-59. For the Chinese perspective, see Zhai Qiang, "Seeking a Multipolar World: China
and De Gaulle's France” in Globalizing De Gaulle: International Perspectives on French Foreign Policies,
ed. Christian Neunlist et al. (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2010), 181-202.
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France’s position from 1954 to 1974, the subject of chapter one, helps to explain
de Gaulle’s bold China strategy. The French Republic’s state of economic, political, and
military fragility throughout the 1960s was reinforced by the liquidation of its empire in
Indochina in 1954 and in Algeria in 1962 as well as its dependence on U.S. financial and
military support for post-war reconstruction. At the height of the Cold War, de Gaulle
was caught between two superpowers - the U.S. and USSR - but fundamentally trusted
neither. Instead, he sought to secure French prestige (or grandeur) and establish a
“European Europe” as the “third alternative force” that could check and bypass the twin
hegemonies of the Americans and the Soviets. This was “Gaullist” grand strategy at its
core and its expression was a fiercely independent foreign policy, acquisition of nuclear
arms capability, leadership of Europe, and acts of “grand diplomacy.”
Half-way across the world in Beijing, de Gaulle’s situation and his fiercely
independent foreign policy decisions resonated deeply with Chairman Mao, the supreme
leader of the PRC and its chief foreign policy architect. In 1963, relations between the
Soviets and the Chinese communists were at their worst. Nikita Khrushchev, leader of the
USSR, had criticized Mao’s conduct in the 1962 Sino-Indian war and ordered the
withdrawal of all Soviet experts from China two years before this. As a result, Beijing
began to experience the harsh repercussions of increasing diplomatic isolation and Mao
was compelled to rethink the “leaning to one side” (yibiandao
) strategy that had
led to the initial alignment with the USSR after 1949. In 1962, Mao expanded his original
“intermediate zone” theory, which held that China could both align with Third World
socialist or independent nationalist states as well as attempt to export revolution and lead
Third World communist movements in such countries. In his expanded definition, Mao
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added that a “secondary intermediate zone” - comprising of “second-world” capitalist
nations like France, Great Britain, Western Germany, and Japan - could balance against
the “primary threats”: the US and, increasingly, the USSR.8 In both iterations of this
theory, Mao envisaged alignment with an “alternative force” or “third way,” as he called
it, to balance against the U.S. and USSR. Mao identified the Third World and later,
increasingly, the Second World as the critical agents of this “third way.”
Even the powerful United States had its own strategic weaknesses to contend
with. When Nixon assumed the presidency in 1969, he inherited the intractable quagmire
of Vietnam and the rocky state of transatlantic affairs, not to mention the perceived
decline of U.S. military power relative to the Soviets’. Unlike his predecessors, Nixon did
not consider a non-aligned France and an independent Europe acting as a “third
alternative force” to be be threats to U.S. national interests. In fact, Nixon as well as his
chief foreign policy advisor, National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger, believed an
independent Europe could act as a buffer against U.S. overreach and entanglement in
costly foreign campaigns. Kissinger encapsulated the “Nixingerian” embrace of
multipolarity when he wrote in an article in 1968 that “our deepest challenge will be to
evoke the creativity of a pluralistic world, to base order on political multipolarity[…]A
more pluralistic world - especially in relationships with friends - is profoundly in our
long-term interest…Painful as it may be to admit, we could benefit from a counterweight
that would discipline our occasional impetuosity and, by supplying historical perspective,
8
For Mao’s writings on the “secondary intermediate zone” theory, see Mao Zedong, “‘There Are Two
Intermediate Zones’,” in Mao Zedong on Diplomacy, ed. Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the People's
Republic of China and the Party Literature Research Center, (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1998),
387-389.
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modify our penchant for ‘abstract’ and ‘final' solutions.”9 Acknowledging that “political
multipolarity” could temper the rigidity of military bipolarity created by the U.S. and
USSR, Nixon and Kissinger steered American foreign policy along more “European” and
decidedly more “Gaullist” lines, reflecting the impressive impact that de Gaulle had had
on their strategic thinking. The U.S.’s vision of “political multipolarity” would entail the
facilitation of a “Strong Europe” and Strong China” and it would require “grand
diplomacy” in Asia and in Europe to heal both the Franco-American partnership and
kickstart Sino-US relations after over twenty years of tensions.
In spite of the strikingly similar set of circumstances faced by de Gaulle, Mao,
and Nixon, historians of Cold War détente have largely neglected to consider ChinaFrance-U.S. relations. Cold War historians define détente as “the relaxation of tensions”
between the U.S. and the USSR during the late 1960s and 1970s.10 A critical piece to
achieving this détente was the implementation of “grand diplomacy,” and specifically,
“triangular diplomacy.”11 When Cold War historians sketch out triangular relations
between the U.S., USSR, and China, during this period they emphasize Nixon and
Kissinger’s strategy to engage with Beijing in order to squeeze advantages out of Soviet
9
Henry Kissinger, “Central Issues in American Foreign Policy,” in Agenda for a Nation, ed. Kermit
Gordon. (Washington: The Brookings Institution, 1968), 585-614.
10
For a definitive account of Cold War détente history, refer to John Lewis Gaddis, Strategies of
Containment: A Critical Appraisal of American National Security Policy During the Cold War. (London:
Oxford University Press, 1982, 2005); John Lewis Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History (New York:
Penguin, 2005).
11
Gaddis defines détente as “a means of maintaining the balance of power in a way that would be
consistent with available resources. It was a redefinition of interests to accommodate capabilities” and
identifies the reduction of tensions through diplomacy as the operationalization of Nixon and Kissinger’s
détente strategy. Nixingerian détente, according to Gaddis, involved three parts: 1) contracting interests; 2)
contacting criteria for identifying adversaries; and 3) engaging directly with the USSR with “carrots” and
“sticks.” John Gaddis, “The Rise, Fall, and Future of Détente,” Foreign Affairs 84 (1983): 359-40.
Kissinger himself defined détente as “a process of managing relations with a potentially hostile country in
order to preserve peace while maintaining our vital interests” in a 1974 testimony before the Senate
Finance Committee. “Statement to the Senate Finance Committee,” Department of State Bulletin, April
1974, 323.
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fears of China.12 Political scientists, on the other hand, cite “balance of power” or
“balance of threat” arguments to account for why the U.S. made a sudden turnaround on
its China strategy: from ‘containment with isolation’ to ‘containment without isolation’
and, later, engagement.13 However, both historians and political scientists of Cold War
Sino-U.S. relations tend to overlook events happening across the world in Western
Europe. As Cold War scholars increasingly reflect on the interconnectivity and truly
global and multipolar nature of the Cold War, there is growing value in considering the
interconnection of détente activities in Asia and in Europe. Through their globallyminded and multilingual research, Odd Arne Westad, Jeremy Friedman, and the Wilson
Center have led a “new Cold War history” focused on studying this multipolarity,
especially in understudied Third World countries.14 In this thesis, I seek to participate in
this recent shift from bipolar to multipolar Cold War history while looking, from a fresh
perspective, at “intermediary” and “secondary” countries such as China and France and,
in particular, how they navigated and shaped the dynamics of the Cold War détente
period. In so doing, I seek to sketch another Cold War ‘triangle,’ if you will, linking Paris
to Beijing to Washington.15 This triangle reveals a “double détente” occurring
12
Margaret MacMillan, “Nixon, Kissinger, and the Opening to China,” in Nixon in the World, ed. Fredrik
Logevall et al. (New York: Oxford University Press, 2008), 107-125.
13
Similar arguments are used to explain Chinese foreign policy elites’ decision to relax tensions with the
U.S. and seek rapprochement. Leading China scholar A. Doak Barnett coined the concept of “containment
without isolation” during the influential Fulbright hearings, which were designed to convene leading Asian
specialists like Barnett to debate a comprehensive review of U.S. China policy in March 1966. “US Policy
with Respect to Mainland China,” Hearings before the Committee on Foreign Relations, US Senate, 89
Congress, 2nd session, March 8-30, 1966.
14
For instance, in Latin America, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. Odd Arne Westad, The Global
Cold War: The Global Cold War: Third World Interventions and the Making of Our Times (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2007); Jeremy Friedman, Shadow Cold War: The Sino-Soviet Competition for
the Third World (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2015).
15
I have chosen to focus on France and China because they stand out as prominent influential nations
within two different Cold War “blocs” and geographical regions. Their statuses as regional hegemons (in
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simultaneously in Asia and in Europe with all three countries, the U.S., China, and
France, actively pursuing a relaxation of tensions in both regions, often concomitantly.16
Ultimately, I hope that the framing of this China-France-U.S. triangle will enhance the
study of political multipolarity and the truly global dimension of détente in the 1960s and
into the 1970s.
Here, it is worth briefly considering why the Cold War scholarship has neglected
to study this China-France-U.S. triangle. One major reason for this omission is the
current focus on bilateral pairings and the regional ‘siloing' of Cold War historiography.
There is an undeniable wealth of Cold War scholarship arising from France, China, and
the U.S. but the general focus has been to examine one of the bilateral pairs: Sino-French,
Franco-American, Sino-U.S. relations.17
Nevertheless, special mention ought to be paid to historians in the Chinese,
French, and Anglo-American camps that do, to varying degrees, touch upon the ChinaFrance-U.S. triangle. Huang Qinhua, Yao Baihui, and Zhai Qiang mention it peripherally
in their accounts on Sino-French and Sino-American relations.18 French historians,
Maurice Vaïsse and Laurent Césari, have noticed a ‘triangular’ connection between
Western Europe and East Asia) and their divergences with the superpowers of their respective camps offer
us an insightful keyhole through which to examine the cross-cutting détente processes in Asia and Europe.
16
I borrow this “double détente” phrase and framing from Martin Albers in his fresh account of China’s
détente with Western European countries. Martin Albers, “All Paths Leading to Beijing? Western Europe
and Détente in East Asia, 1969–72,” The International History Review 37 (2015): 219-239.
17
An example of this ‘siloing’ of Cold War scholarship was recounted to me by Chinese Cold War
historians, Li Xiangqian and Zhang Baijia, when I spoke to the Chinese Communist Party History Research
Center in Beijing in August 2015. Mr. Li and Mr. Zhang both intimated that Chinese “Cold War historians
either know English or French and rarely both,” helping to explain why there has been no substantial joint
study of Sino-French and Sino-US relations from China. Li Xiangqian and Zhang Baijia in discussion with
the author, August 2015.
18
Zhai Qiang,"Seeking a Multipolar World: China and De Gaulle's France,” in Globalizing De Gaulle:
International Perspectives on French Foreign Policies, ed. Christian Neunlist et al. (Lanham: Rowman &
Littlefield, 2010), 181-202; Yao Baihui, “The United States and the Establishment of Sino-French
Diplomatic Relations,” World History 3 (2010): 63-77; Huang Qinhua, French Recognition of China: 20th
Century Sino-French Relations from the 1940s-1960s, (Hefei: Huang Shan shu she, 2014).
10
China, France, and the U.S., but study these connections in terms of their effects on
Washington and on the strength of trans-atlantic relations.19 Contrastingly, AngloAmerican historians, Martin Albers and Garret Martin, have come the closest to making a
structural argument that China-France-U.S. interactions during the 1960s and 1970s
propelled a shift toward détente in both Europe and Asia. However, their research is
based almost purely on French and American diplomatic archives without access to or
knowledge of the Chinese materials and perspectives.
Thus, this thesis proposes a synthetic and analytical exercise, bringing together
these disparate though at times interconnected discussions of Sino-French, Sino-US, and
Franco-American relations during Cold War. Leveraging my access, both scholarly and
linguistic, to French, Chinese, and American diplomatic archives, I hope to breathe new
light into Cold War détente scholarship and contribute more nuanced discussion about the
foreign policies of France, China, and the U.S. during the 1960s and 1970s.
I return now to the driving questions of this thesis. Why did de Gaulle chose to
normalize with China in 1964? Why did de Gaulle and his diplomats seek to facilitate
Sino-US rapprochement, even after the General’s death? How did Beijing and
Washington respond to Gaullist policies? In response to these questions, I propose in this
thesis that Gaullist foreign policy had a significant impact on both Chinese and American
foreign policy elites, in a way that ultimately led Washington and Beijing to re-consider
their original positions and revise their foreign policy strategies. More specifically,
19
Benard Krouck, De Gaulle et la Chine: la politique française à l’égard de la République Populaire de
Chine (Paris: Les Indes savantes, 2012); Laurent Césari, “Les relations franco-chinoises sous la présidence
de Georges Pompidou,” in Les relations franco-chinoises au vingtième siècle et leurs antécédents, ed.
Laurent Cesari et al (Arras: Artois Presses Université 2003), 275-288; Thierry Robin, Le coq face au
dragon : deux décennies de relations économiques franco-chinoises de la fin de la seconde guerre
mondiale au milieu des années 1960 (Genève: Droz, 2013).
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through its significant influence on Maoist foreign policy, Gaullism activated the
structural inertia toward political multipolarity and détente in the early 1970s.20
Taking the form of a triptych, this thesis will examine three different perspectives
of détente: the French, the Chinese, and the American. While there is a degree of
polyphony in the study of three “voices” over the course of three chapters, the main focus
of this thesis is to study how French and Chinese foreign policy elites discoursed with
one another and attempted to create a more multipolar world order, thereby facilitating
the détente process. With this as the guiding framework, chapter one will lay out the
French perspective, revealing the elements and causal drivers of de Gaulle’s multipolar
foreign policy agenda as well as the reasons for French interest in Sino-French
normalization. Chapter 2 will continue with an analysis of Sino-French normalization
from Beijing’s perspective. In this section I will evaluate Beijing’s reactions to Gaullist
actions in the period from 1958 to 1972 and the specific influence that de Gaulle had on
Maoist foreign policy and China’s self-conception as a global power. Lastly, chapter 3
will examine the years of the Nixon administration from 1969 to 1973 and highlight
Washington’s alignment with the multipolar vision of world order that de Gaulle and
Mao were both advocating and catalyzing. Building on the previous chapters’ argument
that the Chinese and French had already made strides to relax tensions between the
“blocs” and were actively pushing the system toward a greater balance-of-power
equilibrium, this final chapter will underscore the flaws in the prevailing Nixon-led
20
Certainly, it is important to preface that de Gaulle did not have sole ownership of these ideas but he is
representative of a greater realization of détente, among many countries, in the late 1960s and 1970s. Other
major players and regions are discounted (e.g. USSR, West Germany, Eastern Europe, etc.) for the sake of
space and scope. This thesis’ focus on France and China is part of a broader global study of Cold War
détente.
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détente thesis. The chapter will end by considering how the Nixon administration was,
moreover, not entirely committed to détente in the global system.21
In this thesis, I will be referring to several key terminologies that in and of
themselves contain a rich body of scholarship and historiographical discussion. Two
terms that require particular attention are “Gaullism” and “Maoism” due to their
complexities and the scholarly contentions regarding their definitions. For the sake of this
thesis, I will focus on the foreign policy dimensions of these two highly multi-faceted
ideologies and world-views. Scholarship on Gaullist foreign policy is undeniably vast and
rich but tends to focus heavily on European affairs and, increasingly in recent years, on
the Third World.22 Historians have identified three main goals and drivers of Gaullist
policy: firstly, Gaulle’s politics of grandeur or “Great Power status” (traditionalists);
secondly, a domestic political resolve to balance the budget and preserve French
commercial interests (revisionists); and thirdly, an inbuilt compass for the global balance
of power (structural traditionalists).23 The relevance of such niched discussions about
21
I will highlight in chapter three that while Nixon administration liked “détente for the United States, it
had reservations about détente for the allies.” Quoted from H.W. Brands, The Devil We Know, 130.
22
While some work has been done on de Gaulle’s Third World policies, the field still remains relatively
under-studied. Sino-French relations are often included as a peripheral example, invoked by “traditionalist”
historians to reinforce the principal argument that de Gaulle’s Third World strategy was designed to
increase French prestige as a great and global power - in other words, to bolster “politics of grandeur.” “HNet Round Table Review, ‘General de Gaulle’s Cold War: Challenging American Hegemony 1963-1968,’”
Volume XV, No. 42, July 21, 2014, http://h-diplo.org/roundtables/PDF/Roundtable-XV-42.pdf. Christian
Nuenlist et al., Globalizing de Gaulle: International Perspectives on French Foreign Policies, 1958 to
1969 (Lanham: Rowman and Littlefield, 2010).
23
Daniel Mahoney has taken grandeur to signify “the self-conscious defense of the independence, honor
and rank of the nation.” In order to achieve this end-goal of grandeur, according to “traditionalist”
historians such as Garret Martin and Georges-Henri Soutou, de Gaulle sought an independent foreign
policy, especially in dealing with the superpowers, the US and USSR.” The “traditionalist” school sees this
impulse as emanating from the “amalgam of personal history, political ideology, and geopolitical
calculation.” Daniel J. Mahoney, De Gaulle: Statesmanship, Grandeur, and Modern Democracy,
(Westport: Praeger, 1996), 25; Garret Martin, “Conclusion: A Gaullist Grand Strategy?,” in Globalizing de
Gaulle: International Perspectives on French Foreign Policies, 1958–1969, ed. Christian Nuenlist et al
(Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2010), 291–30; Georges-Henri Soutou, L’alliance incertaine: Les
rapports politicostratégiques franco-allemands 1954–1996, (Paris: Fayard, 1996). Revisionists like
13
Gaullism is that the so-called grandeur argument, propounded by “traditionalists,” has
obscured the role of de Gaulle’s commitment to multipolarity in his foreign policymaking. The China example, only tangentially treated in the new “de Gaulle and the
Third World” literature, offers a striking example of both de Gaulle’s multipolar worldview well as the astonishing influence of Gaullist thinking in Beijing. As the French
historian of de Gaulle and Cold War diplomacy, Maurice Vaïsse, sums up: de Gaulle’s
strategy had a “revolutionary” quality, in that it sought to challenge the global bipolar
system dominated by the two superpowers.24
With regard to Maoist foreign policy, one cannot overstate Mao’s control of
foreign policy-making. As with other aspects of the PRC’s governance, Chinese foreign
policy followed the ‘Mao-centric model’ where Mao was the sole strategist and Zhou
Enlai was tasked to operationalize and advise. Debates about Maoist foreign policy
largely revolve around the extent to which he was motivated by ideological commitment
versus material balance-of-power considerations. Cold War China historians largely fall
into either of the two categories, with a few exceptions.25 For the purposes of this thesis, I
will focus my analysis on how Gaullist actions contributed to Mao’s trajectory toward
Andrew Moravcsik tend to concentrate on de Gaulle’s policies vis-à-vis European integration - namely, the
Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), the General Agreement on Trade and Tariffs (GATT), and the
European Economic Community (EEC). “Charles de Gaulle and Europe: The New Revisionism,” Journal
of Cold War Studies 14 (2012): 53-77. Maurice Vaïsse, Edward Kolodziej, and Zhai Qiang argue that, in
addition to the “politics of grandeur” argument, de Gaulle was driven in his decision-making by the core
tenet that global stability lies in multipolarity. Vaïsse concludes that the de Gaulle's support of the Third
World represented his resolve to seek out a “third way” (“une troisieme voie") and to “position France and
its politics outside of the confrontation of blocs.” Edward Kolodziej, French International Policy under de
Gaulle and Pompidou. The politics of Grandeur (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974) 31. Maurice
Vaïsse, La grandeur: Politique étrangère du général de Gaulle, 1958–1969 (Paris: Arthème Fayard, 1998).
Zhai Qiang’s work cited on previous page.
24
Maurice Vaïsse, La grandeur: politique étrangère du General de Gaulle 1958-1969 (Paris: Fayard,
1998), 566.
25
For instance, Danhui Li and Yafeng Xia study China’s desire to be a revolutionary leader of “Third
World” for the purposes of prestige. Danhui Li et al., “Mao and the Sino-Soviet Split, 1961-1964” Journal
of Cold War Studies 16 (2014): 24-60.
14
pragmatic balance-of-power calculations in the late 1960s. I will endeavour also to
demonstrate within the existing literature that Mao’s balance-of-power thinking happened
earlier than is traditionally understood, pre-dating the relaxation of tensions with the
West in 1972.
In order to support such bold claims about Gaullism, Maoism, and Cold War
détente, this thesis will rely heavily on archival material drawn from diplomatic archives
in France, China, and the U.S. Through my visits to the diplomatic archives in Paris and
Beijing, I have been able to access a treasure trove of diplomatic material such as
memoranda of conversation, telegrams, policy papers, briefing notes, and public
speeches. These diplomatic materials reveal, among many things, the extraordinary level
of frankness between Chinese and French diplomats and the degree of access and
influence that Paris had on Beijing’s foreign policy behaviour. While there has been an
increasing degree of closure and secrecy in the Chinese archives, some documents have
remained in public circuit and I have been able to fill in the gaps through material gained
from mainland Chinese scholars and documents published by the Wilson Center’s
International History Digital Archive. I also rely on the plethora of French archival
material to examine the French perspective as well as to corroborate and fill in gaps in the
Chinese archives.26 For American diplomatic materials, I have followed the traditional
route of studying sources through FRUS, Library of Congress, and the Nixon Presidential
Archives, to name a few.
My study of secondary sources has been deployed to provide contextual
background and theoretical framing. Within the French, Chinese, and American
26
A significant part of the research for this chapter, in particular, has involved comparing and verifying
Chinese and French archival material so as to ensure greater objectivity.
15
literatures, I have relied on definitive accounts of Cold War détente as well as SinoFrench, Sino-US, and Franco-American bilateral relations.27 In discussing specific
frameworks related to international relations, such as ‘balance of power’ and ‘balance of
threat,’ I refer to seminal works by Kenneth Waltz and Stephen Walt.
Lastly, this thesis benefits from oral interviews and testimonies conducted in
France, China, and the U.S. I have endeavoured to use insights gained from my
conversations with influential French, American, and Chinese scholars and diplomats to
corroborate and enhance findings derived from my reading of archival documents.
After the passing of the brief unipolar moment of the 1990s and the shift toward
multipolarity in the 2000s, American foreign policy elites have discussed the U.S.’s
transatlantic and China strategies with increasing vigour. Washington today grapples with
the challenge of leading and safeguarding against a messy multipolar world as well as the
question of whether China is a “status quo” or “revolutionary” power. The same set of
challenges and questions confronted American foreign policy-makers in the 1960s and
1970s. Back then, Henry Kissinger recognized that a strong and independent China and
Europe could check the American impulse for “occasional impetuosity” and “abstract and
“final” solutions.”28 While this thesis begins as a story of how France “opened” China
before the Americans, my hope is that its reinterpretation of Gaullist and Maoist foreign
policies will help us better visualize the role of “secondary” or “transitional” powers like
France and China in the shaping of the Cold War détente.
27
Some notable works of Cold War détente and multipolarity are John Lewis Gaddis, Jeremy Friedman,
and Odd Arne Westad. Other definitive accounts are Huang Qinhua landmark work on Sino-French
normalization, Maurice Vaïsse’s study of Gaullist foreign policy, Marc Trachtenberg’s examination of
Franco-American relations, as well as Martin Alber’s linking of détente in Europe with détente in Asia
(works cited on previous pages). Marc Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European
Settlement, 1945-1963 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999).
28
Kissinger, “Central Issues of American Foreign Policy,” 605.
16
Chapter One
From Paris to Pékin: Gaullist Foreign Policy and the 1964 French Recognition of
Communist China
During the Cold War, no nuclear weapon was fired. The doctrine of mutually
assured destruction successfully deterred the major nuclear powers from detonating their
atomic bombs, making the “Cold War” a “prolonged peace that no peace,” as it was first
described by George Orwell.29 However, on January 24, 1964, according to TIME, the
French managed to “detonate a political bomb that scattered fallout from the Formosa
Strait to Washington’s Foggy Bottom.” “The blockbuster,” the magazine reported, was
France’s imminent recognition of “Red China.”30 France’s “political bomb” was a
diplomatic one involving the official recognition of the PRC and the full normalization of
Sino-French relations. The joint communiqué announced by both sides on January 27,
1964, laid out the agreement to “establish diplomatic relations” and “designate
Ambassadors within three months.”31 Simply expressed, the statement contained no
mention of Taiwan nor did it explicitly recognize the PRC government as the sole legal
29
The term “cold war” was first coined by George Orwell, British writer and journalist, in his essay, “You
and the Atom Bomb.” George Orwell, “You and the Atom Bomb,” Tribune, October 19, 1945, reprinted in
The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, ed. Sonia Orwell and Ian Angus, 4 vols.
(New York: Harcourt Brace Javonovich, 1968), 4:255.
30
“France: The Cold Slap,” TIME, January 24, 1964.
31
“The Government of the French Republic and the Government of the People's Republic of China have
jointly decided to establish diplomatic relations. To this effect, they have agreed to designate Ambassadors
within three months.” “Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between the
People's Republic of China and the French Republic,” Beijing Review 7 (1964): 10.
17
representation of China.32 No other Western nation before nor after 1964 succeeded in
establishing full diplomatic relations with the PRC without agreeing to these conditions.33
Beijing’s willingness to make exceptions for Paris indicates the significance of SinoFrench relations to its national interests. Through Sino-French rapprochement, China, a
country of “700 million inhabitants...devoted to independence...conscious and proud of
its immutable perenniality,” made significant first steps toward exiting its diplomatic
isolation, increasing both its status and engagement with the rest of the world in the
process.3435 Little wonder then that André Malraux, a French minister at the time,
described the January decision as the catalyst for the “creation of a third nuclear power
outside of the two superpowers.” “The consequences of this most important
phenomenon,” Malraux prophetically added, would be felt at least “twenty years” later.36
The Sino-French joint communiqué marked a turning point for both French
foreign policy and Cold War détente. This chapter will center on France’s sudden
32
With Taiwan considered “an inalienable part of the Chinese territory.” “Cable from the Foreign Ministry,
Forwarding the Central Committee Notice regarding Propaganda Points on Diplomatic Relations between
China and France,” January 26, 1964, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, PRC FMA 11001998-03, 17-21. Accessed via: http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/118537.
33
France was the first major Western European country to establish full diplomatic relations with the
People’s Republic of China (on the level of ambassadorial exchange). While Great Britain had recognized
the PRC in 1950, Beijing did not respond to this diplomatically until 1954 and even then the British were
only able to set up a chargé d’affaires. The British embassy and an exchange of ambassadors were finally
established in 1972. Aside from Japan (in 1972) and South Africa (in 1971), no other nation was able to
achieve ambassadorial normalization of relations with the PRC without explicitly acknowledging the PRC
as the sole legal representation of China with Taiwan as part of it.
34
Culminating in the 1971 UN recognition of the PRC.
35
De Gaulle described China as a “great power” in his official press conference after the announcement of
normalization. Charles de Gaulle, “Conférence de presse du 31 janvier 1964” (speech, Paris, January 31,
1964), La Fondation Charles de Gaulle, http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/pages/l-homme/dossiersthematiques/de-gaulle-et-le-monde/de-gaulle-et-la-reconnaissance-de-la-chine/documents/31-janvier-1964-conference-de-presse-du-general-de-gaulle.php.
36
In a meeting of the Council of ministers convened to discuss the consequences of Sino-French
rapprochement on January 8, 1964, Minister of Cultural Affairs André Malraux declared that by
recognizing the PRC the French were “assisting in the birth of the third nuclear power aside of the “big
two.” The consequences of this phenomenon in twenty years remain ahead.” Alain Peyrefitte, C’était de
Gaulle (Paris: Editions de Fallois: Fayard, 1994), 487.
18
unilateral recognition of “Red China” and assert that the French Fifth Republic ultimately
sought to use Sino-French normalization as a tool to raise its prestige globally and
increase its strategic options in Europe. Emerging from President de Gaulle’s foreign
policy framework, this China strategy was based on both a nationalist affirmation of
French grandeur and a realist pursuit of global equilibrium. Understanding these twin
aspects of Gaullist foreign policy is critical in establishing why de Gaulle made the bold
unilateral decision to recognize “Red China.” By exploring the years from the initial
encounters at the Geneva Conference in 1954 to the announcement of recognition in
January 1964, this chapter will lay out the causal drivers of Sino-French rapprochement,
from the French perspective.
Why begin with the French perspective? Firstly, de Gaulle's shocking
rapprochement with China and his independent policies elsewhere were both symptoms
and causal drivers of détente. As France strove to distance itself from the U.S.-led
Western bloc, its rapprochement with Beijing enabled China to begin the public exit from
the Soviet-led Eastern bloc. While certainly not determinative, relations between Beijing
and Paris furthermore proved extremely important to subsequent Sino-US
rapprochement, serving both as a facilitating and convergent factor in the U.S. opening to
China. De Gaulle’s China strategy thus provoked large-scale shifts in the global
distribution of power that would continue to be felt well into the 1970s and beyond.
This chapter will propose that the French diplomatic strategy of playing the
“China card" predated Kissinger’s secret trip to Beijing in 1971 and that the Gaullist
realist logic behind it was to balance against the two Cold War superpowers - the US and
the USSR - simultaneously. French recognition, as I will argue in this chapter, reflected
19
de Gaulle’s grand strategy to create détente in Europe. By seeking détente with and
within Asia through acts of “grand diplomacy,” de Gaulle sought to defy the US-USSR
pillars of bipolarity and to shock the global system into ever-greater multipolarity.
Focusing on Gaullist strategy, this chapter will be divided into four main sections: in
section one, I will consider the main objectives and drivers of Gaullist foreign policy
before transitioning to an overview of France’s strategic weaknesses as a way to explain
its dependence on “grand diplomacy” in section two. In section three, I will establish
reasons for de Gaulle’s pivot to China and end with an analysis of the critical events
leading up to the 1964 recognition, described in section four.
1. Gaullist Foreign Policy: The Pursuit of Grandeur and Equilibrium
While undeniably rich, the prevailing scholarship on Gaullist foreign policy has
tended to neglect the significance of Sino-French relations. Historians of Gaullist France
have largely concentrated on European affairs although there has been a recent move to
study the “third world” in greater depth.37 Analysis of Sino-French relations is largely
incorporated in the study of “third world” relations and used by “traditionalist” historians
to reinforce their principle thesis on Gaullist grandeur. Their view is that de Gaulle’s
third world policy aimed at increasing French prestige as a “great power” - in other
words, to bolster the general’s “politics of grandeur” by promoting the “independence,
honor, and rank, of the [French] nation.”3839 This description is, however, overly
37
Thomas Maddux et al, “General de Gaulle’s Cold War: Challenging American Hegemony 1963-1968,’”
H-Diplo Roundtable Review, 15 (2014), accessed via: http://h-diplo.org/roundtables/PDF/Roundtable-XV42.pdf.
38
Referring to the concept of grandeur, de Gaulle asserted that “France is only herself when she in the top
rank…to put it plainly, in my view, France cannot be France without her grandeur.” Charles de Gaulle,
Mémoires de Guerre: L’Appel (Paris: Plon, 1954), 7. Mahoney has clarified this definition further as “the
self-conscious defense of the independence, honor, and rank of the nation.” Daniel J. Mahoney. De Gaulle:
20
reductive in its implications that de Gaulle’s China strategy was designed principally to
increase French prestige and independence and that it ought to be considered separately
from de Gaulle’s European policy. An exploration of Gaullist thinking about China, in
fact, banishes both assumptions. Zooming in on Sino-French relations therefore provides
an opportunity to gain a more nuanced assessment of Gaullist foreign policy - one that
additionally strengthens a subtler argument propounded more recently by globallyfocused diplomatic historians.40 These historians argue that, in addition to seeking ‘great
power’ grandeur overseas, de Gaulle was driven primarily by the core tenet that
equilibrium or global stability resided in a multipolar system.41 From this central tenet
that polycentrism would enable equilibrium and equilibrium would provide stability, de
Gaulle believed that overcoming the dangerous system of bipolarity was critical. To do so
would require the advancement of third power “alternatives” such as a united Europe or
an integrated Communist China to balance against the superpowers. Promoting a “third
Statesmanship, Grandeur, and Modern Democracy, 25. Garret Martin, “Untying the Gaullian Knot: France
and the Struggle to Overcome the Cold War Order, 1963-1968,”125.
39
Contrastingly, “revisionist” historians such as Andrew Moravcsik focus on the political economic
elements of Gaullist foreign policy, arguing that economic domestic interests shaped de Gaulle’s European
policy objectives, in particular. This argument is less relevant to the China strategy because de Gaulle
himself stressed that relations with the Chinese would not be motivated by commercial interests but by
geopolitical ones. While de Gaulle did note that China had a long-term potential to be a great and wealthy
nation, he argued that this would be too far in the distant future to factor into present considerations.
Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 486.
40
Refer to Maurice Vaïsse, Edward Kolodziej, and Zhai Qiang. Standard “traditionalists” cite the China
strategy as another example of grandeur-driven foreign policy. Refer to Georges-Henri Soutou, L’alliance
incertaine: Les rapports politicostratégiques franco-allemands 1954-1996 (Paris: Fayard, 1996); Jean
Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Ruler, 1945-1970, (New York: Norton, 1990); W.W. Kulski. De Gaulle and the
World: The Foreign Policy of the Fifth French Republic, (Syracuse: Syracuse University Press, 1966).
41
This multipolar system would be reminiscent of the 19th-century European concert of “great powers”
and be led by a pentarchy comprising U.S., USSR, China, Japan, and a France-German led Europe of Six.
Zhai Qiang argues that de Gaulle’s world vision was characterized by a desire to construct a multipolar
world order shaped by an understanding of the balance of power and the ability to play the big superpowers
- US and USSR - off of each other in order to increase France’s relative power. Edward Kolodziej states
that “for de Gaulle international peace was a function of a balance of power among rival states, whatever
their forms of government.” Edward Kolodziej, French International Policy under de Gaulle and
Pompidou. The politics of Grandeur (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1974), 31.
21
way,” or “une troisième voie,” as the general termed it, would “position France and its
politics outside of the confrontation of blocs.” During his second presidency of the Fifth
Republic, from 1958 to 1969, de Gaulle looked to a strong and united Europe as the
answer to the “third power.” However, as constraints in his vision of an “European
Europe” became more apparent, the general looked further looking eastward to the
Eastern bloc nations, including Moscow, and yet further east to Beijing for the pursuit of
détente and equilibrium.42 The complexities of de Gaulle’s China strategy, as outlined
briefly above, suggest that Sino-French relations should not be categorized as a
peripheral example of grandeur-driven diplomacy in the third world, as has been the
prevailing narrative, but integrated within de Gaulle’s global grand strategy. Instead, the
China strategy reflects all the key elements of Gaullist foreign policy while supporting
France’s most vital interest - the construction of a “European Europe” - as well as
highlighting the central premise of de Gaulle’s strategic thought: that global
multipolarity, pursued through acts of ‘grand diplomacy,’ would ensure greater
equilibrium, in Europe and beyond.43
1. French Weaknesses and The Need for Diplomacy
France’s relative weakness and susceptibility to the vicissitudes of the U.S. and
USSR’s cold war rivalry perpetuated feelings of constraint and loss of grandeur that
ultimately stimulated the pivot to Beijing. Becoming President of the French Republic in
42
The failure of the 1962 Fouchet Plan with West Germany forced de Gaulle to re-evaluate the vision of a
Europe led by the Paris-Bonn axis. American persistence in European affairs compelled the general to think
up creative diplomatic tactics to undermine U.S. hegemony. Understanding that neither France nor a
scattered Europe could anymore achieve great global clout, de Gaulle turned more and more to diplomatic
means to improve his hand. Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 488.
43
Some of the key elements being an independent foreign policy, non-affiliation with the Cold War
“blocs,” the responsibility of states to look after their own security, and a critique of US-USSR
“hegemonism.”
22
1958, de Gaulle inherited a nation crippled by the ravages of two world wars and the
forces of mass decolonization in North Africa and Southeast Asia, not to mention the
strain of post-war economic recovery and political breakdown in the Fourth Republic.44
Domestically, the French president confronted high inflation and a budget deficit. The
French Republic’s monthly application for American aid to meet its foreign currency
commitments as well as the presence of American troops on French soil were all-toofrequent reminders of French dependence on the U.S. Across the Mediterranean, the
impending loss of Algeria - the problem over which de Gaulle was brought back into
politics in the first place - was part of another humiliating trend of decolonization
stretching from North Africa to Indochina. The prospect of French déclinisme was an
ever-growing reality feared by many. Forced to make a bold decision on the country’s
future, de Gaulle resolved to cut the country’s losses by accepting the reality of
decolonization and channeling French power and resources instead into domesticstrengthening measures such as the development of atomic weapons, strengthening of the
French military, and comprehensive reforms of the agriculture sector.45 On top of these
self-strengthening initiatives, the general turned to acts of ‘grand diplomacy” to regain
grandeur.
44
De Gaulle, backed by the French Army, had dissolved the Fourth Republic in 1958 after the Army
threatened to overthrow the Fourth Republic unless de Gaulle was called back into power to deal with the
Algerian crisis. The Fifth Republic began October 1958.
45
Paris granted independence to its African colonies in 1960 and ended the Algerian War with the Evian
Accords in 1962. From 1958 onwards, Paris was focused on a “quest for Great Power status” through selfstrengthening but was also “keen to state a new phase with the Third World states, and prevent itself as the
champion of their development.” Martin, 105. Agricultural reforms include the Common Agricultural
Policy (CAP). De Gaulle was willing to spend “vast sums” on a nuclear program because he believed it
would give “technical runoff that makes you competitive on world markets in a thousand other ways.” De
Gaulle also explained to Eisenhower at meeting in Rambouillet on September 3, 1959, that “the addition of
another center of nuclear decision will multiply geometrically the uncertainties for the Soviet planners of
what will happen if they invade Western Europe.” Walters, Silent Missions, 490-1.
23
French fears of decline were most evident in its troubled relationship with
Washington.46 The prevailing view among many historians is that de Gaulle raised “antiAmericanism” as one of the pillars of his foreign policy.47 Certainly, de Gaulle was
deeply concerned by the amount of power and presence Washington had in Europe,
stating to Hervé Alphand, his Ambassador to the U.S., that “... the Americans have to
realize they are not the dictators of Western Europe.”48 During his presidency, de Gaulle
directed most of his diplomatic energies toward the opposition of so-called “U.S.
imperialism” in all areas - military, economic, and political - to the consternation of many
Washington policymakers as well as several key Quai d’Orsay ministers who interpreted
these actions as the product of anti-Americanism and nationalistic ego.49
Yet this emphasis on Gaullist anti-Americanism misrepresents the general’s grand
strategy as well as his feelings toward the U.S. De Gaulle himself had been extremely
grateful for American support during and after WWII and counted President Eisenhower
one of his dearest colleagues and friends. In a meeting with President Eisenhower in the
46
As his successor Georges Pompidou noted during a Council of Ministers’ meeting on 31 July 1963, the
keyword in Gaullist policy (both domestic and foreign) was the insistence on “dignity.” De Gaulle
communicated to Peyrefitte at the meeting that “the Europeans will not recover their dignity, as long as
they continue to turn to Washington to follow their orders.” Peyrefitte, C’était de Gaulle, 30.
47
Roussel argues that de Gaulle’s foreign policy after 1963 was guided by the desire to, firstly, to restore
French grandeur; secondly, to build a Europe led by Paris; and thirdly, to balance against America’s
hegemonic power at every opportunity. Eric Roussel, Charles de Gaulle (Paris: Gallimard, 2002), 738.
48
Martin adds that de Gaulle was concerned about “Anglo-Saxon colonization.” Martin, 25. In 1963,
French Prime Minister George Pompidou conveyed long-standing French fears of Anglo-American
economic dominance on the continent declaring that, “if Britain entered the EEC, nothing could stop the
American firms from invading the continent. [...] We are the only ones defending Europe against the
American invasion. [...] We have decolonized the French empire. We now have to shake off the AngloSaxon colonization.” Peyrefitte, 16.
49
De Gaulle revealed to his Minister for Information, Alain Peyrefitte, on February 27, 1962 that “no field
can escape [U.S. imperialism]. It takes all forms, but the most insidious one is the dollar [...]. Many of de
Gaulle’s closest ministers questioned his policy choices and his public humiliation of U.S. foreign policy.
Some questioned whether he was excessively guided by anti-Americanism. French Ambassador to the US
Hervé Alphand and French soviet interpreter Jean Laloy tried to soft-pedal De Gaulle’s policies and even
apologize on his behalf. Maurice Vaïsse, La Grandeur, 331. As Martin argues, “instead of simply
defending its independence against its powerful ally, France was now determined to actively attack US
leadership within the Western world, starting with NATO.” Martin, “Untying the Gaullian Knot,” 55.
24
Rambouillet Palace in September 1959, de Gaulle stressed that his overarching goal was
to reinstate French greatness and “self-respect” and that this would at times lead him to
have to “irritate" and “sting" the Americans but that, at the end of the day, "whatever
happens…we will be with you to the end.”50 He would later express the same sentiment
to Nixon, another American president whom he admired, in 1969. Therefore, de Gaulle’s
frustration with the Americans was not so much anti-Americanism as a belief that the
Americans could not be depended on for French security. For all their rhetoric about
“extended deterrence” and preserving the “Great Partnership” with Western Europe, the
general realized from two major world crises, in particular, that the Americans’
commitment to the defense of their European allies was doubtful at worst and expedient
at best. In 1957, the Suez Crisis had demonstrated to the general that the French could not
rely on the U.S., especially when the interests of each state were not congruent.51 De
Gaulle's second takeaway was that the development of nuclear capability “was essential
to the defense of [French] interests and survival.”52 Five years later, in 1962, de Gaulle
50
De Gaulle intimated to Eisenhower in the meeting, “sometimes some of the things that I say may irritate
you, but you must remember that I am trying to take a nation which was once great and has fallen into the
gutter and lift it out of the gutter. And sometimes I must sting them with words and sometimes those words
are not friendly or acceptable to foreigners. But when someone tells you that I have said something like
this, try to remember the larger purpose I am trying to serve of restoring French self-respect, of restoring
the French people’s feeling that the security of France will depend in large measure on the efforts that they
themselves are prepared to make.” Vernon Walters, Silent Missions, 488-90; 502. For the full transcript of
the exchange, see “Memorandum of Conversation, Eisenhower, de Gaulle, Walters,” September 2-3 1959,
FRUS, 1958-70, 7, Part 2, 268-271.
51
Kissinger discusses French thinking and the pursuit of a more independent foreign policy after the Suez
Crisis. Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, 547.
52
Ignoring American attempts to dissuade him, de Gaulle expedited the nuclear program that his
predecessor, René Coty, had started. Walters recalls an exchange with de Gaulle on September 3, 1959, at
Rambouillet Castle in which the general declared that he "was determined to go through with the effort to
develop a nuclear capability for France as he felt it was essential to the defense of her interests and to her
survival.” Walters, 490. While de Gaulle acknowledged that Eisenhower would be willing to “go to nuclear
for Europe” because he had been “involved [in Europe in WWII] and [knew] what was at stake,” he
predicted that Eisenhower’s successors would be less inclined to do so, stating that “one of your successors
will be unwilling to go to nuclear war for anything short of a nuclear strike against North America.”
“Memorandum of Conversation, Eisenhower, de Gaulle, Walters,” FRUS, 268-271.
25
argued that another crisis, this time the Cuban Missile Crisis, illustrated how the defense
of Western Europe was “no longer a top priority [of the US].”53 The general confessed to
one of his ministers, Alain Peyrefitte, that “if the Americans will not fight for Cuba
ninety miles from the United States, they will not fight for Europe three thousand, give
hundred miles away.”54
The crises in Suez and Cuba displayed to de Gaulle that the Americans would not
jeopardize their own national interests to protect Western Europe’s nor would they risk a
nuclear war with the Russians to defend Western Europe when they had struggled to
avoid it so close to the homeland. Equilibrium and peace in Europe, from de Gaulle’s
vantage point, could only be achieved by a strong and united confederation of European
nations, a Europe “from the Atlantic to the Urals.55 The creation of a Gaullist Europe
would require distancing from Washington, getting closer to Moscow, and creating a
“European Europe.”56 When Eisenhower expressed his desire for a NATO Europe to
become a “third great power complex in the world,” capable of balancing Soviet power
without direct American support, it was as if he was referencing verbatim de Gaulle’s
own hopes for the geopolitical future of Europe.57 De Gaulle’s foreign policy, therefore,
53
Charles de Gaulle, Discours et Messages, Tome IV, (Paris: Plon, 1970), 72.
Walters, 503.
55
In his 1959 Strasbourg speech, de Gaulle declaimed, “Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it
is Europe, it is the whole of Europe, that will decide the fate of the world.” Charles de Gaulle, President of
France, 23 November 1959, Strasbourg. “Yes, it is Europe, from the Atlantic to the Urals, it is Europe, it is
the whole of Europe, that will decide the fate of the world.”
56
De Gaulle’s vision of Europe was as a freestanding confederation of West European nations independent
of the U.S. and USSR and able to decide its own affairs and future. Gaullist Europe would be based on a
Franco-German entente.Trachtenberg highlights that de Gaulle sought a Europe in which the “European
peoples would recover their independence and work out a settlement they all could live with.” Marc
Trachtenberg, “The de Gaulle Problem,” Journal of Cold War Studies 14 (2012): 82.
57
Quoted in Trachtenberg, A Constructed Peace: The Making of the European Settlement, 1945-1963, 147.
In opposition to the vision of Europe proposed by the “Atlanticists” and “Europeanists” in the U.S. State
Department, de Gaulle feared the emergence of a “colossal Atlantic Community under U.S. direction and
54
26
was not merely guided simply by anti-Americanism.58 A core premise in de Gaulle’s
thinking was that Cold War bipolarity was a transitory dangerous phenomenon and that it
was necessary to move past this order toward greater polycentrism.59 Only then would
Europe be “capable of being truly European” and “independent.”60 But de Gaulle’s
definition of European leadership revolved around French dominance in partnership with
West Germany. De Gaulle hoped that other Europeans, especially the West Germans,
would follow his vision. As the general declared to his cabinet ministers on July 30,
1964, the vision of a “Europe de Patries” “is clear for France, but others will surely
follow, even if they do not seem to for the moment.”61
De Gaulle’s predictions, however, proved misguided as West Germany’s
persistent attachment to Washington shattered the Gaullist vision of a “European
Europe.” After Eisenhower, the Kennedy and Johnson administrations moved closer to
West Germany, seeking to “balance against the French pursuit of supreme power in
Europe.”62 In 1962, the collapse of de Gaulle’s Fouchet Plan - an intergovernmental
political union between the Six European Community (EC) nations - exemplified the
West Germans’ unwillingness to sacrifice American support. The treaty’s demise led the
general to conclude bitterly that “West Germany is an American protectorate in political,
leadership ...[that would] quickly absorb the European Communities.” Charles de Gaulle, Discours et
Messages: Tome IV, 69.
58
Kissinger himself argues that "de Gaulle was not anti-American in principle. He was willing to cooperate
whenever, in his view, French and American interests genuinely converged.” De Gaulle even offered
unconditional support to the Americans during the Cuban missile crisis. Kissinger, Diplomacy, 605.
59
De Gaulle declared it to be “intolerable for a great State to leave its destiny up to the decisions and action
of another State, however friendly it may be…[T]he integrated country loses interest in its national defense,
since it is not responsible for it.” Quoted from Kissinger, Diplomacy, 605.
60
Peyrefitte, 239.
61
Hervé Alphand, L ’étonnement d ’être: journal, 1939-1973, 435.
62
Using both “carrots” and “sticks,” Kennedy threatened U.S. withdrawal from Europe if the West Germans
were to ratify the Franco-German Élysée Treaty with a preamble that the French had proposed, which
basically denied continued U.S. leadership and presence in Europe. Trachtenberg, Constructed Peace, 374.
27
military and economic terms. There is thus no way of developing a common FrancoGerman policy.”63 De Gaulle looked on with apprehension as the U.S.’s growing
closeness with West Germany seemed to alienate France and push Europe toward an
“Atlantic Europe” on U.S. terms.64 To the general's frustration, other European countries
were not willing to dispense so lightly with U.S. support agreeing to the Gaullist vision of
Europe, leading de Gaulle to consider himself the only remaining “European” in
Europe.6566
Fearing continued U.S. hegemony and despondent about Franco-German entente,
de Gaulle looked to the East for “fall-back allies” that might even enrich French
economic interests.67 Speaking to his Council of Ministers in two meetings in January
and March of 1963, after the Cuban Missile Crisis, the general declared, “we need fallback allies. It has always been the policy of France…One day I will make an alliance
with China to strengthen us against Russia. Well, alliance, we are not there yet. We will
first renew relations.”68 After the Cuban Missile Crisis, de Gaulle had questioned
American promises of protection and extended deterrence. In contrast, he noticed that the
63
Peyrefitte, 262.
In a letter to President Kennedy, Acheson proposed bolstering German and British strength to balance
against Paris in order to achieve the desired goal of an “Atlantic Europe.” Specifically, he recommended
closer coordination and consultation with West Germany on military affairs and the provision of diplomatic
support to London to facilitate its entrance into the EEC. Acheson argued that Gaullist policy was a threat
and a danger to long-term European security. Trachtenberg, 375.
65
Italian was wary of upsetting the Americans and the Dutch and Belgians unequivocally rejected de
Gaulle’s plan. Peyrefitte, 492-3. The breakdown of the Fouchet Plan led to multiple shocking diplomatic
moves that many interpreted as anti-Americanism. The diplomatic double non, the rejection of the U.S.British-led multilateral nuclear force plan (MLF), and a policy of “neutralité” in Indochina region.The
double non consisted of the withdrawal of France’s Atlantic fleet from NATO integrated command and the
veto of British entry into the European Common Market.
66
The breakdown of the Franco-German entente led to multiple shocking diplomatic moves that many
interpreted as anti-Americanism. The diplomatic double non, the rejection of the U.S.-British-led
multilateral nuclear force plan (MLF), and a policy of “neutralité” in Indochina region.The double non
consisted of the withdrawal of France’s Atlantic fleet from NATO integrated command and the veto of
British entry into the European Common Market.
67
Peyrefitte, 317; Ibid, 320.
68
Ibid, 317-320.
64
28
Soviets had held back from attacking Europe during the crisis and might be interested in
a relaxation of relations with Paris. De Gaulle hence saw the potential for Moscow as a
“fall-back ally” and led greater moves toward rapprochement with Moscow and the
Eastern bloc nations such as Romania and Hungary. These moves were also driven by
commercial interests.69 While seeking such alliances with the communist bloc would
have been costly to relations with Washington in the early years of the Cold War,
France’s economic recovery, the acquisition of nuclear arms in 1960, and the beginnings
of U.S. economic and military downturn created favorable conditions for de Gaulle to
more actively pursue East-West détente while distancing himself from Washington’s
scepter and shield.70
2. The Pivot to Beijing
The beginnings of de Gaulle’s pivot to Beijing were marked by a surprising set of
events that revealed both the perspicaciousness and the prevarications of de Gaulle’s
China strategy as well as Beijing’s keen interest in rapprochement with Paris. From 1954
to 1958, Beijing sent several signals of interest that ultimately fell on deaf ears. With de
Gaulle’s return to the presidency in 1958, the general saw that Beijing, not just Moscow
or the other Eastern European countries, could be a way to advance his pursuit of
69
In 1963 France established embassies in Romania and Hungary, raising the status of its delegations in
those Eastern bloc countries. Waïsse, La Grandeur, 566. In June 1966, de Gaulle made a trip to the USSR.
In September 1967, he made a speech to the Polish Diet urging them to assert their independence and
achieve a new “European order.” USSR and other Eastern countries were important consumers of the
French machinery and agriculture sectors. From 1965-66, French imports from and exports to Communist
countries, including the USSR, grew significantly. For the USSR alone, purchases of French equipment
increased from $38 million francs in 1964 to $880 million francs in 1966. Alfred Grosser, “Franco-Soviet
Relations Today,” RAND Corporation, 1967, accessed via:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM5382.html.
70
Soutou argues that after the failure of the Franco-German entente initiative, de Gaulle turned to EastWest détente: “Détente now took precedence over the West European confederative scheme.” GeorgesHenri Soutou, “The linkage between European Integration and detente: the contrasting approaches of de
Gaulle and Pompidou, 1965-1974,” in European Integration and the Cold War: Ostpolitik-Westpolitik,
1965-1973, ed. Piers Ludlow (London: Routledge, 2007), 19.
29
equilibrium and his overarching quest for a “European Europe.” But de Gaulle was more
cautious about the China strategy than he had been about East-West détente with the
Russians. It was not without the assistance and intelligence from diplomats and the
Chinese themselves that he pursued his opening to China. Once this initiative became
successful, it radically changed de Gaulle’s strategy. His Eastern strategy was no longer
confined to “détente, entente, coopération” with the Soviet-led Eastern European bloc but
also with China. In effect, the general added Beijing to his “triangle” of the world. As
Chief of the Treaty Section at Quai d’Orsay, Jean de la Chevalière de la Grandville,
revealed in a private conversation to Henry Kissinger in 1967, the Gaullist world-view
was that the world had now become “tripolar” with “one center in Washington, another in
Peking, and a third in Europe, dominated by Moscow and Paris.” De la Grandville
revealed that de Gaulle’s “triangular diplomacy” with U.S., China, and Russia was
designed to draw Soviet and American attention away from Europe and toward Asia,
thereby permitting the European nations to finally “build Europe together.”71
France’s initial position on “Red China” had conformed largely with the U.S.
policy line immediately after 1949. Through the sheer force of their material superiority
and European weaknesses, the Americans were able to “blackmail” Europeans to fall in
line with their Cold War doctrines using economic instruments to obtain “strict
obedience” during the early years, as French diplomat Claude Martin recalled.72 The
71
“Memorandum of conversation with Jean de la Grandville, Jan 28, 1967,” 1967 January-February. Henry
A. Kissinger Papers, Part II, Library of Congress, (1981).
72
Claude Martin was one of the first contingent of French diplomats to be posted to Beijing in 1964 and
asserted that the Americans had used “blackmail” (“un véritable chantage”) to pressure the Europeans to
fall in line with their policies. Martin’s description is to be taken with a grain of salt because it casts sole
blame on the US for the early failure of Sino-French normalization but it does capture the real feeling at the
time amongst European nations that an independent foreign policy stance on issues such as Chinese
recognition was not worth risking American good will and military and financial assistance. Interview with
30
Geneva Conference of 1954 marked a small but significant interstice in the history of
patchy early Sino-French encounters. In the first high-level meeting between the French
and Chinese since 1949, Prime Minister of France, Pierre Mendès-France met with
Premier Zhou Enlai to discuss the demarcation line in Vietnam.73 The French delegation
was “seduced” by Zhou “talent, flexibility, and ability.”74 In 1955, after hearing that a
continent of French senators were planning a visit to Southeast Asia, the Chinese went a
step further, inviting the French senators to Beijing.75 In a letter addressed to these French
senators on September 14, 1955, the Chinese Foreign Minister, Zhang Xiruo, extended a
“warm invitation” to visit Beijing, representing the first time a French parliamentary
delegation would be received by the PRC leadership, including Premier Zhou. Upon
receiving this letter, the senators immediately advised the French government “to rapidly
and effectively pursue the normalization of relations between France and the PRC,
through diplomatic, cultural, and economic channels,” penning a “Proposition de
Claude Martin. Interview by Ministère des Affaires Étrangères et du Développement International, January
2014.
73
“Minutes, Zhou Enlai's Meeting with Mendès-France,” July 13, 1954, History and Public Policy Program
Digital Archive, PRC FMA 206-Y0007. Accessed via:
http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/121163
74
As recalled by Yves Pagniez, a French diplomat who accompanied the delegation to Geneva and met
with Premier Zhou. Interview with Yves Pagniez. Interview by Ministère des Affaires Étrangères et du
Développement International, January 2014. Indeed, in 1954 Beijing had a relatively softened and
cooperative foreign policy with the implementation of so-called “Bandung Diplomacy” signifying the
PRC’s desire to seek diplomatic relations and “peaceful coexistence” with foreign countries, including noncommunist ones. This would later be replaced by ideological radicalization of foreign policy during the
Cultural Revolution years. Zhou Enlai “Preliminary Opinions on the Assessment of and Preparation for the
Geneva Conference,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin 16, (1954): 12-13; Michael Yahuda
China's Role in the World (1978): 64-101; Zhou Enlai, “Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence,”
December 31, 1953, in Zhou Enlai waijiao wenxuan (Beijing : Zhong yang wen xian chu ban she, 1990),
63; Mao Zedong, “The Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence Are a Long-Term Policy,” in Mao Zedong
waijiao wenxuan (Beijing : Zhong yang wen xian chu ban she, 1994), 177-186.
75
The French senators - Edmond Michelet, Bernard Chochoy, René Enjalbert, Léo Hamon, and Gaston
Valette - were making a trip to Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia to assess the remaining French assets in
Indochina.
31
Résolution” to propose the recognition of the PRC.76 One of the senators, Edmond
Michelet’s own rationale, recorded in his personal journal at the time, was that
recognition of the PRC was a “fait accompli” that other European countries had either
already accepted to a certain degree or risked seizing the opportunity to do so before the
French.77 In their proposition to the Nationale Assemblée, Michelet and the other senators
argued that it was in France’s interest to “engage with all states, regardless of their
political or economic regime” or of U.S. policy. The senators criticized both the
Americans for leading a “stupid” hypocritical, and “deluded” policy toward China and
the French for “aligning unconditionally” with Washington policy for fear of causing
“trouble.”78 They reminded their compatriots that France should have no “valid reason to
sacrifice [her] interests to an illusionary Franco-American cooperation in Asia.”79
However passionate the senators were, their proposition was not passed and the French
republic never acted on the senators’ report, putting it off because of the weight of U.S.
policy and the more pressing concerns about Algeria were dominating their attention.
Moreover, the Chinese were on the side of the adversaries by funding the Algerian
76
Extract from Jean-Paul Delbos, “Edmond Michelet, de l’Indochine à la Chine, septembre 1955” in Le
grand malentendu:La Chine contre l’Amérique. Le duel du siècle, lain Frachon and Daniel Vernet, (Paris:
Grasset, 2012). Curiously, French scholars do not cover this mission but Chinese historians have done so.
See Huang, 154-58.
77
Michelet recorded in his journal that “it is precisely because I am completely opposed to communism
that I believe it is useful for my country to recognize the fait accompli in China and to take advantage of
this. Let us not wait to take this measure once others have preceded us…the English are in Beijing, the
Germans and Belgians risk getting there before us, the Scandinavians are already there…” Ibid.
78
The senators’ proposition sought to “maintain relations with all states, regardless of their political and
economic regime.” Proposition de résolution tendant à inviter le Gouvernement à reconnaitre la République
populaire de Chine (Renvoyée à la Commission des affaires étrangères) présentée par M. Dronne (No.
4424, Assemblée Nationale, Troisième Législature, Session Ordinaire de 1956-57, Annexe au procèsverbale de la séance du 6 mars 1957), AMAE: Asie-Océanie, Chine (1956-67), vol. 522, folios 198-199.
79
“Everywhere, the Americans have deliberately sacrificed French interests when they were in competition
with ours. And since the end of the war, they have led a stupid policy on China.” Ibid.
32
revolutionaries during the war.80 While the French and Chinese had conducted several
bilateral missions by 1960, normalization procedures largely trickled to a standstill.
Although there had been some meetings between French and Chinese officials, none of
which amounted to much beyond the promise of increased cultural and economic ties.81
Nevertheless, the nascent idea of an opening to China was not completely
forgotten. Diplomats in Quai d’Orsay began to pay greater attention to China and the
prospects for normalization.82 In 1955, Beijing’s interest did not escape the attention of
General Charles de Gaulle, who was enjoying his retirement from political life.83 In a
curious turn of events, it was not the radical left-wing Mendès-France, whose government
had the strong backing of the Socialist and Communist parties, that would normalize
relations with Beijing, but rather the the conservative right-wing General de Gaulle.
Reflecting upon his conversations with de Gaulle in April 1955, Faure contested the
popular notion that de Gaulle “recognized Communist China simply to annoy the
Americans.”84 Instead, Faure revealed that the general had been “thinking” about the
opening to China for “10 years” and continued to discuss it with Faure from 1955 up until
80
Roger Garreau, French Ambassador to the USSR, raised this as an issue in a 1957 article in which he
advocated not recognizing the PRC. Garreau argued that Mao did not represent the Chinese nation. Roger
Garreau, “La reconnaissance du gouvernement de Pékin,” Politique étrangère 24 (1959): 67-82.
81
In 1958, Pierre Mendes-France, former socialist leader, visited China and met Zhou. Socialist politician,
François Mitterrand, visited in 1961 at the invitation of the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs.
Mitterrand had a two-hour private meeting with Mao and back in Paris he wrote La Chine au Défi in which
he also supported the idea of official diplomatic relations between the two countries.
82
Huang, 154. “Note — de la normalisation des rapports avec la Chine Populaire”, le 3 octobre 1955,
AMAE; Asie-Océanie 1944-1955, sous-série Chine, vol. 203, folios 262-265.
83
On April 30, 1955, Faure visited the general in his Paris hotel to discuss Indochina and China. At the
time, it was considered a scandal as the head of the leftist French government was exchanging ideas with
the general who was seen as a threat to the Fourth Republic establishment. French Newspapers at the time
reported that “de Gaulle had encouraged Premier Faure to follow the path of détente and reconciliation.”
84
Faure himself had won the general's favour to become his lead China advisor after the general had
enjoyed Faure’s work Le Serpent et La Tortue, based on his travels to Beijing in 1957. In it, Faure
advocated for Sino-French normalization of relations. It is interesting to note how much of the rhetoric of
Faure’s book was imported by De Gaulle in subsequent descriptions of China. “Lettre du novembre 1957 à
Edgar Faure,” in Lettres, notes et carnets, Charles de Gaulle, (Paris: Plon, 1990), 335.
33
1964. As Faure concluded, “there was nothing improvised” about de Gaulle’s China
strategy, “it was not just an impulse.”85
With de Gaulle’s return to power as prime minister in the Fourth Republic in
1958, Beijing believed that France might be more committed to Sino-French
normalization given his independent streak and anti-American rhetoric. On September 5,
1958 Chairman Mao Zedong declared in his speech at the Fifteenth Supreme State
Conference that countries like France wanted to recognize the PRC but were held back
because of U.S. hegemony and opposition. Mao praised de Gaulle’s foreign policy in
another speech in 1958, declaring Gaullism to be a sign of the internal contradictions in
the Western bloc and welcomed what he described as “the East Wind …prevailing over
the West Wind;” evidence that “our enemies are rotting with each passing day, and we
are getting better with each passing day.86
But by the end of de Gaulle’s first year as prime minister first of the Fourth
Republic in 1958, no headway had yet been made, causing frustration in Beijing. In 1958,
the Chinese remarkably expressed their irritation toward the lack of French followthrough when Marechal Chen Yi declared to French journalists in July, “I remember that
after de Gaulle came to power, he once indicated that France was prepared to recognize
the PRC, but he has not taken any actual steps yet….I want to add that if France wants to
recognize the PRC, it must kick out Chiang Kai-Shek’s embassy. Otherwise, even if he
85
Reflecting on de Gaulle’s recognition of China in 1964, Faure criticized how “people pretend that de
Gaulle has recognized Communist China simply to annoy the Americans. But for 10 years he has been
thinking of it, and we have been discussing the idea. For instance, in 1957, I sent him my book on China; I
have kept his letter in reply, telling me he agreed with the policy I advocated.” Henri de Turenne, “France’s
Faure, New York Times, April 26, 1964, 29.
86
Mao Zedong, A Selection of Mao Zedong’s Writings on Diplomacy, (Beijing: Zhongyang wenxian
chubanshe, 1995), 345; Guo Qingchang, “My Observations of Mao Zedong’s Fine Style,” Dangde wenxian
(Party Documents) 3 (1993): 42.
34
recognizes us, we are not going to respond.”87 Beijing felt that it had already done more
than enough to signal its interests and considered that its own political and ideological
constraints hampered it from making diplomatic concessions. Thus, any future
improvements in relations would require Paris to make the next move. From 1958 to
1962, de Gaulle made no move on improving Sino-French relations. Certainly, the
general recognized the multiplicity of convergent interests between Beijing and Paris and
conveyed this to his ministers. These ranged from the two states’ statuses as two
relatively independent “secondary” powers, their rejection of the Partial Nuclear Test Ban
Treaty in 1962 - considered “a common opposition to the double US-Soviet hegemony” and the desire for a negotiated settlement in Vietnam.88 All this confirmed to de Gaulle
that there was real convergence in interests between Beijing and Paris and that raising
China’s status and clout could introduce greater equilibrium in the international system
than the bipolarity situation was allowing.89 But none of these elements were enough to
sway him to recognize China from 1958 to 1962. In theory, the general had seen China as
an interesting “fallback ally” but, in practice, he was hesitant about Chinese intentions
and the likelihood of success.90 What is more, until late 1962, when the prospect of a
Franco-German entente looked hopeless, de Gaulle’s attention was was still focused on
87
Wang Taiping, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, 1957-1969 (Diplomatic History of the People’s
Republic of China, 1957-1969) (Beijing: Shijiezhishi chubanshe, 1998), 363.
88
Vaïsse, 515. Both also vied for greater influence and power in their respective regions and sought to
revive their historical greatness.
89
Martin, 9; Vaïsse, 515. Both Martin and Vaïsse raise a multiplicity of factors driving Sino-French
normalization and identify 1962 as a turning point. Césari and Logevall emphasize the convergence of
views on Vietnam: France wanted a concert of powers, comprising of U.S., France, China, and USSR,
tantamount to the Geneva Conference in 1954, to determine the fate of Indochina. Recognizing China while
relaxing tensions with Moscow would increase France’s leverage as diplomatic deal-maker in Vietnam.
90
De Gaulle, as Faure revealed to the Chinese later, did want to put himself in the “uncertain and ridiculous
position of the Sino-British relations.” “Report Sent to General de Gaulle, President of the French
Republic, by Edgar Faure, on his Mission to China,” November 07, 1964, DDF 1963, Tome 2, (Paris:
Imprimerie Nationale, 2001), 469-478.
35
pursuing a Franco-German axis of leadership through the Fouchet Treaty and the FrancoGerman Treaty of Friendship.
Though de Gaulle’s prevarications about the opening to China put a hold on
normalization, this did not stop him from seeking the opinions of others in the meantime.
In 1961, now President, de Gaulle turned to Faure once again for counsel on the “China
problem.”91 Faure’s response was this time that “despite the favorable opinion” he had
giving in his book, he did not yet recommend pursuing recognition of China because the
conditions “did not appear favourable.” In particular, Faure stressed, that the
“difficulties” of the “Algerian affair” and Sino-French divergence on the matter would
jeopardize any diplomatic démarche. If the French were to “send an ambassador to
China,” he would most likely be “exposed to rebuffs and run the risk of meeting face to
face with a FLN representative,” Faure argued. His analysis corroborated the general’s
own instinct that the moment was not right and that France could not take action before
the end of the Algerian war, in no small part due to heavy Chinese involvement.92
While de Gaulle followed Faure’s advice, he remained attracted to the concept of
an opening to China. In meetings from 1961 to 1963 he consistently turned to Japanese
and Soviet leadership for new analysis on China.93 Japan affirmed the potential
91
Faure told the New York Times in 1964 that “the General summoned [him in 1961] to the Élysée to bring
up precisely this problem [of China.] He was anxious about the danger of war, arising from the Chinese
attitude, but considered that France could take no action before the end of the Algerian war.” Henri de
Turenne, “France’s Faure, New York Times, April 26, 1964, 29.
92
After all, the Chinese were directly funding the Algerian Front de Liberation Nationale (FLN), sending
weapons to the Algerian insurgents to be used in the resistance against France, including 20,000 9-caliber
machine gun magazines. They also recognized the Provisional Government immediately in September
1958, becoming the first non-arabic nation to do so. In contrast, the Soviets refused to recognize the
government or make any criticism or comment on French policy in the region as they valued détente with
the French over ideological commitments. See Alfred Grosser, “Franco-Soviet Relations Today.”
93
“Entretien Eisaku Sato-de Gaulle, 4-5 October 1963,” EM, MAE; Paris to FO, January 17, 1964, FO
371/175923, PRO.
36
importance of the Chinese market and increased commercial contact with Beijing and
suggested that Europeans take the initiative in establishing diplomatic contact with the
Chinese communists. Japanese Minister of State, Eisaku Sato, expressed his personal
disagreement with the U.S. policy on China, which he argued did not reflect the “reality”
of the situation. De Gaulle revealed to Sato that was “very attentive” to the “awakening”
of the PRC, in which he saw one of the reasons pushing the USSR to seek détente.94 Like
de Gaulle and Sato, other Europeans fancied the idea of an opening to China in theory
and lauded it quite openly but none of them were willing yet to take the risk of U.S. good
will by actually pursuing it or making a decision on the “Two Chinas issue.” West
German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer had said himself to both Kissinger and de Gaulle
in 1963 that “Europe should take advantage of normalizing relations with China.”95 The
instinct that the Europeans shared was not enough to propel a recognition if they felt that
the moment was not right. Sino-French normalization was thus neither a perfectly
designed nor epiphanic strategy, but rather a cautious gradualistic one that was seeking
for the right moment.96
The right moment presented itself in 1963. The resolution of the Algerian crisis,
which coincided with events in 1962, eliminated a key diplomatic area of tension
between Paris and Beijing. Furthermore, the modification of the French constitution in
October of the same year ensured that de Gaulle could enjoy at least three more years of
power with greater free rein in foreign policy, without having to worry about electoral
94
Vaïsse, 515; “Conférence de presse du 10 novembre 1959,” in DDF, t. III, 130.
On 21 September 1963 at the meetings of Rambouillet, Adenauer said to de Gaulle, “for us other
Europeans, China is not a menace. But she is [one] for the USSR and for the Americans because they are
pacific and they fear that China will become one. Europe should immediately normalize relations with
China…And why doesn’t France send a chargé d’affaires in China? The English have one. [If you do so’,
then West Germany will follow your example.” Peyrefitte, 261.
96
Ibid.
95
37
pressures, reinforced by the sclerosis and weakening of the French Communist party
during this period.97 1963 also marked the coup and assassination of President Diem in
South Vietnam, leading the Western world to look East again, this time to Vietnam not
Korea. In August 1963, witnessing the wheels of history turning in the East, de Gaulle
summoned Faure again to reassess the “China question.” Faure concluded that
“everything had changed” since their last discussion two years previously in which he
had cautioned the president against recognition. The resolution of Algeria, the growing
Sino-Soviet friction, and de Gaulle’s increasing ability to get away with anti-American
acts of independence without punishment. “First, you are saved from the Algerian
question, which means you don’t have to fear (public) disappointment in the event of an
opening to China,” Secondly, Faure concluded, “the Chinese are in a difficult situation
because of friction with the Soviets.” Finally, Faure maintained that de Gaulle had
already shown such “signs of independence vis-à-vis the Americans” that one or more
acts of independence would not be so troublesome.”98 Certainly, the last factor had
emboldened de Gaulle to draw closer to Moscow and seeking East-West détente but the
real swing toward looking to China was provoked by American involvement in Vietnam.
Seeing in America what France had suffered in Indochina and Algeria, de Gaulle
believed he was witness to the forces of history repeating themselves. The general
understood that China again would have to be brought back in as a “great power” and that
97
Martin, 14’ David Scott Bell and Byron Criddle, The French Communist Party in the Fifth Republic,
(Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1994), 86. Bell and Criddle acknowledge that the Soviet Ambassador to France,
Vinogradov, actually preferred the Gaullists to the French Communist Party.
98
Vaïsse, p.515; Martin, p.71. Another convergent factors that made recognition more favourable was the
feeling of French diplomatic isolation in Europe emerging from threat of a U.S.-USSR condominium after
the Cuban Missile Crisis and the fear of U.S.-German condominium in Europe.
38
he would play a part both as diplomatic broker and an agent of détente in Asia. The
former would promise France grandeur; the latter would enable global equilibrium.99
3. "Oui, vous irez en Chine!“:”100
Seeking to further his intuitions and predictions concerning China, de Gaulle was
elated to hear that Faure had already been invited back to Beijing again by the Chinese
People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs.101 Commending the timeliness of this planned trip,
he declared to Faure that he would go to China as “his representative” and instructed
Faure to explore negotiation options with the Chinese communists. So confidential was
this visit that de Gaulle insisted that conduct this trip in a purely private capacity and
avoid media and other diplomats as much as possible.102 The general himself chose not to
reveal the trip to his cabinet ministers, aside, notably, from Alain Peyrefitte. The parallels
with Henry Kissinger’s secret trip to China 8 years later are striking, except that Edgar
Faure, unlike Kissinger, had already had some notable degree of exposure to Chinese
culture and history through his personal travels to Beijing in 1957 that had his book Le
99
Americans misread de Gaulle’s China strategy by explaining it as a pursuit of prestige or grandeur.
CIA’s Office of National Estimates commented on Faure’s trip on October 23: “All things considered, we
believe that de Gaulle is moving toward a more active China policy…Finally, and most importantly, French
policy toward China is also influenced by its aspirations regarding Indochina. France probably does not
have a single, detailed ‘master plan’ for Indochina. Nevertheless, it seems fairly clear that de Gaulle does
have the general aim of reestablishing as much as possible of France’s former influence and presence in
this area. It seems equally clear that he regards the American presence and influence in the Indochina area
as impermanent…” Quoted from Gardner, 146-7.
100
“Yes, you will go to China!” De Gaulle’s words to Faure before his departure for Beijing in 1963.
“Mémoires d’Edgar Faure, Emissaire du General de Gaulle,” Quotidien du Peuple January 30, 2004.
101
In 1963, Faure had paid a second visit to China at the invitation of Zhang Xiruo, then president of the
Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs. Zhang Xiruo, had been an author of books on Jean-Jacques
Rousseau and the French Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen and was an early advocate of
Sino-French rapprochement.
102
For de Gaulle’s instructions outlined in a letter to Faure, see “Instructions pour Edgar Faure, 26
september 1963,” in Lettres, Notes, et Carnets, 1961-1963, ed. Charles de Gaulle (Paris: Plon, 1986), 3745. De Gaulle also entrusted Faure with a handwritten letter in his name to be submitted to Chairman Mao.
The letter conferred a degree of officialness to Faure’s visit and conveyed de Gaulle’s personal interest in
improving relations with China to the Chinese.
39
Serpent et La Tortue.103 In this book, Faure’s prescription, much like Michelet’s before
him, was that France should seek diplomatic normalization with the PRC.104 According to
Faure, China’s feeling of isolation due to the breakdown in Sino-Soviet relations would
strengthen Beijing’s desire to seek new allies and partners further afield. Foreshadowing
language of Mao’s “intermediate zone theory,” Faure declared that the Communist
Chinese perceived a “belt” running from Paris to Tokyo where China could find potential
sympathetic partners. France, with its uniquely independent foreign policy and level of
influence in Europe and North Africa was supremely placed to offer Beijing a way out of
its isolation. Faure also recognized that the key to getting the Chinese on board revolved
around “Taiwan.” Like the American diplomat, George Kennan, Faure opined that “the
principle of a new policy toward China should be to wager on an evolution of
Communism, and even to help it” through engagement rather than isolation.105
Faure’s trip came at a critical time.106 Mao had made a speech in September 1963
praising de Gaulle’s “independence” and recognizing the potential to ally temporarily
with several capitalist advanced states, including France. Landing in Beijing on the
103
Faure’s personal reflections on these travels and meetings with many senior government officials are
contained in his vivid work, Le Serpent et La Tortue. (Paris: René Julliard, 1957). Faure also discussed his
travels in the interview, “Edgar Faure: L’émissaire du général de Gaulle,” La Fondation Charles de Gaulle,
accessed via: http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/pages/l-homme/dossiers-thematiques/de-gaulle-et-lemonde/de-gaulle-et-la-reconnaissance-de-la-chine/temoignages/edgar-faure--l-emissaire-du-general-degaulle.php
104
“Speaking on détente,” Faure maintained that “in China lies the only chance, not only of an external
rapprochement of different economic systems on the basis of commonality but also of a better
understanding between peoples and of a global political détente.” “Is it paradoxical,” Faure also asked “that
our position toward China is infinitely more severe and hostile than toward the USSR, who has posed a
more severe threat and creates more puzzling troubles for us everyday.” Faure, Le Serpent et La Tortue,
232:
105
Ibid.
106
Faure made his voyage in secret in mid-October 1963 and avoided raising the suspicion of journalists
and diplomats by returning to Rangoon, in Burma, rather than Hong Kong from China. In Rangoon, Faure
typed up his report to de Gaulle and then sent the report to l’Elysée via the French Embassy in New Delhi.
40
evening of October 18, Faure was received personally by Premier Zhou Enlai and
Foreign Minister Chen Yi. In numerous rounds of meetings primarily with Zhou, Chen,
and Mao, Faure was struck by the extreme enthusiasm of the Chinese for Sino-French
normalization, attributing it to their “sole desire of ending diplomatic isolation.”107
Following de Gaulle’s express instructions, Faure refused to budge on the Taiwan
issue, causing a major deadlock in early discussions. France’s reluctance to cut off ties
with Taiwan was matched by Beijing’s demonstrated intransigence on the “two Chinas”
issue, namely, what to do with Taiwan in the event of recognition of the PRC. A
breakthrough was finally achieved by the third round of negotiations when Premier Zhou
agreed to take down the condition of rejecting Taiwan as long as it remained a “tacit
understanding” between the two countries.108 Faure could see no objection to this and
swiftly agreed to it.109
Successful in his negotiations with the Chinese, Faure quickly typed up a report
on his “Mission to China” and despatched it to l’Elysée for de Gaulle’s perusal in
November 1963. Faure’s report confirmed many of de Gaulle’s private intuitions: strong
Chinese intent and interest in seeking normalization and an “obvious preference shown
towards [France] resulting from the independence of French policy.”110 Faure relayed to
107
“Report Sent to General de Gaulle, President of the French Republic, by Edgar Faure, on his Mission to
China,” November 07, 1963, Documents diplomatiques Francais 1963. Tome 2, 1 Juillet - 31 Decembre
(Paris: Imprimerie Nationale, 2001), 469-478.
108
This was despite the fact that the Chinese had historically stressed that rejecting Taiwan was a
prerequisite for normalization. Chapter two will discuss the reasons why this occurred from the Chinese
perspective. Chen Yi’s statement to the press: “I want to add that if France wants to recognize the PRC, it
must kick out Chiang Kai-shek’s embassy. Otherwise, even if he recognizes us, we are not going to
respond.” Wang Taiping, Zhonghua renmin gongheguo waijiaoshi, 1957-1969 [Diplomatic History of the
People’s Republic of China, 1957-1969] (Beijing: Shijiezhishi chubanshe, 1998), 363.
109
Faure later reasoned that this was yet more evidence of the Chinese desperation for an exit from their
diplomatic isolation.
110
“Report Sent to General de Gaulle, President of the French Republic, by Edgar Faure, on his Mission to
China,” DDF, 1963, t.II, 469-478. I will elaborate on the details of the meetings in chapter two.
41
de Gaulle that the Chinese viewed three non-socialist powers that had the potential to be
sympathetic to China: France, England, and Japan. “But from this group only France
escapes subordination to America. Thus, we are the only ones who offer sufficient
guarantees that make the complete normalization of relations seem possible and
desirable,” concluded Faure, adding also that the Chinese hoped that “Sino-French
rapprochement,” would influence the UK and Japan to “move away from the American
circle of influence, at least for Asian problems.”111 Convinced by Faure’s account, de
Gaulle later announced to his cabinet ministers that “China is dying to be recognized by
us.”112
De Gaulle’s earlier prevarications now vanished and the pursuit of normalization
reached breakneck speed.113 Shortly after Faure’s return, de Gaulle instructed his
Minister of Foreign Affairs, Maurice Couve de Murville, to send Jacque de
Beaumarchais, head of the Quai d’Orsay’s Europe department, to iron out the final
agreement with the Chinese officials in Berne, Switzerland in November 1963.114 Again,
de Gaulle emphasized to de Beaumarchais as he had done with Faure that there were to
“no conditions” applied to the French.115 De Gaulle’s greatest gamble in the recognition
was not U.S. anger but rather that Beijing would not honour its promise “not to impose
the condition of breaking with Taiwan” as a condition for full normalization. As Alphand
noted, this was no small gamble because “this would be the first time that this pre-
111
Ibid.
Peyrefitte, 488.
113
There was a sense of urgency in Quai d’Orsay to hurry this agreement following the instruction of de
Gaulle. “Baudet to Couve, Dépêche number 940,” March 26, 1963, DDF, 1963, t. I.
114
“Instructions for de Beaumarchais,” December 11, 1863, DDF, 1963, t. II.
115
De Gaulle stressed in his instructions to de Beaumarchais that he wanted an agreement “without
conditions and prerequisites.” Ibid.
112
42
requisite would be abandoned.” 116 But de Gaulle was confident that the chances of China
gaining recognition in the UN “would accrue greatly” through French recognition and he
was convinced that the Chinese saw the distinct value of French diplomatic support in the
UN through its influence on francophone “African votes.” De Gaulle gambled also that
Taiwan would break away instead. His gamble paid off when the Republic of China
pulled its embassy out of Paris on February 10, 1964, two weeks after the announcement
of the joint communiqué.
Throughout the normalization process, de Gaulle maintained unilateral control of
the decision-making and worked hard to keep negotiations secret until the announcement
of the joint communiqué in January 1964.117 While Faure and de Beaumarchais were
meeting with the Chinese throughout 1963, De Gaulle was silent about his demarche,
keeping it secret from all the foreign leaders he met, including, notably, Chancellor
Adenauer and Secretary Dean Rusk.118 Closer to home, De Gaulle’s distrust of the Quai
d’Orsay meant that on two major instances, he kept all ministers, including his Minister
of Foreign Affairs Maurice Couve de Murville, in the dark: firstly, with the withdrawal
from NATO and later with the recognition of China.119 De Gaulle was so effective at
keeping the diplomatic process under wraps that two days before the joint declaration of
116
Alphand, 419-20.
Vaïsse, 294.
118
Secretary Rusk stressed that China was a threat to world peace and stability and was responsible for
unrest in many parts of the world (e.g. Laos, Indonesia, Cuba, Africa). Rusk insisted on containment and
isolation as the strategy to China whereas de Gaulle recommended an engagement policy and even
abandoning Taiwan as an option, citing how Western engagement with the Soviet Union had changed its
behaviour. Rusk refuted this claim, declaring that it was the West’s military strength that was deterring
Soviet aggression. De Gaulle informed Rusk that France would inform the U.S. before any action were to
be taken on China in order to avoid embarrassing the Americans. This was expressed despite the fact that
de Gaulle and his ministers were finalizing normalization negotiations with the Chinese in Berne.
“Telegram from Secretary of State Rusk to the Department of State,” December 16, 1963, in FRUS, 1961 1963 ,Vol. 22, 409 -410.
119
Martin, 71; Hartley, Gaullism, 196-197
117
43
normalization, he expressed great disappointment that the cat had finally been let out of
the bag with the media publicizing the imminent announcement.120
In his official press conference speech on the Sino-French normalization
agreement on January 31, 1964, de Gaulle intimated that the decision was made on the
balance of “evidence and reason.”121 In response to a journalist’s question about why on
earth France would recognize a far-off totalitarian government, De Gaulle declared that
France “recognizes the world as it is and thinks that sooner or later other countries will
judge it wise to follow France's example.”122 While de Gaulle certainly wasn’t the first to
think of playing the “China card,” it is important to note that after this statement in 1964
no other Western European nation followed France’s example in the immediate
aftermath, despite their promises to do so or their intuitions that it would be the right
thing to do.123 De Gaulle himself lamented how the Western European nations abandoned
their initial furtive statements of support for Sino-French rapprochement: “In a quiet
voice, they [Western European nations] say, “bravo, ho you are right, we are going to
copy you as soon as we can!” “In a loud voice, they proclaim, “what a mistake! It’s not
the right moment! You’ve gone and stabbed the Americans in the back.”124
120
Peyrefitte, 492.
Charles de Gaulle, “Conférence de presse du 31 janvier 1964.”
122
Ibid. De Gaulle had access to intelligence accounts of the internal violence and chaos of the Great Leap
Forward in the mid-1950s but chose not to be dissuaded by this, guided entirely by realpolitik.
123
West Germany recognized Beijing and normalized relations in 1972, following Washington's lead, as
did Japan. This substantial lag helps to emphasize the boldness of De Gaulle’s decision to go against U.S.
policy.
124
Peyrefitte, 492.The American response was extremely critical.Americans cynically saw de Gaulle’s
moves in Asia as a way to regain influence and prestige in the region. Denouncing the French recognition
of the P.R.C., the Johnson Administration sent a statement to the Atlantic Community Quarterly on 27
January, 1964, highlighting that they had “repeatedly expressed to the Government of France the reasons
why we consider that this [recognition] would be an unfortunate step, particularly at a time when the
Chinese communists are actively promoting aggression and subversion in Southeast Asia and elsewhere.”
121
44
A year after the recognition, in 1965, de Gaulle proudly declared, “our position is
unique: Russia is courting us and China congratulates us for our courage and
independence.”125 The “China card” was added to de Gaulle’s broader strategy of
“détente, entente, and coopération” with the Eastern communist bloc.126 Gaullist foreign
policy recognized that there was another significant “triangle” in Cold War geopolitics
that could enable France to balance against the bipolar dominance of the superpowers, it
so feared and reviled, while increasing its grandeur as a “great power” that could still
affect change by tugging on the strings of diplomacy. Zooming out from the French case
for a moment, France’s relationship with the PRC exists within a broader trend among
Western European states beginning in the 1960s to see contacts with Beijing as a way to
achieve greater détente with the Soviets in Europe. Outside of Paris, Adenauer and Sato
had expressed similar views about the China card but none of them dared to act on these
intuitions until after Washington did so in 1972, underscoring de Gaulle’s boldness as a
statesman.127 As Kissinger reflected, de Gaulle’s analysis was “far from unique in
Europe” but his “methods of implementing it [were.]128
Descending from a “Great power” in the 19th century to a “second-tier power” in
the more globalized and bipolar world of the early Cold War years, de Gaulle feared
Atlantic Community Quarterly 2, (1964): 146. De Gaulle’s decision was lacking in domestic critics either:
the French right-wing nationalists were vehemently against any association with the communist bloc.
125
Alphand, 459.
126
De Gaulle, Memoirs of Hope, 202.
127
Chinese request the French to help them reach out to the West Germans in 1967, sending messages to
the Romanian Ambassador to France, Dr. Dimitriu, who then passed the messages to Ambassador Manac’h
to finally send to German Ambassador Alexander Böker. While the Germans found this “interesting,” they
did not act on it. Etienne Manac’h Note, 17 March 1967, Series: Europe, 1961-1970, Subseries: Federal
Republic of Germany, vol. 1579, French Foreign Ministry. Quoted from Suri, 227.
128
Kissinger, “The Illusionist,” 76. “Interview with Claude Chayet,” La Fondation de Charles de Gaulle,
accessed via: http://www.charles-de-gaulle.org/pages/l-homme/dossiers-thematiques/de-gaulle-et-lemonde/de-gaulle-et-la-reconnaissance-de-la-chine/temoignages/claude-chayet--premier-representant-de-lafrance-a-pekin-en-1964.php.
45
irrelevance. Witnessing France’s weakness as a result of decolonization and waning
military strength after World War II, de Gaulle took it upon himself to guide France
toward becoming a key diplomatic player in the Cold War context, using the recognition
of China as a way to tip the scales against “The Big Two” and make the world “less
confrontational, less ideological” and more in line with the “non-violent rules of
deliberative diplomacy.”129 De Gaulle recognized that France could not count on its own
relative strength alone, nor on neighboring allies to “balance” against the two
superpowers that it saw as a threat to the security of its nation, of Europe, and of the
global equilibrium. Deploying a mix of grandeur and global balance-of-power logic, de
Gaulle’s strategy had a “revolutionary” quality in that it sought to challenge the global
bipolar system dominated by the two superpowers.130 Boldly playing the “China card”
was one means toward this end.131
129
Albers argues that “in a bipolar world where military conflict seemed constantly imminent, a minor
power such as France could not play any role of importance. But if international politics became less
confrontational, less ideological, and followed non-violent rules of deliberative diplomacy, it would
become much easier for Paris to pursue its own interests and preserve a relatively high degree of national
sovereignty and international influence.” Albers, 223.
130
Martin, “Untying the Gaullian Knot,” 135.
131
Ibid, 80.
46
Chapter Two
Opening the China Box: French Influence on Beijing’s Foreign Policy Behaviour132
Ambassador Étienne Manac’h: “Naturally, the Americans are looking for a
retreat with honor. If an honorable solution could be found, we are convinced,
that they [the Americans] will accept to withdraw [from Vietnam], even if it
meant that South Vietnam, by its own evolution, would slide toward a certain
form of political regime that they [the Americans] don’t like. When I say this, I
stress once more, that I am not acting as an advocate for the U.S.”
Prime Minister Zhou En-Lai: “In our opinion, the Vietnamese should continue
their combat because the U.S. will not withdraw themselves. We see the proof in
South Korea. Similarly, they [the Americans] do not wish to withdraw their 7th
Fleet from the Taiwan strait.
(the conversation ends here on this topic)133
The newly appointed French Ambassador to the PRC, Étienne Manac’h, was welcomed
to his post by Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai and a small delegation of Chinese officials in
132
In shedding light on the Chinese perspective in this chapter, I hope also to underscore the degree of
Chinese agency in the “opening to China” in 1964.
133
“Meeting between Étienne Manac’h and Zhou Enlai,” September 25, 1969, Série Pékin B, 1954-1983,
Papiers Manach, 513 PO/B/124, 700, Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes; Italicized for
emphasis.
47
Beijing.134 On the evening of September 25, 1969, Ambassador Manac’h sat with Prime
Minister Zhou and exchanged views on the Cold War climate, debating at length on a
series of topics ranging from the future of Sino-Soviet relations to U.S. intentions in
Vietnam and Berlin. The conversation reached a climax when both Manac’h and Zhou
expressed diametrically opposed views on U.S. strategy in Asia and Europe. It was at that
moment that Zhou decided abruptly to end the conversation for the evening.135
Zhou and Manac’h’s discussion in September 1969 represents one of many
similarly illuminating conversations occurring from 1964 up until the first démarche
toward Sino-U.S. rapprochement in 1972. These conversations frequently revealed an
astonishing level of candour and mutual admiration between the two nations, as well as a
good-humored approach to disagreeing on many aspects of global affairs. As revealed in
these discussions, Chinese policy-makers steadfastly defended their views on U.S.
“imperialism,” but they also retained a deep respect for French views on global affairs
and often probed French intelligence for more information.136 The surprising degree of
openness and pragmatism exhibited by Chinese policy-makers toward their French
counterparts is worthy of attention, as is Beijing’s willingness to make exceptions for
134
Officials from the Chinese side included Tang Xai-Kuan, Director of Western Europe, and an unnamed
member of the Chinese Protocol Service Ibid.
135
Ibid. Refer to excerpt of the conversation on previous page.In the late 1960s, the Beijing leadership and
the state-run People’s Daily frequently criticized “U.S. imperialism.” The U.S. considered China’s primary
threat and the new “imperialist” of the post-WWII era. Lin Biao, “Defeat U.S. imperialism and its lackeys
by People’s War” People’s Daily (Renmin ribao), September 3, 1965. Chinese policy-makers tended to
parse all US actions in Europe and Asia as evidence of US “hegemony” and an effort to “encircle” China,
despite French counter-arguments. This was a recurring theme in many discussions between French and
Chinese diplomats, especially from 1969 to 1971. Two such examples: “Meeting between Étienne Manac’h
and Zhou Enlai,” September 25, 1969, Série Pékin B, 1954-1983, Papiers Manach, 513 PO/B/124, 700,
Centre des Archives Diplomatiques de Nantes (hereafter cited as CADN); “Meeting with Vice-President
Dong Bi-wu, May 22, 1969, Série Asie-Océanie, Sous-série Chine, 119QO/747, Archives Diplomatiques
de La Courneuve (hereafter cited as AD).
136
For instance, on the U.S.’s strategic objectives both in Asia and in Europe. In a conversation between
Ambassador Manac’h and Vice-Chairman Dong Biwu, the Vice-Chairman seriously considered Manac’h’s
views. “Meeting with Vice-President Dong Bi-wu,” May 22, 1969.
48
Paris in the normalization negotiations. After all, no other Western nation before and
after 1964 was able to establish full diplomatic relations (on the level of ambassadorial
exchange) with the PRC without agreeing to these conditions.137 Given the tumultuous
backdrop of the Cultural Revolution during which China funded revolutionary “national
liberation” movements in the “Third World” and represented itself as the “arsenal of the
World Revolution,” these qualities are rendered all the more exceptional.138 What is
remarkable on the French side is to consider French efforts to help China break out of its
diplomatic isolation and to facilitate Sino-US normalization.139 Prevailing literature in
Chinese, French, and American scholarship has overlooked the impact of Sino-French
normalization on China’s foreign policy behaviour.140 While there remains a high degree
of closure and secrecy in the Chinese archives, some documents have become available
137
China’s foreign policy often displayed a blend of ideology and ‘balance of power.’ By ideology, I refer
to China’s model of “Third World communism” (i.e. sponsoring continuous proletarian revolution in Africa
and Asia). By ‘balance of power,’ I refer to China’s policy of engaging with three main groups: the
communist “Third World,” the non-aligned non-communist nations (e.g. Egypt), and the capitalist “secondworld” nations (e.g. France). I define ‘balance-of-power’ policy decisions to be actions that states take to
unite with other states in such a way as to prevent any one state from dominating or asserting its will on
others. For a full definition of ‘balance of power’ as structural realists define it, refer to Hans Morgenthau,
Politics Among Nations: The Struggle for Power and Peace (New York, 1949); Kenneth Waltz, Theory of
International Relations (Reading, 1979).
138
The Cultural Revolution (c.1966-69) was characterized by a period of severe diplomatic isolation and a
widespread breakdown of China’s diplomatic service, including the closing down of embassies overseas
and the recalling of diplomats and emissaries back to Beijing. Chinese foreign policy was directed toward
‘making revolution’ overseas and uniting with non-aligned Third World governments to build a “third
force” against the U.S. and USSR. Refer to Mao’s slogan, “China’s today is the Third World’s Tomorrow.”
Li Jie and Michael Yahuda offer differing accounts as to the extent of Mao’s responsibility for the foreign
policy shift toward radicalism and “chauvinism” during this period: Li Jie, "Changes in China's Domestic
Situation in the 1960s and Sino-US Relations" in Re-examining the Cold War, US-China Diplomacy 19641973, Robert S. Ross and Jiang Changbin, eds., (Harvard, 2001), 288-320; Mao Zedong declared in July
1967 that “China Must Become the Arsenal of the World Revolution,” July 1967. Michael Yahuda,
China’s Role in the World, (1978), 190-211.
139
Notable facilitators include Jean Sainteny, Lucien Paye and Étienne Manac’h. De Gaulle would later
instruct Ambassador Manac’h to convey to the Chinese the U.S.’s interest in forming a new relationship.
Tad Szulc, The Illusion of Peace: Foreign Policy in the Nixon Years, 116.
140
Chinese scholars tend to focus on how Sino-French normalization frustrated both the U.S. and Taiwan
and paved the way for China’s exit from diplomatic isolation. More attention is paid to how normalization
improved China’s diplomatic status rather than the influence of Sino-French relations on Chinese strategic
thinking, especially post-1964.
49
to scholars. These diplomatic materials reveal the extraordinary level of frankness
between Chinese and French diplomats and the degree of influence that Paris had on
Beijing’s foreign policy behaviour, which was, to say the least, extremely erratic during
the 1960s.141
In examining Sino-French diplomatic discussions between 1964 and 1972, I
propose in this chapter that the French had a significant influence on Chinese foreign
policy in two respects. Firstly, they helped to raise China’s diplomatic status, as is
conventionally argued. Secondly, they influenced Beijing’s foreign policy behaviour,
especially with respect to the U.S.142 In doing so, the French were important precursors to
eventual Sino-U.S. rapprochement, in a more substantive manner than is traditionally
understood. To establish this, I will consider the perspectives and experiences of Beijing
foreign policy-makers in three main areas: relations with France, relations with the
international community, and, finally, relations with the U.S.143 The first area will
account for China’s changing attitudes toward France in the lead-up to normalization in
1964 while the second and third areas will draw specific attention to the way in which the
French foreign policy elite influenced Beijing’s foreign policy strategy and decisions
from 1958 to 1972.
141
A significant part of the research for this chapter, in particular, has involved comparing and verifying
Chinese and French archival material so as to ensure greater objectivity. Crucially, many such documents
are corroborated by French archival material recording the same high-level bilateral meetings between
foreign policy elites.
142
By “diplomatic status,” I take it here to mean facilitating China’s exit from diplomatic isolation and
expanding its engagement with other states (e.g. Italy and Canada) and organizations (i.e. the United
Nations).
143
Note: In this chapter, I will largely refer to the decisions and thought processes of the two principle
architects of Chinese foreign policy: Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. This is not to discount the contributions
of other foreign policy elites but rather to reflect the fact that Chinese foreign policy at that time was almost
single-handedly designed by Mao Zedong and then executed by Zhou Enlai. The “Mao-in-command
Model” or “Mao-centric model” highlights that Mao was an extremely dominant independent variable in
Chinese cold war foreign policy outcomes. Refer to: Samuel Kim, "Chinese Foreign Policy in Theory and
Practice" in Samuel Kim ed., China and the World. (1999)(4th edition), pp. 3-33.
50
1. China’s Changing Attitudes Toward France (1950-1964)
Just as the French had expressed a degree of interest in recognizing the PRC
before 1964, the Chinese displayed a constant, albeit fluctuating, interest in maintaining
contact with the Western European power. Many of Beijing’s most senior-ranking
officials, including Zhou Enlai, Li Lisan, and Deng Xiaoping had been educated or at
least spent some of the formative years of their youths in Paris.144 These Chinese leaders
often regarded France, and in particular, its revolutionary history and ideals, with a
significant level of admiration and esteem.145 In the years preceding normalization, the
Chinese maintained a diplomatic dialogue with the French through which they expressed
their respect for the French nation and their hopes for a future normalization of relations.
The appropriate date and procedure of such a normalization process was left deliberately
ambiguous and amorphous, designed to mask the fact that the Chinese government had
yet to conceive a strategy toward France and, more broadly, Western Europe.146 Were the
144
During the 1920s, Zhou Enlai was part of a Chinese communist cell in Montargis, in the south of Paris,
where he would later meet Deng Xiaoping for the first time and recruit him to the Chinese Youth
Communist Party. A formative part of Deng’s life was spent in France where he worked, amongst other
places, at a Renault automobile factory and a steel plant. At the time, many young Chinese students did
work-study programs in France and Paris, in particular, was seen as a hub for young radicals from
throughout Asia.
145
Chen Yi declared that “the French nation is a great nation of glorious revolutionary traditions…The
Chinese people always had high esteem for the glorious revolutionary traditions of the French people.”
Quoted from Suri, 81. This admiration extended to a great deal of respect accorded to General de Gaulle by
all Chinese officials in exchanges with French officials, even after his death in 1970. Mao’s personal regard
for de Gaulle was so significant, despite never having met the French general, that as early as 1956, Mao
Zedong asked his eight ambassadors to read General de Gaulle’s memoirs during a meeting of the Eighth
Party Congress. Geng Biao, Geng Biao hui yi lu, (Beijing : Jie fang jun chu ban she, 1991), 47.
146
“China did not have a uniform approach toward normalizing relations with Western European countries,
instead adjusting its strategies depending on the importance of a given country, its attitude toward Taiwan,
and its past treatment of the People’s Republic.” Enrico Fardella et al., Sino-European Relations During the
Cold War and The Rise of a Multipolar World : a Critical Oral History, (Washington, DC : Woodrow
Wilson International Center for Scholars, 2015), accessed via:
https://www.wilsoncenter.org/sites/default/files/Sino_European_Relations_during_Cold_War_Rise_of_Mu
ltipolar_World_(2015).pdf
51
Western Europeans part of the waning “west wind” of “imperialist” and capitalist states,
including the Americans, or could they be considered part of a second “intermediate
zone” of powerful capitalist countries increasingly at odds with the new “imperialist” and
China’s principal threat, the U.S.?147 This was the fundamental question that Beijing, and
in particular, Mao, had not yet resolved.148
Mao’s erratic foreign policy from around 1958 to 1968 meant that, on the one
hand, they were funding the overthrow of Western colonial regimes in the Third World,
and, on the other hand, engaging with these very same Western colonial countries
through diplomatic channels.149 To put it another way, the Chinese held two concurrent
but deeply contradictory strategies, both directed at Moscow and Washington: one was to
147
“In my view there are two intermediate zones: the first, Asia, Africa and Latin America and
the second, Europe. Japan and Canada are not happy with the United States. The six-nation
Common Market, represented by De Gaulle, is made up of powerful capitalist countries. Japan in
the East is a powerful capitalist country. They are unhappy with the U.S. and the Soviet Union.” Mao
Zedong, 'There Are Two Intermediate Zones',” September, 1963, Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the
People's Republic of China and the Party Literature Research Center, eds., Mao Zedong on Diplomacy
(Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1998), 387-389. For “west wind” metaphor, refer to: “Mao Zedong,
'Speech at a Meeting of the Representatives of Sixty-four Communist and Workers’ Parties' (Edited by
Mao),” November 18, 1957, Mao Zedong wenji (Selected Works of Mao Zedong), vol. 7 (Beijing: Renmin
chubanshe, 1999).
148
It is important to highlight that China’s foreign policy during this period of the Cold War was largely
strategized and executed by Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. The “Mao-centric” model of foreign policy
analysis applies in this case, not merely because of the authoritarian nature of the regime, but also because
Zhou and other party members ultimately submitted to Mao in all affairs, including foreign policy decisions
and grand strategy. As a strategist and foreign policy-maker, Mao was not a cohesive strategist - on a
number of occasions he altered or backtracked on his strategic theories. For example, Mao gave up his
lean-to-one-side strategy [yibian dao] (i.e. following the Soviet Leninist-Marxist line) to pursue the “antihegemony” strategy and “dual-adversary” approach [fanliangba] (i.e. confronting the “hegemonic”
superpowers, US and USSR, simultaneously) during the Cultural Revolution. Moreover, while Mao had
previously endorsed Chinese “great-nation chauvinism” and a China-led model of “Third World
communism” during the height of the Cultural Revolution, he would later distance himself from these
dogmatic views, declaring in 1968 that the "Chinese should not say such things. It is the erroneous thinking
of the so-called 'making ourselves the core.” Li Jie, "Changes in China's Domestic Situation in the 1960s
and Sino-US Relations" in Re-examining the Cold War, US-China Diplomacy 1964-1973, Robert S. Ross
and Jiang Changbin, eds., (Harvard, 2001), 288-320.
149
Yafeng Xia focuses only on the first aspect of Mao’s foreign policy and calls this second phase of
communist China’s foreign policy (1960-69) “Revolutionary Self-Reliance.”
52
unite with the Third World; the other was to unite with the capitalist Second World.150
Both visions were conceived of as a “third force” that would balance against the
superpowers, the U.S. and USSR at the time. In many ways, Beijing’s highly discrepant
pattern of foreign policy behaviour during this period resulted from its inability to answer
the above question as well as a broader existential one: was China a ‘revisionist’ or a
‘status quo’ state?151
To begin with, Beijing’s devotion to the international communist movement
propelled it to make two foreign policy decisions on ideological grounds that would
become major obstacles to the enhancement of Sino-French relations. During President
René Coty’s Fourth French Republic, the major sticking point between Paris and Beijing
was China’s recognition of the communist Democratic Republic of Vietnam in 1950.152
While as early as 1949 there had been murmurings within Quai d’Orsay that a swift
recognition of the PRC would be a sensible course of action, Beijing’s decision to
support Ho Chi Minh and the pressure stemming from the Americans made this an
untenable démarche for the French.153 Eight years later, during the fledgling Fifth French
150
Many scholars tend to depict China’s sudden use of balance-of-power strategy in its decision to align
with the US in 1971 but, as this chapter will elucidate, this approach came much earlier and was often
conflated with its ideology-driven strategies.
151
For instance, during the 1960s, the Chinese communists pursued engagement with France while it
actively competed with the Soviets for leadership of the socialist world, supporting the splitting of of proMaoist factions in communist parties around the world (e.g. Spain, Italy, Chile, Great Britain, West
Germany, Argentina, etc.)
152
“Jacques Roux, Asia Director of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, to M. Denner, French Ambassador to
Switzerland (personal letter), “ November 27, 1954, in DDF, 1954, t.II. Huang argues that the French had
intended to wait for after British recognition in 1950 to make a decision but then the Chinese recognition of
the Democratic Republic of Vietnam dissuaded France from pursuing recognition of the mainland. Huang
Qinghua, French Recognition of China: 20th Century Sino-French Relations from the 1940s to the 1960s
(
: 20
40-60
), (Hefei: Huang Shan chu she, 2014), 135.
153
In 1949, the French position was to wait it out rather than make the first move to recognize the P.R.C.
The two prevailing opinions in Quai d’Orsay at the time were from French Ambassador to China, Jacques
Meyrier, and the French High Commissioner in Indochina, Léon Pignon. Meyrier opined that swift
recognition was the best way to confront communism in Indochina whereas Pignon believed that it would
53
Republic, it was China’s recognition and substantial economic and material aid to the
provisional Algerian government that proved the second major obstacle to relations in
1958, hampering the French interest in improving relations that had been revivified with
de Gaulle’s return to power that same year.154 Chinese support of the socialist Algerian
National Liberation Front (NLF) reflected the PRC’s self-identification as a leader and
model for Third World communism, supporting the “national liberation struggle” against
Western colonial powers such as France.155 Thus, on two separate occasions, in 1950 and
1958, when it seemed as though the orbit of events were leading the two nations within
the closest reach of normalization, the main barriers were China’s positions on Vietnam
and Algeria - decisions emanating from Beijing’s ideological commitments.156 Such
positions, in effect, obstructed the French from making any further moves as both
Indochina and Algeria had extremely charged significance in the French colonial
consciousness.157
jeopardize France’s interests in Indochina. Quai d’Orsay ultimately sided with Pignon’s view, considering
France’s interests in Indochina to be put too much at risk by a recognition of the P.R.C. Robin, Thierry.
“Faut-il reconnaître la Chine rouge ? L’attitude de la France et de ses alliés anglais et américain”
Histoire@Politique 19 (2013): 143-159.
154
The Fifth French Republic was established on October 4, 1958. China recognized the Provisional
Government of Algeria on 22 September 1958, 3 days after the government was founded. China then
recognized Algeria formally as an independent and new state in 1962. For a full list of Chinese material aid
to Algeria during the Algerian war with France (1954-62), see “Note from the GPRA General Secretary,
‘Issue: War Material.”
155
By contrast, the Soviets took the line of “non-interference in the internal affairs of other states.” The
French Communist Party also took the side of the French rather than the Algerians. The Chinese described
these groups as “apologists of neo-colonialism.” Chen Jian, “China's Involvement in the Vietnam War,
1964-69,” The China Quarterly 142 (1995), 356-387.
156
Ibid.
157
Huang avers that China’s recognition and support of Algeria in 1958 ultimately hampered improvement
of relations as de Gaulle had been on the cusp of recognizing China at that time. In an interview, Edgar
Faure recalled that he had advised de Gaulle not to engage with China because of the l'affaire algérienne.”
Huang adds that it was de Gaulle’s “waiting attitude” (
) and his patient resolve to bide his time for the
most “advantageous moment” (
) that contributed to the continued stasis of Sino-French relations
in 1958. Huang, 222-225.
54
Nevertheless, the Chinese kept a side door open to France, displaying a noticeable
degree of interest in maintaining contact. In the 1950s through to the early 1960s, Beijing
preferred to keep contact with Paris through meetings with French officials, in a strictly
private capacity, rather than committing to any official diplomatic moves. One reason for
this was that Beijing was as of yet unsure of France and Western Europe’s position vis-àvis U.S.: were they merely “lackeys” or could they be counted on as a counterweight to
U.S. hegemony?158 Another reason was that rapprochement with France would be in
direct contradiction to the ideological principles it publicly espoused, both domestically
and internationally. According to Mao’s early works on Marxist “antagonist contradiction
theory,” capitalist and socialist societies could not live in peaceful co-existence with one
another.159 Despite these uncertainties, the Chinese kept the diplomatic door open to the
French. On June 20, 1954, Zhou En-Lai and the Chinese delegation secretly met with two
French Socialist ministers, Alain Savary and Robert Lacoste, to negotiate an armistice in
Indochina for peace in the region during the first day of the Geneva Conference.160 Zhou
began by observing that France’s insistence on recognizing Chiang’s “regime would
block the development of future relations between the two countries.”161 On the subject
158
The term “lackeys” was used to describe these Western European countries in the capitalist camp:
“Defeat U.S. imperialism and its lackeys by people's war. History has proved and will go on proving that
people's war is the most effective weapon against U.S. imperialism and its lackeys. All revolutionary
people will learn to wage people's war against U.S. imperialism and its lackeys.” “Defeat U.S. imperialism
and its lackeys by People’s War,” People’s Daily (Renmin Ribao), September 3, 1965. The article was
published in September by the Minister of Defense, Lin Biao.
159
Mao Zedong, On Contradiction, (Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1960).
160
Alain Savary, French Socialist Party government minister, declared to Zhou and the Chinese delegates
that the “French public opinion” desired “honorable peace” and hoped that China “could help Prime
Minister Pierre Mendès-France and the French Socialist party in achieving this” - an interesting parallel to
what would later be a similar state of affairs for the Americans in 1971-72 talks with the Chinese. For
Zhou’s reflections of the meeting with Savary and Lacoste, see Zhou Enlai, “Notes from my Meeting with
the French Socialists on June 20,” June 22, 1954, no. 110-00133-01, Chinese Foreign Ministry Archives.
161
At this meeting, which both sides agreed not to make public, Zhou declared “that he could not
comprehend why France insisted on recognizing Chiang Kaishek’s regime.” Zhou argued that Chiang had
55
of commercial relations, Zhou considered it to be both “mutually beneficial” and a
reasonable first step toward future normalization of relations.162 Suddenly, to the surprise
of Savary and Lacoste, Zhou softened his tone and concluded with a warm invitation to
the French to send a delegation of ministers to visit China. This was followed by a formal
letter to the French inviting both members of the Socialist Party and other French parties,
including, notably, General de Gaulle, to Beijing.163 Soon thereafter, the French took up
Zhou’s invitation, sending Senator of the Seine, Edmond Michelet, along with a
delegation of fellow French senators to Beijing a year after the Geneva meeting in
September 1955.164 Chinese motives for inviting Senator Michelet and the senators
exemplified Beijing’s continued interested in normalization. French reciprocation of
interest and Paris’s increasingly independent foreign policy line served to embolden
China’s path towards engagement with the Second World, especially at a time when its
foreign policy was beginning to bifurcate.
2. China’s Changing Foreign Policy Strategy (1958-1964)
been “rejected,” and likened this situation to Louis XVI’s “rejection” during the French Revolution. Zhou
also made a suggestive historical allusion to the American War of Independence by observing that France
had once been sympathetic to the United State’s desire to become independent, reflecting France’s
“glorious revolutionary tradition.” Ibid.
162
The Chinese saw economic interests in rapprochement whereas the French did not (refer to chapter one
also). Zhou declared to the French ministers that ”Sino-French trade volume is not large because of the
limits of the (current) embargo policy….developing trade between the two countries is our shared desire,
once commercial relations develop then the two countries can get closer to normalization of relations.”
Ibid.
163
Interestingly, Zhou Enlai mentions de Gaulle and Montesquieu by name, inviting them and their
parties’ members to visit China as well. Ibid. After the Geneva Conference, French delegates sent back an
assessment report to Quai d’Orsay in which they essentially argued that “greater attention” should be paid
to improving contacts with the mainland Chinese. “Note on the normalization of relations with the PRC,”
October 3, 1944, série Asie-Océanie 1944-1955, sous-série Chine, vol. 203, folios 262-265, Archives of the
French Foreign Ministry (AMAE); Huang, 154.
164
The French then sent at least one delegation of French officials to Beijing every year subsequent to this.
Huang, 155. In 1955, too, the Chinese invited former Prime Minister, Edgar Faure, who was finally able to
work out the logistics for a private trip to China in 1957. Ibid, 165.
56
By 1958, Beijing had proven that it was interested in maintaining some kind of
contact with the French, and moreover, that it was periodically willing to sacrifice its
ideological commitments for a balance-of-power approach to international relations. This
tendency would increase when General Charles de Gaulle became President of France
and leader of the Fifth French Republic, promising to turn France into a strong
independent world power.165 The Chinese soon noticed a difference in Paris’s relations
with Washington, where de Gaulle’s independent foreign policies, impelled by notions of
grandeur, were seen to be throwing a spanner in the works for U.S. strategy in Europe.
From Beijing’s perspective, China could “exploit” the sharpening “contradictions” in
Franco-American relations and Gaullist France could be considered an “indirect ally” in
the struggle against the “twin hegemonies” of the U.S. and USSR.166 A report published
by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs in June 1962 noted that since de Gaulle’s
presidency “Franco-American conflicts have developed” and become more public and
that France was persisting commendably in its efforts to get six other European countries
to form a “an anti-Soviet anti-American third force.”167 The same year, the Chinese
embassy in Switzerland declared that de Gaulle’s independent foreign policy behaviour
was an indication that the “fragmentation of the imperialist bloc” had reached “new
165
Huang describes how the Chinese noticed the difference between the Fourth and Fifth French Republic's
foreign policy stance towards China. Huang, 222-23.
166
Mao and Zhou both used the term “indirect ally” to describe nations such as France, commenting that
“toward Britain, France, and West Germany, we must use abusive language less frequently and must apply
strategy. The work of dealing with high level people in the capitalist countries must be furthered
vigorously..,doing a good job of dealing with these people will spare us an enemy and give us one more
indirect ally.” For Mao’s comments, see Mao, Mao Zedong wai jiao wen xuan, 487-488.
167
The Chinese Foreign Ministry depicted the France-led European Community as “a third anti-U.S.-USSR
force” (“
”). “Central Committee Response to Former French Prime Minister
Faure’s Visit, reply about referrals (invitation to visit, Faure’s CV, guidelines for receiving and
recommendations for negotiations), June 15, 1962 - December 15, 1963), Chinese Foreign Ministry
Archives, file no. 110
01982—16.
57
heights” and that Franco-American conflicts were growing in significance. To Beijing,
this was further proof of “the internal contradictions in the imperialist bloc.”168 Most
interestingly of all, the Chinese diplomats stationed in Bern concluded that the FrancoAmerican conflict was effective in “restricting” the U.S’s “global hegemonic strategy”
not only within Europe but also in Asia.”169
Thus, Gaullist actions, even as distant as in Europe, fortified Beijing's preference
for a balance-of-power approach to foreign policy rather than an ideological one.170
Thinking in terms of the “balance of power,” Mao began to recast his theories to be more
in line with the material distribution of power rather than a reflection of Marxist-Leninist
or even Maoist ideologies alone.171 Mao increasingly imagined a “secondary intermediate
zone,” comprising countries like France, Japan, Canada, and, West Germany, and sought
to use diplomacy as the tool for his new strategy to engage with this so-called “second
world.”172 In his speech to party officials in 1963, Mao declared that de Gaulle’s
168
A Foreign Ministry report observes that splits in the “imperialist camp have reached a new peak.” My
views on relations with France from the Swiss Embassy, March 26, 1963, Chinese Foreign Ministry
Archives, file no. 110—01984—0 (hereafter cited as PRC FMA).
169
In such a way as to assist the “formerly colonized people’s struggle against imperialism.” Ibid. Indeed,
de Gaulle’s doctrine of “neutralité” in Indochina and his grand diplomatic displays supporting
decolonization and national self-determination in the Third World (e.g., his 1966 Phnom Penh speech and
his trip to Latin America in 1964) further undermined the U.S.’s position in Vietnam in the 1960s. Much to
the pleasure of the Chinese as Premier Zhou revealed to Malraux during his visit in 1965. “Discussion
between André Malraux and Zhou Enlai in Beijing,” August 2, 1965, Séries: Asie, 1956-67, Sous-série:
Chine, vol. 532, FFM. Malraux also met with Chairman Mao and Chen Yi during his visit.
170
As Dong Wang argues, “Beijing finally came to appreciate the fallacies in its overzealous commitment
to world revolution and sought to tap into the power of the United States to balance against the Soviet
threat. Dong Wang, “From Enmity to Rapprochement,” 14.
171
With the emergence of the Sino-Soviet split, the Chinese foreign policy elite sought to export the Maoist
model as an alternative to the corrupted “Kruschchev revisionism,” endeavouring to steer emerging
communist nations towards its Maoist paradigm through ideologic rhetoric and active funding. Zhou
declared at the Tenth Plenum council on 26 September 1962 that “Marxist truth and the center of world
revolution are shifting from Moscow to Beijing.” Quoted from Danhui Li and Yafeng Xia “Jockeyiing for
Leadership: Mao and the Sino-Soviet Split, 1961-1964” Journal of Cold War Studies 16 no.1 (Winter
2014) 51.
172
This emerged from Mao’s initial theory of “one intermediate zone” in the 1940s and 1950s, which then
morphed into the theory of “two intermediate zones” in the 1960s and made official strategy in the 1970s.
58
“opposition to the U.S. was evidence” that China could ally with so-called “imperialists”
like France against “U.S. imperialism” and that the end result of such partnerships would
be to “finally throw out the Americans sitting on their backs.” De Gaulle’s
acknowledgement of Algeria's independence, with the signing of the Évian Accords in
March 1962, knocked down the last major diplomatic obstacle to better Sino-French
relations. A year later, de Gaulle refused to sign President Kennedy’s nuclear Limited
Test Ban Treaty, which had been partly designed to curtail China’s nuclear project. Both
the French and the Chinese came to separate but similar conclusions that the treaty was
an example of increasing Soviet-American condominium and that nuclear weapons were
necessary symbols of “great power” status.173 From an ideological perspective, de
Gaulle’s liquidation of the French empire in Indochina and North Africa made
rapprochement with the French more acceptable. Above all, Gaullist France’s objective
to become a strong, independent, and self-reliant world power in an ever more
ideologically fissured global order resonated deeply with the Chinese communists, and
This theory saw the pursuit of national interests and sovereignty as the basis of foreign policy strategy and
sought the deployment of an anti-hegemonic diplomacy-driven strategy. Mao declared in 1963, “there are a
number of people in Europe, North America and Oceania are against U.S. imperialism. Some of the
imperialists are against U.S. imperialism too. De Gaulle's opposition to the U.S. is evidence. We now put
forward the view that there are two intermediate zones: Asia, Africa and Latin America are the first, and
Europe, North America and Oceania, the second. Japan belongs to the second intermediate zone too….in
my view, in the course of time many of these people will finally throw out the Americans sitting on their
backs.” “Mao Zedong, 'There Are Two Intermediate Zones',” September, 1963, Ministry of Foreign Affairs
of the People's Republic of China and the Party Literature Research Center, eds., Mao Zedong on
Diplomacy (Beijing: Foreign Languages Press, 1998), 387-389; Jiang An, “Mao Zedong’s “Three Worlds”
Theory: Political Considerations and Value for the Times,” Social Sciences in China 34 (2013).
173
“Test Ban Treaty Safeguards 1963,” Robert McNamara Papers, record Group 200, box 63, National
Archives.
59
especially Mao.174 Mao's conclusion from de Gaulle’s actions was that the “second
world” could be another “third force” against China’s principle enemy, the U.S.175
While Gaullist foreign policy behaviour pushed Mao to further consider
engagement with the “second world,” China’s difficult relations with the USSR served as
the ultimate tipping point. In 1957, Mao’s famous speech about the “east wind prevailing
over the west wind,” held that the former colonies in Africa and Asia were already
casting off the shackles of imperialist rule and that the former Western imperialist nations
were “outdated enemies” whose power was weakening in the light of the new postcolonial era. Mao also praised the Soviets for their leadership of this camp of Third
World post-colonial nations. Mao’s “east wind prevailing over the west wind” speech
reflected his rejection of the Western capitalist-imperialist countries as well as his
adherence to the Marxist “antagonist contradiction theory,” which held that capitalism
and socialism could never peacefully co-exist.176 In 1962, however, things began to
change radically as tensions with the Soviets reached new levels of severity.
Khrushchev’s unbridled censure of China’s belligerent and careless actions in provoking
174
Zhou Enlai would later report to Cambodia’s Norodom Sihanouk that “[De Gaulle] is a Western who
resembles us.” C.L. Sulzberger, “Foreign Affairs,” New York Times, October 16, 1963. From 1963
onwards, the People’s Daily ceased writing articles criticizing French policy in Algeria.
175
All this fit into Mao’s “dual-adversary” theory, which aimed at countering the hegemonism of both the
U.S. and the USSR. Johnston emphasizes that Mao’s theory distinguished between the “principal
antagonistic contradiction” (primary threat) and the “secondary antagonistic contradiction” (temporary
ally). Beginning in the early 1960s, the Chinese placed the Second World of capitalist advanced countries
like France in the “secondary antagonistic contradiction” category. After 1969, they also placed the U.S. in
this category and identified the USSR as the “principal antagonistic contradiction.” Alistair Iain Johnston in
discussion with the author, February 2016.
176
Mao declared that “all imperialists are like the sun at six o'clock in the afternoon and we are like the sun
at six o'clock in the morning. Hence a turning point has been reached, that is to say the Western countries
have been left behind and we now clearly have the upper hand. It is definitely not the west wind that
prevails over the east wind, so weak is the west wind. It is definitely the east wind that prevails over the
west wind, because we are the stronger ones.” Mao Zedong, “Speech at a Meeting of the Representatives of
Sixty-four Communist and Workers,” November 18, 1957, History and Public Policy Program Digital
Archive, Mao Zedong wenji (Selected Works of Mao Zedong), vol. 7 (Beijing: Renmin chubanshe, 1999).
For a secondary source account, refer to Li, Shen, Leaning to One Side, 223.
60
the 1962 Sino-Indian war and his generally cavalier and condescending attitude toward
Beijing demonstrated to the Chinese communists that the post-Stalinist Soviets were not
faithful ideologues but rather “revisionists” and “social-imperialists.”177 This was
compounded by the fact that, in Beijing’s eyes, the USSR had seriously under-committed
in the Korean War and showed itself willing to compromise with the “paper tiger,” the
U.S., through its policy of “peaceful co-existence” and its decision to withdraw ballistic
missiles from Cuba in 1962.178 Beijing’s response to this estrangement with the Soviets
was to follow a two-pronged strategy: to finance and lead the Third World as a
“revolutionary power,” on one hand, and to engage with the “second world” through
peaceful diplomatic procedures as a “status quo” power, on the other hand. This
bifurcation reflected disagreement in the CCP about China’s appropriate strategic goals
as well as the contradictions in Mao’s own strategic thinking at the time.179
In addition to security concerns about the Soviets, China believed that enhanced
relations with Western capitalist countries could present vital economic gains. Crucially,
177
“Social-imperialists” in the sense that they were socialists in word but imperialists in practice. In 1962,
China also accused the Soviets of encouraging Uighurs to cross from China into the USSR and the Soviets
criticized China’s Taiwan policy for the first time. “Discussion between N.S. Khrushchev and Mao
Zedong,” October 02, 1959, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Archive of the President
of the Russian Federation (APRF), f. 52, op. 1, d.499, ll. 1-33, copy in Volkogonov Collection, Manuscript
Division, Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. Translated by Vladislav M. Zubok. Accessed via:
http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/112088
178
This contradicted the Marxist and Maoist theory that capitalism and socialist could not peacefully coexist (i.e. Mao’s Antagonistic Contradiction Theory); Chen Jian, Mao's China and the Cold War, 64-84.
179
For instance, in 1962, Wang Jiaxiang, director of the Party's International Liaison Department,
argued that China should reconcile with the Soviets, improve relations with imperialist nations, and return
to the “Five Principles of Peaceful Co-existence” approach espoused at the Geneva Conference. Wang was
especially worried about the sharp increase in foreign aid outflows since 1960. According to Yang
Kuisong, one-third of Chinese aid went to the Democratic Republic of Vietnam at around this time. Yang,
“Changes in Mao’s Attitude Toward the Indochina War, 1949-1973,” pp. 21-22. Mao took a different view,
connecting domestic ‘continuous revolution’ with ‘world revolution’ and national liberation. Mao defended
“that China must support the armed struggles in South Vietnam and Laos without conditions because they
were "excellent armed struggles”…and emphasized that his policy, by contrast, was to fight against the
imperialists, revisionists, and reactionaries in all countries and, at the same time, to promote revolutionary
developments at home and abroad.” See Chen Jian, Mao's China and the Cold War, 2001, pp. 83.
61
economic assistance and technical military aid to China was beginning to dwindle in
1958. Khrushchev unilaterally abrogated the Soviet commitment to supply a prototype
bomb to the Chinese in 1959 and ordered the withdrawal of all Soviet experts from China
by July 1960, further frustrating Beijing.180 China was therefore desperate for industrial
goods.181 For all these reasons, by 1962, Mao and Zhou were gravely impacted by the
gravity of China’s diplomatic isolation on the world stage and its dire economic
situation.182 To add to this, financing of Third World revolutions in far-flung corners of
the world such as Lebanon and Tanzania was costing it dearly.183 In spite of these
payouts, Beijing received no concrete political gain because these countries had neither
the intention nor the capacity to ally with China against the USSR.184 Rather than
generating any economic or geopolitical gain, its leadership of the Third World drained
its coffers and alienated it further from the rest of the international community, which
180
Danhui Li and Yafeng Xia, 24-60; "Minutes of Conversation Between Mao Zedong and Ambassador
Yudin, July 22, 1958,” Cold War International History Program Bulletin 6-7 (1995/6): 155-157.
181
Especially after the disastrous impacts of the Great Leap Forward (1958-61) and later the Cultural
Revolution. In 1967, the Chinese asked the French to help them reach out to the West Germans for
normalization talks. Fei Yiming was sent by Zhou to be an informal envoy and met with a West German
official in May 1967. “Memorandum from Klaus Schütz,” 19 May 1967, in AAPBD, 1967, 2: 754-755.
After this meeting, West German exports to China grew by 60% but the Germans were not interested in
pursuing normalization. Suri, 228.
182
Chen Jian gives a good account of China’s isolation in Chen Jian, Mao's China and the Cold War. As of
1964, the only non-communist countries that recognized the P.R.C. were: India (January 1, 1950); Great
Britain (January 6, 1950); Norway (January 7, 1950); Denmark (January 9, 1950); Finland (January 13,
1950); Sweden (January 14, 1950); Switzerland (January 17, 1950); The Netherlands (March 27, 1950);
Lichtenstein (September 14); a few Middle Eastern states in the latter half of the 1950s; and a series of
African countries in the 1960s.
183
The Chinese were supplying the PLO with military and medical supplies out of their bases in Jordan and
Lebanon. The Chinese funded and built the Tam-Zam railway in Tanzania in the 1960s - its most expensive
foreign aid commitment in Africa. Note: Chinese also financed non-socialist countries that voted for it in
the United Nations, reflecting its pragmatic use of foreign aid even during the radical internationalist phase
of its foreign policy in the 1960s.
184
“The Beijing leaders have not managed to get the Third World interested in their anti-Soviet dispute;
and they were certainly impressed, during the invasion of Czechoslovakia, by the relative indifference of
African and Asian governments.” “Note Number 399 from Pierre Cerles to Michel Debré, 'China and
Eastern Europe',” May 16, 1969, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Archives of the
Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France, accessed via: http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116451
62
perceived it to be more radical than the Soviets. In contrast, the Chinese political elite
believed that Western capitalist nations could offer technological and economic
assistance that would be beneficial to its economic development toward Mao's ideal of a
“rich state, strong army” (
). Indeed, total trade between France and China
almost doubled from 257 million to 511 million francs from 1961 to 1965 and French
exports of wheat helped feed Chinese peasants after the disastrous famine accompanying
the Great Leap Forward.185 What is more, Western nations could be more reliable allies
against the Soviets and the Americans because of common vested interests, which the
French were already demonstrating.186 Engagement with the Second World seemed then
to be the better investment of China’s political capital. 1962 had become an important
inflection point for Chinese foreign policy.187 What remained was to wait for France to
make the first move, which it did, with de Gaulle’s timely dispatch of Edgar Faure to
Beijing in 1963.188 Little wonder that Mao would say to Faure “you arrive on time” when
he welcomed the French minister to Shanghai.189
From 1963 to 1964, China’s conciliatory attitude towards the French revealed the
great stock it put in enhancing relations with Paris. While the Chinese had shown a
185
Suri, 77.
French Ambassador to UK Geoffroy Chodron de Courcel observed in a diplomatic report to the French
Director of Asian Affairs, Michel Debré that “Beijing does not expect the Western countries to act as a
counterweight to the USSR, but instead wants them to supply the technological and economic assistance
that is vital for its development.” Note Number 760 from Geoffroy Chodron de Courcel to Michel Debré,
'Chinese Foreign Policy’,” June 12, 1969, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Archives of
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France, accessed via:
http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116452.
187
Yao Baihui writes that 1962 was an “important turning point year for both China and France. Yao,
“China’s Foreign Policy Adjustments to France and Faure’s Trip to China in 1963,” Chinese Communist
Party History Research 5 (2014): 37.
188
Ibid.
189
“Report Sent to General de Gaulle, President of the French Republic, by Edgar Faure, on his Mission
to China,” 478.
186
63
degree of flexibility over ideological commitments, when it came to the nuts and bolts of
normalization they seemed far less willing to compromise on the issue of Taiwan.190 For
the CCP, the question of Chinese representation struck at the core of the party’s identity
and legitimacy. Taiwan’s representation of “China” in the UN was a painful reminder
that most countries in the world did not recognize the PRC as a sovereign entity, let alone
the legitimate representative of “China.”191 The Chinese communists feared a “Two
Chinas” situation in which countries seeking to normalize with Beijing would remain
ambiguous about Chinese sovereignty and reluctant to reject Taiwan. To counter this, the
Chinese communists insisted that recognition of the PRC as the “sole legitimate
representative of China” was the absolute pre-condition for normalization.192 In 1955,
Zhou stressed this point to the Savary delegation and reiterated it to Edgar Faure in
private meetings in 1957 and 1963.193 Therefore, it comes as a surprise that the joint
communiqué on the normalization of Sino-French relations bears absolutely no mention
of Taiwan or Chinese sovereignty.194
The absence of “Taiwan” in the joint communiqué reflected Beijing’s desperation
to normalize relations with the French. As mentioned above, the increasing estrangement
190
As the British realized in their diplomatic discussions with the Chinese from 1950 to 1954.
Chinese foreign policy strategy toward normalization considered three main criteria: “the importance of
a given country, its attitude toward Taiwan, and its past treatment of the People’s Republic.” Enrico
Fardella et al., Sino-European Relations During the Cold War and The Rise of a Multipolar World : a
Critical Oral History.
192
In an interview with Czech reporters about the “two Chinas” issue on October 14, 1956, Premier Zhou
declared, “never in any case can we accept “two Chinas” in international organizations. Whoever supports
this works in the service of the USA. Negotiations are possible with those who reject the existence of the
“two Chinas.” Accepting the existence of the “two Chinas” means the end of any such possibility. We
applied to the UN, but not simultaneously [with Taiwan]. The application is to be without Taiwan there.”
“Notes of an Interview with Zhou Enlai,” October 14, 1956, History and Public Policy Program Digital
Archive, accessed via: http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116813
193
As well as in meetings with Dr. Henry Kissinger later in 1971. Edgar Faure emphasizes this in Le
serpent et La Tortue.
194
Also recalls a similar level of ambiguity later on in Sino-US rapprochement talks and the wording of the
1972 Sino-U.S. “Shanghai Communiqué.”
191
64
with the Soviets and rising cost of backing Third World revolutions spurred China’s
pursuit of an alternative strategy designed to escape isolation and simultaneously
confront both the US and the USSR. When Faure made his private and top-secret visit to
Beijing in October 1963, carrying with him a personal letter from de Gaulle addressed to
Mao, Chinese officials at the highest level jumped at the opportunity to talk with him. De
Gaulle’s timing could not have been better. At this point, Beijing was willing to
demonstrate far greater laxity in the conditions it set for normalization than had been the
case for Great Britain.195 Following de Gaulle’s instructions, Faure stressed to Zhou that
the French President could not simply throw Chiang Kai-shek aside due to the
longstanding wartime friendship between the two leaders.196 Faure emphasized that
France would not make the first move to rupture with Taiwan. In the first two rounds of
discussions, Zhou proved unyielding on the “Two Chinas” issue, seeking the French to
publicly renounce recognition of the ROC, and “the thorniest subject, of all, the issue of
“reciprocated representations in Paris and in Taipei.”197
But by the third and final round, on October 31, the eve of Faure’s departure,
Premier Zhou and Chen Yi conveyed to Faure that they would accept Gaulle’s position
and would only require Faure to relay “three tacit understandings” to the French
President before concluding negotiation talks:”198 first, the French Republic would
recognize the PRC as the “sole representative of the Chinese people”; second, the French
195
Despite Britain’s recognition of China in 1950, it was still unable to obtain accreditation for an
ambassador in Beijing and was limited to the status of chargé d’affaire because it had retained its consulate
in Taiwan.
196
“Report Sent to General de Gaulle, President of the French Republic, by Edgar Faure, on his Mission to
China,” DDF, 469-478.
197
Ibid.
198
Yao Baihui, “Sino-French Normalization Negotiations and the Establishment of “Three Tacit
Agreements” on the Taiwan Question,” Contemporary China History Studies 2 (201): 71-81.
65
would vote for the PRC at the UN; third, that there would be reciprocity in case of a
break from Taiwan initiated by the Taiwanese.199 However, Zhou described the third
“tacit understanding” in deliberately vague terms. France was not forced to immediately
break ties with Taiwan and could, in effect, retain a consul in Taipei.200 More
importantly, the French were not required formally to agree to these “tacit
understandings” as Faure emphasized in his report to de Gaulle.201 Back in Quai d’Orsay,
de Gaulle and his French diplomats were confident that Beijing would not impose the
condition of breaking first with Formosa before normalization. They bet on the fact that
Taipei would most probably choose to break with Paris first and that China desperately
needed allies. Less than one week after the announcement of Sino-French normalization,
Taipei withdrew its embassy from Paris. De Gaulle’s bet had paid off.202
Having compromised on Maoist ideology and on the Taiwan issue, the Chinese
were extremely wary of the optics of the agreement and sought ways to repackage the
normalization deal to different audiences. Five days before the announcement of the joint
communiqué, the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs dispatched a diplomatic cable to
all embassies and offices of chargé d’affaires around the world, giving them notice of the
forthcoming communiqué. In this cable, the Ministry informed diplomatic officials that
the government would be publishing a “statement after the issuance of the joint
communiqué to explain that the Government of the People’s Republic of China reached
199
France would agree to withdraw its embassy in Taipei if Taiwan made the first move to withdraw their
embassy from Paris.
200
This ended up occurring when Taiwan pulled out of Paris and broke off ties with France on February 10,
two weeks after the joint communiqué’s announcement.
201
Faure believed that the Chinese “adopted an entirely conciliatory position and I do not see how we can
ask them for concessions or a withdrawal from the defined position.” He reflected that the Chinese
behavior showed that the Chinese were “keener than we are.” “Report Sent to General de Gaulle, President
of the French Republic, by Edgar Faure, on his Mission to China,” DDF, 469-478.
202
Alphand, 419-20.
66
the agreement on the establishment of diplomatic relations with the French government
as the sole legal government representing the Chinese people.”203 The Ministry admitted
that this was necessary “because the text of the joint communiqué” was “relatively
simple.” It then instructed all foreign policy officials to “vary” “the substance and
content” of the information concerning China and France’s normalization deal, according
to the country in question.204 In its announcement of the deal to other nations, Beijing
was effectively seeking to affix, ex post facto, “the three tacit understandings.” Beijing
clearly did not want other countries to learn the degree to which both ideology and the
Taiwan issue had been compromised.205206
3. French Influence on Beijing’s U.S. Policy (1964-71)
French influence on China’s foreign policy remained significant well after 1964.
China’s regard for France gave French ministers and diplomats such as Lucien Paye,
André Malraux, and Étienne Manac’h, an extremely privileged level of access to Beijing
203
“Cable from the Foreign Ministry, 'Please Notify the Governments of the Receiving Countries of the
Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and France',” January 22, 1964, PRC FMA 11001999-04, 16-17.
204
“If asked by the officials of the receiving countries and diplomatic personnel of those countries whom
we have informed, we should tell them that China and France have reached an agreement on the
establishment of diplomatic relations, [but] the substance and content [of this information] should vary with
different persons.” Ibid.
205
The Chinese continued to give special treatment to the French even in the direct aftermath of the
tumultuous Cultural Revolution. In 1966, at the height of the CR, all ambassadors (but one) were called
back to China to participate in ‘struggle sessions.’ The Chinese Ambassador at Paris was the first
ambassador to a non-socialist state to return to his post in May 1969, and only second to the Ambassador to
Albania. In 1970, André Bettencourt and his delegation of French senators became the first Western group
to be received by the Chinese leadership in Beijing after the Cultural Revolution. All this exemplified the
extent to which France was considered a “reliable partner of first-rank importance.” Albers notes that “the
friction between France and China was never as deep as between the PRC and Britain, not to speak of the
United States. This allowed bilateral relations to quickly improve once China began to pursue a less
aggressive line towards the West.” Albers, 220-221.
206
The Chinese were also cautious not to let other western countries know about the terms of the deal for
fear that it would set a precedent whereby nations would choose to retain an ambiguous line vis-à-vis the
“Two Chinas” question. “Cable from the Foreign Ministry, 'Please Notify the Governments of the
Receiving Countries of the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations between China and France',” January 22,
1964, PRC FMA 110-01999-04, 16-17.
67
officials, even among socialist nations. Through this channel, Paris was able to exercise a
degree of influence on Beijing’s foreign policy behaviour in three main areas. Firstly, in
Europe, France’s recognition opened the sluice gate for other countries to follow in the
French footsteps. The Italians and Canadians were the next major Western countries to
recognize China, consciously adopting the “French method” of communicating and
negotiating with the Chinese.207 The French also actively facilitated China’s preparatory
meetings with other states by serving as a diplomatic back-channel, as it did for the
Italians, the Japanese, and the Malaysians, as well as the Americans later on.208 The
pinnacle of France’s contributions emerged when it successfully rallied European and
Francophone votes in the General Assembly for UN recognition of the P.R.C. in 1971.209
As de Gaulle had predicted in 1964 and Lucien Paye, the first French Ambassador to
China, had articulated in a telegram to Quai d’Orsay in 1966, China’s sheer size and its
geopolitical significance in maintaining world order in the Cold War climate meant that
207
The Italians and Canadians recognized the P.R.C. in 1970. The fact that these recognitions occurred a
whole six years after the French recognition is no doubt related to the radical implosion of Chinese politics
during the Cultural Revolution and a reminder of how daring France’s recognition was at the time. The
Italians wrote in their China policy report that “it would seem advisable to follow the method adopted by
the French. It requires recognition to occur simultaneously to the establishment of diplomatic relations and
that negotiations to this end are carried out in utmost secrecy. Moreover, it seems that Canada is following
a similar procedure.”“Italian Policy towards the People’s Republic of China,” November 27, 1968, History
and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, Historical Archive of the Italian Foreign Ministry. Obtained by
Enrico Fardella and translated by Joe Caliò. http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116465
208
Henry Kissinger chose Jean Sainteny to deliver messages to Beijing. Senator Mansfield sent messages
via Prince Sihanouk to Ambassador Lucien Paye to then transmit to Zhou in 1969.
209
On October 25, 1971, at the 1976th plenary meeting of the General Assembly, a clear majority of 76
nations voted to recognize the P.R.C as the only “only legitimate representative of China to the United
Nations. The resolution, proposed by Albania, was titled “Resolution 2758: Restoration of Lawful Rights of
the People’s Republic in the UN” and was met with a majority of 76 approvals, 35 rejections, and 17
abstentions on October 25 1971. Resolution 2758: Restoration of the lawful rights of the People’s Republic
of China in the United Nations. Resolutions and Decisions of the United Nations General Assembly 26th
Session, 1967th plenary meeting, 25 October 1971.
68
international recognition was “inevitable” and grounded in “reality.”210 The UN
Secretariat agreed.211
Secondly, as argued earlier in this chapter, Gaullist policies inspired the
remodeling of Maoist grand strategy. Sustained dialogue with the French enabled China
to better understand the concerns and positions of Western capitalist nations and prepared
the Chinese foreign policy elite for understanding how to interface with representatives of
Western countries and in particular the U.S.212 Mao’s growing conviction that
engagement with the Western world was better than isolation helped to legitimate the
positions of moderates in the CCP such as Wang Jiaxiang, Liu Shaoqi and Deng
Xiaoping who had for some time advocated for engagement and conciliation vis-à-vis the
West. Gaullist principles, coupled with the deft diplomatic skills of de Gaulle’s
emissaries and diplomats, had the effect of mollifying Mao’s erratic foreign policy
behaviour and directing Mao’s strategy westward rather than inward.213 This trend-line
210
“Telegram number 3725-59 from M. Lucien Paye,” November 16, 1966, DDF 1966, t.II, 874-878.
UN Under-Secretary-General Vladimir Suslov wrote a report for the then UN Secretary-General, U
Thant, a few days after the announcement of Sino-French normalization. Suslov stated that a future UN
recognition of China would make the organization more “representative of the existing distribution of
world power.” Suslov's position was that efforts towards “world peace” could not come “to fruition if a
major power that seeks to be heard is not included in that deliberation.” “Report, UN Department of
Political and Security Council Affairs, 'French Recognition of the P.R.C and Its Consequences for the
United Nations',” January 23, 1964, History and Public Policy Program Digital Archive, "Trip to Africa,
January - February 1964 - background notes from PSCA “Recognition of People's Republic of China," S0883-0006-01, United Nations Archives and Records Management Section (UN ARMS), New York, NY.
accessed via: http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/117691
212
Author’s interview with historian Shen Zhihua, Beijing, August 2015. Author’s interview with Wu
Jianmin, Beijing, August 2015. Former Chinese Ambassador to France, Wu was an interpreter to Mao and
Zhou during the early 1970s.
213
It is important to recall that, to some extent, China was returning to the days of so-called “Bandung
diplomacy” (c. 1954). Zhou Enlai “Preliminary Opinions on the Assessment of and Preparation for the
Geneva Conference,” Cold War International History Project Bulletin 16, (1954): 12-13. In 1964, Mao
revealed to Faure that he wanted to connect more with Western Europe, in particular “United Kingdom,
West Germany, and Italy.” He also sent signals to Western European countries such as West Germany
through the Ambassador Manac’h. “Sino-French Similarities,” January 30, 1964, Mao Zedong waijiao
wenxuan, 521-522. The Chinese requested French help to reach West Germany, seeking “political”
relations not “only economic contacts.” Beijing passed this message through Romanian Ambassador to
211
69
dovetailed, of course, with the Cultural Revolution, which further brought home the
economic and political costs of China’s radical autarkic isolation.
Thirdly, France was able to influence Chinese foreign policy elite’s perceptions of
the U.S. and act as informal mediators between Beijing and Washington.214 Changing
China’s attitudes toward the U.S. was no easy task given the history of antagonism
between the two countries, fueled by profound ideological and security-based
concerns.215 According to the conventional scholarship on Sino-U.S rapprochement, the
growing Soviet threat ultimately drove China to align itself with the U.S., following the
principles of “balance of threat.”216 Following the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in
1968 and the Sino-Soviet border conflict at Zhenbao in 1969, Sino-Soviet relations
deteriorated to a point where the Soviets threatened military action against Chinese
nuclear facilities. The Chinese, in response, started a war preparation and mobilization
campaign, readying their air defense fields, bomb shelters, food storage, and nuclear
facilities for war. The situation was calmed only after the Soviet Premier Alexei
Kosygin’s visit to Beijing on September 11, 1969 to discuss border negotiations.217 Given
France, Dr. Dimitriu, to Manac’h who then passed it onto his West German counterpart, Alexander Böker.
“Memorandum from Alexander Böker,” April 11, 1967, in AAPBD, 1968, 1: 291, n.1. Quoted from Suri,
227.
214
Finally, and most interestingly, the French consciously acted as mediators between East and West by
presenting their views of other countries’ policies to the Chinese. Albers, 221.
215
Yang Kuisong and Xia Yafeng, “Vacillating between Revolution and Détente: Mao’s Changing Psyche
and Policy toward the United States, 1969–1976,” Diplomatic History 34 (2010): 395-423.
216
Moreover, according to objective trend measures in 1969, the USSR looked set to overtake the US in
relative share of world power capabilities and military personnel and spending. In 1969, US military
personnel: 3.5 million; USSR: 4.2 million. In 1972, US: 2.3 million; USSR: 4 million. In addition, Soviet
military expenditure surpassed US amount in 1972: US $77.6 billion; USSR $88.9 billion. For analysis of
“balance of threat” theories, see Stephen Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, 1987).
217
Kosygin’s meeting with Zhou at the Beijing Airport in September 1969 seemed to promise a relaxation
of tensions with the Soviets, as the Hungarian Foreign Ministry observed. “Minutes of the Political
Committee Held on 5 May 1970,” Hungarian National Archives, HNA, M-KS-288f-5.a-517. Obtained by
Péter Vámos and translated by Gwenyth A. Jones, accessed via:
http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/110266
70
these events, the structuralist “balance-of-threat” argument explains why Mao, the
previously committed communist revolutionary, was driven ultimately by vital national
security interests to align with the U.S.218 However, this argument is overly schematized
and contains some fundamentally flawed premises about Mao’s thinking. It works on the
assumption that Mao was bound to make the strategically judicious and rationally optimal
choice, which in this case called for closer ties with Washington. However, Mao had a
track record of fickle foreign policy-making and did not always adhere to pure balanceof-power or balance-of-threat calculations. As the Korean War and Zhenbao Incident
demonstrated, Mao was often willing to make highly sub-optimal foreign policy moves:
manufacturing nationalistic but costly wars in order to “divert” domestic attention from
failed economic reforms.219
What is more, in the summer of 1969, it looked as though Mao’s position was to
maintain the “dual adversary line against both the U.S. and the USSR. Commissioned by
Mao to conduct a top-secret review of Sino-American-Soviet relations and the likelihood
of war, four senior Marshals compiled a report in which they assessed that the U.S. was
on the strategic defensive, whereas the USSR was on the strategic offensive. Thus, they
concluded, the Soviets were the greater threat in the foreseeable future. However, the four
marshals advocated waging “a tit-for-tat struggle against both the United States and the
218
Yang and Xia cite Mao’s theory of “world revolution” (liberating the “oppression” peoples of the world
and exporting the China revolutionary model) as the real heart of his foreign policy thinking and
ideological beliefs. See: Yang Kuisong and Xia Yafeng, “Vacillating between Revolution and Détente,”
395-423.
219
Goldstein argues that Mao’s need for an external threat to distract the public from domestic troubles
leftover from the Cultural Revolution drove the breakout of the Sino-Soviet Zhenbao incident at Ussuri in
1969: Mao ordered the PLA to ambush the Soviets stationed on Zhenbao Island, thereby sparking the
conflict. Chen Jian mirrors Goldstein's “diversionary” theory of conflict in his study of Mao's decision to
enter the Korean War. See: Lyle Goldstein, "Return to Zhen Bao Island: Who Started Shooting and Why it
Matters" The China Quarterly (2001): 985-997. Chen Jian, Mao’s China, 49-64; 85-117.
71
Soviet Union, including using negotiation as a means of fighting against them.”220 What
the report revealed was that while the Chinese considered the USSR the more immediate
threat, deep-seated misgivings towards the Americans stymied any decision to
immediately align with the U.S. The Chinese did not trust that the U.S. would not to seek
to exploit Sino-Soviet tensions for their own gain.221 Although Sino-Soviet relations were
at their worst in 1969, “balance of threat” calculations alone were not enough to push
ever-cautious Beijing toward Washington.222
Chinese reservations about U.S. intentions were conveyed to the French in several
meetings between 1968 and 1972.223 In a meeting with Ambassador Manac’h on August
14, 1969, Vice-President of the Permanent Committee, Guo Moruo, criticized the
Americans for their disingenuousness: “their acts never correspond with their words and
for us actions count.”224 Deputy Chairman Dong Biwu declared to Manac’h that same
year that “Nixon pretends to be amicably disposed towards France and China. But I
believe this is impossible, at least with regards to China. We consider Nixon’s ‘Europe’
policy to be no different from that of Eisenhower, Johnson, and Truman….” Censuring
220
“Report by Four Chinese Marshals, Chen Yi, Ye Jianying, Xu Xiangqian, and Nie Rongzhen, to the
Central Committee, 'A Preliminary Evaluation of the War Situation' (excerpt),” July 11, 1969, Zhonggong
dangshi ziliao (CCP Party History Materials), no. 42 (1992): 70-75.
221
The Marshals used a Chinese idiom to describe the U.S.: “sitting on top of the mountain to watch a fight
between two tigers [such that] they [the Americans] will see the weakening of both China and the Soviet
Union. Ibid.
222
In fact, by the end of 1969, relations with Moscow seemed to be improving thanks to Kosygin’s
intervention.
223
Even as late as one month before Nixon’s visit. “Minutes of Meeting between Mendès-France and Zhou
Enlai,” January 7, 1972, Série: Asie-Oéanie, Sous-Série: Chine, 119QO/758, AD.
224
“Meeting with Guo Moruo: Chinese Attitudes towards the United States,” August 14, 1969, no. 622/AS,
Série Chine, Sous-série Pékin B, Papiers Manac’h, 700, CADN. Guo Mouruo criticized U.S. Asia strategy,
stating that the “the Americans speak of military retreat from Vietnam but they continue to make more war
than ever…there is a great deceit behind their words. Their acts never correspond with their words and, for
us, it is acts that count. We thank you for what you have tired us on behalf of the Americans but again we
believe that there is too great a difference between their words and their acts.” Manac’h defended his
position, maintaining that he was not “speaking on behalf of the Americans” and was “most certainly not
their advocate.”
72
President Nixon, Dong maintained that the U.S. President only “pretended” to “want to
find a political solution to Vietnam” and that he was in reality seeking to “isolate” China.
While Dong admitted that it was not “impossible” for the U.S. to change its “imperialist”
attitude, he concluded that for the moment, at least, the Chinese did not “discern any
indication of change” in the Nixon administration from its predecessors.
The French responded to these misgivings by re-iterating that the Americans were
sincere in their desire to improve relations with China and that Nixon was departing from
the hawkish positions of previous policy-makers such as Dulles. Speaking to Premier
Zhou Enlai on September 25, 1969, Ambassador Manac’h introduced the topic of a
softening of U.S. strategy toward China. “Our impression is that the U.S. has decided to
end Dulles’ Asia policy and that, as a result, this country is seeking to set up relations
with China,” argued Manac’h, adding that these findings had been concluded from recent
“Franco-American discussions.” The Americans, according to Manac’h, now believed
that their “policy of isolation toward China [was] both absurd and ineffective.”225 Above
all, Manac’h stressed to the Chinese that in providing these insights, they were not acting
as “the advocates of the Americans. The Americans are big enough to defend themselves.
We are only seeking to expose what we believe to be an objective view of things.”226
Manac’h’s defense of the sincerity of U.S. intentions clearly discomforted the
Chinese delegation. Zhou responded in highly vague and laconic terms, maintaining that
the situation with the U.S. was “very complicated.” Zhou repeated the conclusion of the
225
“We know that the Americans are quite disappointed not to have received any responses from you to
their desire to restart the negotiations at Warsaw,” Manac'h added. Ibid.
226
While the Chinese defended their anti-American posture, they seem to have taken a guarded interest in
Manac’h’s findings. Premier Zhou even asked Manac’h about his analysis on Nixon’s policy: “is this your
personal conviction?” “Meeting with M. Zhou Enlai,” April 14, 1971, no. 289/AS, Pékin Série C, Papiers
Manac’h, 700, CADN.
73
“Four Marshal’s report,” arguing that the US was evidently “rejoicing” in the Sino-Soviet
split and would inevitably seek to exploit it further where possible. Manac’h disagreed
with this view, remarking that Nixon’s objective was a “policy of extreme prudence,”
seeking ultimately to “retreat with honor” from Vietnam while finding “a way to
normalize relations with China.”227 In numerous meetings with Chinese foreign policy
elites, Manac’h attempted to convince his Chinese counterparts that the Nixon
administration was completely re-evaluating its Vietnam and Asia strategies.228 The logic
that Manac’h’s offered was that the U.S. needed China as much as China needed the U.S.
Based on his meetings with high-level Amerian officials, Manac’h concluded that Nixon
sought to stay outside a Sino-Soviet quarrel, if possible, and strengthen relations with
both Moscow and Beijing. The Chinese responded either by politely acknowledging
differences and changing the subject or returning to the default mode of praising the
sagaciousness of Gaulle and Gaullist ideals, especially in Algeria, as compared to
American “imperialist” actions in Vietnam.229 Zhou observed to Senator André
Bettencourt in 1970 that Nixon would not “let go” of Vietnam because it would diminish
US status and prestige. The fact that Nixon was increasing bombing and covert
operations was unequivocal proof to the Chinese. Able to quote the entirety of de
Gaulle’s 1966 Phnom Penh speech by heart, Zhou argued that the differences between
227
Ibid; Albers, 22.
“Meeting with Vice-President Dong Bi-wu,” May 22, 1969, Série Asie-Océanie, Sous-série Chine,
119QO/747, AD.
229
“Minutes of Meeting between Mendès-France and Zhou Enlai,” December 25, 1971, Série Pékin B, 513
PO/B, 124, 700, CADN; “Minutes of Meeting between André Bettencourt and Zhou Enlai,” July 10, 1970,
Série Pékin B, 513 PO/B, 124, 700, CADN. One official, however, went so far as to concede that
Washington might indeed one day alter its approach towards Asia. Albers, 222.
228
74
“Nixon’s April 30 speech and de Gaulle’s September 1966 [Phnom Penh] speech,”
revealed the fundamental divergences in de Gaulle and Nixon’s Indochina policies.230
Though they often agreed to disagree, Chinese foreign policy elites clearly
listened attentively to Manac’h’s points and French insights into U.S. intentions and
strategies. There was notable degree of interest in perspectives on Nixon: was he a hawk
like Dulles or not? Did Nixon seek to join the Soviets in encircling China? These were
just some of the concerns that Zhou and other foreign policy elites raised.231 While
French reassurances and advocacy for U.S. interests were certainly not the ultimate or
decisive cause in moves toward Sino-American rapprochement, the French contribution
cannot be denied nor underestimated. After all, Mao and Zhou were far less certain about
the wisdom of a united Sino-American front against the Soviets than is traditionally
assumed and the French were a great deal more active in advocating for American
interests than even the Americans realized.232 Little wonder then that Zhou himself would
acknowledge de Gaulle’s role in informing the Chinese of Nixon’s intentions.233
Acting as the U.S.’s informal advocate, the French played the surprising role of
facilitating Sino-US rapprochement. Manac’h’s frequent re-iterations to several Chinese
230
“Minutes of Meeting between André Bettencourt and Zhou Enlai,” July 10, 1970, Série Pékin B, 124,
CADN; For Nixon’s speech, see Richard Nixon: "Address to the Nation on the Situation in Southeast
Asia.," April 30, 1970, The American Presidency Project, accessed via.
http://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/ws/?pid=2490.
231
“Minutes of Meeting between Mendès-France and Zhou Enlai,” December 25, 1971, Série Pékin B, 513
PO/B, 124, 700, CADN; “Minutes of Meeting between André Bettencourt and Zhou Enlai,” July 10, 1970,
Série Pékin B, 513 PO/B, 124, 700, CADN; “Meeting with Guo Moruo: Chinese Attitudes towards the
United States,” August 14, 1969, no. 622/AS, Série Chine, Sous-série Pékin B, Papiers Manac’h, 700,
CADN.
232
Yang Kuisong and Xia Yafeng argue that Mao’s alignment with the US was reluctant and rationalized
ex post facto as a strategic move in alignment with Maoist theories of “a horizontal line” and “big terrain.”
Yang Kuisong and Xia Yafeng, “Vacillating between Revolution and Détente: Mao’s Changing Psyche and
Policy toward the United States, 1969–1976,” Diplomatic History 34 (2010): 395-423.
233
Albers, 222; “Telegram no. 3211/15,” July 20, 1971, Série Asie-Océanie, Sous-série Chine, 119QO,
AD.
75
leaders that he was not acting as an “advocate” for the U.S. was designed to present the
French as an objective third-party and impartial “peace-broker” acting purely “in good
faith.”234 In doing so, the French were able to argue the case for the Americans much
better than the Americans could ever do for themselves, as the failed Warsaw negotiation
rounds repeatedly demonstrated. All of which begs the question: What interests did the
French have in advocating for the Americans in this way? Part of the reason for this
behaviour was that Washington’s policies had indeed changed in 1968 under Nixon, as
had the state of Franco-American relations. The rift between the France and the U.S. that
had begun with President Kennedy was beginning to mend, under the influence of the
Nixon Doctrine as well as the mutually respectful relationship between Nixon and de
Gaulle.235 But the principal driving factor still lay in Gaullist foreign policy. As de Gaulle
intimated to his Ambassador to the US, Hervé Alphand, in January 1966, “the [Vietnam]
War will continue and get worse. We must not intervene, but instead establish and
develop our relations with all the actors.”236 De Gaulle’s doctrine of “neutralité” in
Indochina, his concerted effort to bring the Chinese to the negotiating table to resolve the
Vietnam war, and his pursuit of better relations with the USSR and other Eastern
European nations, simultaneously, all reflected his objective to be on good terms with all
parties to the conflict, both in the East and in the West.
Certainly, de Gaulle enjoyed decorating France with the prestigious title of
“peace-broker,” but de Gaulle understood that there were more critical security interests
at stake. In the General’s eyes, peace and détente in Asia would ultimately enable
234
“Meeting with Guo Moruo: Chinese Attitudes towards the United States,” August 14, 1969, CADN.
After President de Gaulle, Pompidou retained this co-operative relationship with Nixon.
236
Alphand, 468.
235
76
equilibrium and détente in Europe. This would, in turn, ensure French security and
dominance of Europe.237 De Gaulle was deeply anxious that Vietnam would upend his
architecture for East-West détente in Europe and undermine the blossoming relations he
was forming with the communist bloc.238 Thus, from 1965 to 1972, de Gaulle's diplomats
and ministers repeatedly asked the Chinese for their position on resolving the Vietnam
conflict, sought the construction of a “useful dialogue” between the Chinese and
Americans via Paris, and advocated an updated Geneva Conference with the four major
powers, U.S., USSR, China, and France committing to non-intervention in Southeast
Asia.239 De Gaulle opined to both Beijing and Washington, either personally or via his
diplomats, that China was the U.S.’s card out of Vietnam.
The grand irony was that this very fact meant that the French would no longer be
relevant in the peace process, as they had envisaged.240 With the passing of de Gaulle
himself, the Gaullist vision of grand diplomacy governing the forces of History began to
wane - de Gaulle and his diplomats could only achieve so much because the real coercive
leverage to end the war lay with the Chinese as de Gaulle had predicted all along. By
1971, necessity and equilibrium pushed Beijing and Washington toward each other and
ejected France’s diplomatic influence, which had hitherto prided itself in being disruptive
and world-shaping. The seat of peace-making was moving from Paris to Beijing. Mao
had learnt in 1962 that uniting with the Third World would not provide China security
237
Martin, 115.
Martin writes that “as Paris promoted East-West détente and overcoming the Cold War order in Europe
it considered the Vietnam War a vital obstacle to that goal. It is also for this reason that the president
singled out America for blame, since he believed Washington held all the cards for ending a conflict that
impeded France’s goals.” Ibid, 113-115.
239
Including Edgar Faure, André Malraux, Lucien Paye, and André Bettencourt.
240
Lacouture picks up on this irony writing that “it was Henry Kissinger and Richard Nixon, disciples in
their own way of the general, who in 1972 were to collect the fruit of the operation begun eight years
before in Paris.” Jean Lacouture, De Gaulle: The Ruler 1945-1970 (London: Routledge, 1991), 335.
238
77
from the Soviet threat closer to home. Engagement with the Second World was
happening far too slowly and the Europeans had limited capability and resolve to
confront the Soviets as the Europeans pursued Ostpolitik. Alignment, therefore, with the
New World seemed increasingly compelling.
Despite de Gaulle’s death in 1970, his policies lived on with the French diplomats
that retained their posts in the Waijiaobu and Quai d’Orsay. One of de Gaulle’s disciples,
Ambassador Manac’h, retained a high degree of autonomy in shaping China policy
during Pompidou’s presidency. Zhou Enlai clearly rejoiced when he met with the newly
appointed Ambassador in 1969 upon discovering that “Gaullist principles” would live on
in Sino-French relations.241 De Gaulle’s policies owed a great deal to the tactful abilities
of men such as Manac’h and his predecessor, Lucien Paye, who were able to interface
with the Chinese - even during the Cultural Revolution - in a way that clearly asserted
France’s divergent views on world affairs without causing discomfort or provoking anger
from the Chinese.242 These diplomats demonstrated that Gaullist France had two faces:
one of the bold visionary defender of grandeur and the other of the perspicacious tactful
241
It is true that China did not figure high on the agenda of Georges Pompidou. But if anything this
increased the freedom of movement for Ambassador Manac’h, who was still influenced by de Gaulle’s
ideas of global influence,” as Albers stresses. Albers, 224.
242
Manac’h pressed his case with Premier Zhou: “we are not in agreement with your analysis of the facts.
You say that Nixon went to Asia to mobilize the Southeast Asian countries for a new military effort. And if
the contrary is true? You say that the Americans are resolved to ratchet up the war in Vietnam. And what if
the contrary is true? You say that they are looking to “re-inflate” the South Vietnamese? And if the
contrary is true? The Americans undeniably have their own problems, for instance, their public opinion and
the [opinion] of their allies, and most of all the problem that a powerful country confronts: the feeling of
being quagmired (fourvoyé) in Vietnam and the difficult quest for ways of retreat which safeguard their
honor. I think our dialogue could be useful in helping to better analyst these facts (I have listed). I have
already said to the Vice-President (of the PRC) and the Vice-Minister of Foreign Affairs that we are here in
a spirit of good will.” It should be noted that Manac’h was also charged by de Gaulle to press the U.S.’s
case and help Nixon. “Meeting with M. Zhou Enlai,” April 14, 1971, no. 289/AS, Pékin Série C, Papiers
Manac’h, 700, CADN. The French still met with Chinese senior officials during the height of the cultural
revolution, underscoring the importance the Chinese gave to the French. French Ambassador to China,
Lucien Paye, met with Chen Yi on July 8, 1966. Pierre-Jean Rémy’s reflections in La Chine: Journal de
Pékin (1963-2008), p. 271. For conversation see “Telegram no. 3725-59 from M. Lucien Paye,” November
16, 1966, DDF, 1966, t.II, 874-878.
78
diplomat. Together, de Gaulle and his diplomats sowed different types of seeds in
Chinese foreign policy strategy in the period from 1964 through to 1971. In time, the
Americans would come to Beijing for the harvesting.
Central to this chapter is the premise that the 1960s was a time of increasing
multipolarity. In his magnum opus, Diplomacy, Kissinger characterized the multipolarity
of the 19th century in terms that resembled the 1960s.243 China and France were similarly
“groping for some definition of their international role.” For Gaullist France this entailed
re-defining grandeur in its post-colonial diminished state. For Maoist China it meant
trying to answer the question: would China be a “status quo” power or a “revisionist”
one? Both nations therefore sought to orient their paths to self-discovery beyond the
Scylla and Charybdis of the “Big Two.” In spite of these shared interests, it is worth
noting that both France and China were not above exploiting one other to promote their
national security interests.244 While Cold War historian John Gaddis argues that France
and China mutually sought normalization because they “no longer suffered from the
insecurities that had led them to seek alliances in the first place,” the first two chapters
indicate that the opposite holds true also: that it was precisely Paris and Beijing’s feelings
of insecurity that led them into each other’s embrace.245
243
“Then, as now, a collapsing world order spawned a multitude of states pursuing their national interests,
unrestrained by any overriding principles. Then, as now, the states making up the international order were
groping for some definition of their international role. Kissinger, Diplomacy, 77.
244
The Chinese stressed to the French that Russia was “making noise in the East in order to better attack
the West” and that Europe (not China) was the real “strategic center of the confrontation between the
superpowers.” “Schumann (Paris), circular no. 339,” July 12, 1972, AN, 5 AG2/122, Papiers de Georges
Pompidou, Archives Nationales de France; For the Chinese account, “Soviet Policy is a Diversion,” July
10, 1972, Mao Zedong waijiao wenxuan, 597.
245
John L. Gaddis, The Cold War: A New History, (New York: Penguin Press, 2005), 143.
79
From Beijing’s perspective, the focus of this chapter, de Gaulle’s bold decision
laid the foundation for a pivotal shift in the PRC’s strategic options and its outlook
toward the international community. Finally able to overcome a certain degree of
diplomatic isolation, Beijing preserved a warm sense of gratitude and goodwill toward
the French even during and directly after the Cultural Revolution and provided Paris
consistently with firsthand accounts of the its internal affairs and foreign policy
directions.246 As always, proximity was key, and the fact that the French were in Beijing
helped the French and Chinese exchange valuable policy insights even in the tumultuous
years of the Cultural Revolution.
Many historians and political scientists studying the Cold War have referenced
the structural realist hypothesis for Sino-US rapprochement. In this chapter, I have made
the case that de Gaulle and his diplomats played a role that has largely been overlooked,
especially in their softening of Beijing’s foreign policy and their advocacy for
Washington’s interests. As such, Sino-French relations were an important precursor and
precondition for eventual Sino-US rapprochement. 247 I have also sought in this chapter to
raise several subsidiary but extremely relevant points about Chinese foreign policy during
the 1960s: namely, that Mao incorporated “balance of power” theories much earlier than
246
Albers notes that, “first of all, despite the anti-imperialist rhetoric of the Cultural Revolution, there was
a true sense of gratitude in the Chinese leadership for the French step to overcome the international
isolation of the PRC. Secondly, France was the only Western country with an ambassador in Beijing. This
greatly helped forging direct contacts with top-level cadres and it also provided Paris with firsthand reports
on developments in the People’s Republic.” Albers, 220.
247
Albers is of the same view, expressing that Sino–French dialogue between 1969 and 1972 contributed to
the “successful Chinese project to overcome its almost total isolation…The clear statements of French
representatives in support of the United States gave much-needed support to those in the Chinese
administration who were involved in the rapprochement process. As the atmosphere of the Sino–French
dialogue was indeed cordial and marked by a sense of trust and partnership between equals, the French
almost certainly helped to lessen the Chinese fear of U.S. containment and provided inspiration to
reconsider Chinese policy towards the U.S.” Ibid, 223-4.
80
is traditionally held, that Beijing’s relationship with Western nations spurred its transition
from a ‘revisionist’ state to a 'status quo’ one, and that a “bridge” was beginning to
emerge in the 1960s, linking Asian and European initiatives toward multi-polarity.248
248
In contrast to the realists’ argument, constructivists like Alistair Iain Johnston argue against the notion
that rising powers are bound to be revisionists. Johnston makes the case that China is a status quo power,
showing that China has become “more integrated into and more cooperative within international
institutions than ever before. Alastair Iain Johnston, “Is China a Status Quo Power,” International Security,
Vol. 27, No. 4, 2003, pp. 5-56. Quoted from a report on Chinese foreign policy toward eastern Europe by
Pierre Cerles, French Chargé d’affaires in Beijing, to Foreign Minister Michel Debré: “Note Number 399
from Pierre Cerles to Michel Debré, 'China and Eastern Europe',” May 16, 1969, History and Public Policy
Program Digital Archive, Archives of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, France, accessed via:
http://digitalarchive.wilsoncenter.org/document/116451;
81
Chapter Three
The Nixon Administration’s Search for Détente
As the flag-covered military coffin made its procession through Washington National
Cathedral, a congregation of 2,000 people paid their final respects to a former President
of the United States and five-star general.249 It was symbolic that many of the attending
dignitaries - major leaders of WWII and the Cold War - were witnessing the passing of a
“cold warrior” who had represented a time of U.S. dominance and strength.250 In contrast,
the U.S. now appeared fatigued by the loss of blood and treasure in Vietnam, the lack of
substantive improvement in U.S.-Soviet relations, and declining economic power. Even
the transatlantic relationship was in the doldrums, leading former Secretary of State Dean
Rusk to lament that the U.S. appeared “too lonely as a world power.”251 Presidents de
Gaulle and Nixon, both attendees at this funeral, met twice on March 31 to discuss how
the U.S. would respond to the substantial challenges that it faced.
249
191 dignitaries attended the half-hour cathedral service, including President Nixon, Canadian PM Pierre
Elliott Trudeau, West German Chancellor Kurt Kiesinger, Australian PM John Gorton, Chiang Ching-kuo
(son of Chiang Kai-shek), the Shah of Iran, and President Charles de Gaulle.
250
This view was premised on the belief that due to Western Europe’s economic and security dependence
on the United States after WWII, countries like France should not follow completely independent foreign
policies. Notable “idealists” among U.S. foreign policy elites were JFK, Dulles, Rusk, and the
“Europeanists” in the State Department who “regarded de Gaulle’s nationalism as a mortal danger to
European integration and to the multilateral development of transatlantic ties” e.g. George Ball, J. Robert
Schaetzel, Walt Rostow. These “Europeanists” were often supported by the “cold warriors,” Dean
Acheson, Averell Harriman, and John McCloy. For comprehensive accounts of this see Sebastian Reyn,
Atlantis Lost: The American Experience with De Gaulle, 1959-1969, p. 196; and Trachtenberg, “The
French Factor in U.S. Foreign Policy during the Nixon-Pompidou Period, 1969-1974, Journal of Cold War
Studies 13 (2011): 55. For book on the ‘Cold Warriors’ in Eisenhower’s administration, refer to H. W.
Brands, Cold Warriors: Eisenhower's Generation and American Foreign Policy, (New York: Columbia
University Press, 1988).
251
Quoted from Reyn, 375.
82
Beginning in 1969, Nixon’s presidency pursued détente while seeking to regain
the strength and leadership of the Eisenhower years. Achieving these two points, Nixon
understood, would require embracing the political reality of multipolarity that countries
like France, Japan, and China had long been pushing for. With Kissinger’s help, Nixon
strove to “reappraise U. S. policy in the light of the new world in which we live.”252 The
core premise of Nixon and Kissinger’s strategy before coming into office was that the
acknowledgement of a more politically polycentric world, comprised of multiple and
independent centers of power, would be more advantageous to U.S. national interests in
both the short-run and the long-run.253 In defining Nixon and Kissinger’s strategy, many
since have associated it with détente and portrayed the two as lead architects of Cold War
détente. The Nixon administration defined détente as “a process of managing relations
with a potentially hostile country in order to preserve peace while maintaining our vital
interests. The administration’s détente solution was an equation combining “political
multipolarity” and “military dominance” with the first variable requiring the use of grand
diplomacy to bolster a “strong Europe and strong China” that would “balance” against
the Soviets and achieve greater détente without having to expend American blood and
252
From 1969 to 1974, President Nixon and his National Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger, heralded in a
new foreign policy that historians have defined as the “Nixon doctrine.” This doctrine held that individual
states should have “primary responsibility of providing the manpower for its defense,” that the U.S. would
only provide military assistance in accordance with its national interests, and that U.S. leadership should
respect the global balance of power. For more detail on this doctrine, see Richard Nixon, “Address to the
Nation on the War in Vietnam,” November 3, 1969, accessed via:
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/features/primary-resources/nixon-vietnam/.
253
Nixon and Kissinger had in mind a pentarchy of 5 “great powers:” U.S., USSR, China, Europe, Great
Britain, and Japan. In an interview with Time as “Man of the Year,” Nixon declared that “we must
remember the only time in the history of the world that we have had any extended periods of peace is when
there has been balance of power. It is when one nation becomes infinitely more powerful in relation to its
potential competitor that the danger of war arises. So I believe in a world in which the United States is
powerful. I think it will be a safer world and better world if we have a strong, healthy United States,
Europe, Soviet Union, China, Japan, each balancing the other, not playing one against the other, an even
balance.” Nixon, Interview with Time, January 3, 1972, p.3.
83
treasure.254 In 1972 and 1973, the Nixon administration pursued two major diplomatic
initiatives designed to create this “strong Europe” and strong “China”: they tried first to
improve relations with the PRC and, second, to reboot the Atlantic Alliance.255 In 1972,
Sino-U.S. rapprochement achieved considerable success, culminating in the Shanghai
Communiqué, and greater détente in Asia. In 1973, the “Year of Europe” initiative fell
short of achieving the desired outcome of greater Atlantic unity, instead sparking an
intense backlash, especially from the French.
Why did engagement with the Chinese “Red Menace” succeed while the Atlantic
initiative among allies failed? This is the driving question of this chapter and, as I will
argue, an appropriate segue to consider the flaws in the standard Nixon-led détente thesis.
For the sake of scope, this chapter will focus primarily in the flaws in this Nixon-led
détente thesis as it pertains to the opening of China, positing instead that the Chinese had
greater control and agency in the whole process. The failure of the 1973 Year of Europe
will be addressed in the conclusion to reinforce the argument that the Nixon
administration was not altogether devoted to détente especially where leadership interests
were at stake. In fact, this episode highlights that while Nixon administration liked
254
Kissinger’s definition of détente in a 1974 testimony before the Senate Finance Committee during the
Ford administration. “Statement to the Senate Finance Committee,” Department of State Bulletin, April
1974, 323. Nixon’s revealed his of détente in an interview with David Frost: “You set up a procedure
whereby knowing each other, leaders may…even when they come into disagreement involving potential
conflict…settle it before the flashpoint;” Quoted from Trachtenberg, The Cold War and After: History,
Theory, and the Logic of International Politics, 238; Henry Kissinger, “Central Issues of American Foreign
Policy,” 51-97;
255
The conventional public perception is that Nixon’s opening to China revealed him to be a leading
architect of Cold War détente. The opening to China initiative was designed to create a “Strong China” and
has widely been touted as a keystone of the Nixon administration’s détente strategy. Nixon and Kissinger
also sought to improve relations with the Soviets in tandem with the China initiative, visiting the USSR in
May 1972 and meeting with Soviet President Leonid Brezhnev to sign SALT I (the first Strategic Arms
Limitations Treaty limiting the production and use of ballistic and antiballistic missiles).
84
“détente for the United States, it had reservations about détente for the allies.”256
This chapter is divided into three parts. Part one will begin with a brief overview
of the birth of Nixon and Kissinger’s détente theories before becoming coming into office
with an emphasis on the significant influence of Gaullist actions and strategic thought on
these two figures.257 Part two will consider the critical importance of China to the détente
-in-Asia process before transitioning to a study of the surprising role the French played in
facilitating this process described in part three. The conclusion will briefly introduce
Kissinger’s failed 1973 Year of Europe initiative so as to further underscore the flaws in
the Nixon administration-led détente thesis.258
1. The American Gaullists:259
A Harvard associate professor of government and specialist in European studies,
Henry Kissinger, wrote a scathing piece in Harper Magazine in 1965 in which he
criticized the U.S. State Department for fundamentally “misreading” President Charles de
Gaulle.260 In this piece, Kissinger revealed his own theories, aligned with those of de
Gaulle, that equilibrium was a condition for peace and that European nations should be
the “author” of their own equilibrium in Europe.261 Arguing that the French President's
256
H.W. Brands, The Devil We Know, 130.
From c. 1964-1969.
258
As well as the the Paris Peace Accords ending the Vietnam war in 1973.
259
Reyn, 352-4.
260
Kissinger not the only one. Others including Stanley Hoffman, Walter Lippman, and Richard Neustadt
proposed a more sympathetic view of de Gaulle and actively supported the moderate “McBundy/Klein
school” of thought in the State Department by providing policy analyses and commentaries. The
“McBundy/Klein school,” led by McGeorge Bundy and David Klein in the State Department, were the
most sympathetic to de Gaulle’s views and advocated an improvement of relations. The typology is
imported here from Sebastian Reyn, Atlantis Lost: The American Experience with de Gaulle, 1958-1969.
For Lippman's articles in defense of de Gaulle, see Steel, “Walter Lippman et Charles de Gaulle,” De
Gaulle et son siècle, (Journées Internationales organisées par l’Institut Charles de Gaulle, 1990).
261
Kissinger concluded that “in short, peace to de Gaulle results not from a personal reconciliation but from
the establishment of a more stable equilibrium. France and Europe must contribute to bringing about this
balance not as the objects of policy but as their author.” Citing de Gaulle, Kissinger asserted that "now, in
257
85
renegade attitude was not so much a symptom as a product of the troubles in the Atlantic
partnership, Kissinger opined that the real problem and the driver of Franco-American
tension lay in the U.S.’s outdated adherence to a paternalistic hegemonic attitude toward
Europe.262 Indeed, during the 1960s, the deepening rift between French and American
interests emerged on multiple fronts.
To the dismay of many Washington foreign policy elites, France had been the
thorn in the U.S.’s Atlantic objectives. Since the Eisenhower administration, the U.S. had
sought to build and superintend a “community of free nations” in a trans-atlantic
partnership with a “strong and united Europe.”263 A stronger Europe, from Washington's
perspective, would be a more powerful contingent “balancing” against the Eastern bloc
led by the Soviets. The Marshall Plan and NATO were the two pillars of this Atlantic
ideal and Kennedy’s famous Philadelphia speech about a Euro-American “Declaration of
Interdependence” to “develop coordinated policies in all economic, political, and
diplomatic areas” “on a basis of full equality” further enshrined this Atlantic Alliance as a
guiding principle in U.S. Europe policy.264 However, De Gaulle’s withdrawal of French
naval forces from NATO in 1963, his veto of British membership in the European
Economic Community (EEC) the same year, and his campaign against the U.S.’s
multilateral force security initiative (MLF) in 1964, indicated the difficulties of working
the last analysis and as always, it is only in equilibrium that the world will find peace." Henry Kissinger,
“The Illusionist: Why We Misread de Gaulle,” Harper's Magazine 230 (1965): 69-76.
262
In other words, its insistence on multilateralism, superintended by U.S. leadership - which had been the
model of the post-WWII Marshall Plan years - was primarily responsible for France’s behavior and its
feeling that its agency and autonomy were being compromised by the hegemonic power across the Atlantic.
Henry Kissinger, interview with the author, March 2016.
263
Kennedy’s Philadelphia Speech in July 1962. The text of the speech is available at
http://www.jfklibrary.org/Historical+Resources/Archives/Reference+Desk/Speeches/JFK/003POF03Indepe
ndenceHall07041962.htm
264
Papers of John F. Kennedy. Presidential Papers. President’s Office Files. Speech Files. Address at
Independence Hall, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, 4 July 1962.
86
with a fiercely independent French Republic dominated by “the greatest nuisance in
Europe,” de Gaulle.265 De Gaulle's actions gave further fodder to the established antiGaullist “Europeanists” in State Department who saw de Gaulle as a threat to their
Atlantic ideal.266Acknowledging France’s clout in Europe, the “Europeanists” in both the
Kennedy and Johnson administrations feared that de Gaulle’s “brand” of “competitive
nationalism” would push Europe back into the “old destructive habits” that led to the
World War II era and threaten their Atlantic initiative of facilitating European integration
on the bedrock of transatlantic partnership.267 U.S. foreign policy elites not only saw
Gaullist France as the source of its woes in Europe but, more broadly, they viewed
European free-riding and lack of loyalty as an encumbrance on U.S. interests more
globally, especially as they related to U.S. credibility. The American media and public
joined Washington foreign policy elites in the wholesale critique of de Gaulle’s policies,
265
In 1967, former Secretary of State, Dean Acheson called de Gaulle “the greatest nuisance” in Europe.
Quoted from Brinkley, Dean Acheson, p. 235. Closer to home, de Gaulle also condemned U.S. intervention
in the Dominican Republic and called for withdrawal of American troops there. Drew Middleton, “De
Gaulle Condemns U.S. on Dominican Intervention,” May 7, 1965, New York Times.
266
State Department was dominated by “Europeanists” (those who saw Europe as the number one issue on
U.S. foreign policy agenda and advocated for the cause of Monnet-style European integration). Pascaline
Winand, Eisenhower, Kennedy, and the United States of Europe (Basingstoke: Macmillan, 1993), 194-201.
Notable “Europeanists” were John McCloy, George Ball, and John Robert Schaetzel.
267
George Ball believed that it would particularly endanger German loyalty to Western Europe by reviving
historical rivalries and fears of France. Ball described “nationalism” as a “destructive force” since
“nationalism motivated by a desire for dominance or hegemony, no matter how deceptively decked out, is
the negation of internationalism and supranationalism.” Ball prescribed the Monnet method of European
integration and believed this was only possible through a robust trans-atlantic partnership. “The Mess in
Europe and the Meaning of Your Trip, Ball to Kennedy, memorandum,” June 20, 1963, FRUS 1961-1963,
vol. 13, no. 79, 2014-213. To be fair, anti-Gaullist temper in the State Department did not fully percolate
into the White House. A confused Kennedy was trying to find ways to improve relationship. Reyn, 186.
Johnson ultimately sided with the Bohlen school of thought: which was to proceed patiently and calmly and
wait for de Gaulle’s eventual departure from office, in other words, to “leave Europe alone politically
and…unchanged militarily.” Bohlen to Bundy, letter, 2 March 1963, Correspondence with Ambassadors,
Files of McGeorge Bundy, NSF, box 15-16, Lyndon B. Johnson Library.
87
adding to the anti-Gaullist sentiment in America during the Kennedy and Johnson
years.268
What Kissinger underscored about the transatlantic strategy of the Kennedy and
Johnson administrations in his critical 1965 essay was that it was built on an
irreconcilable contradiction - the pairing of the ideal of a multilateral Atlantic community
and the reality of U.S. leadership.269 To Kissinger’s mind, the U.S.’s visions of
multilateral partnership and unilateral leadership were at complete loggerheads.270
Following up with a longer book, The Troubled Partnership, Kissinger examined
transatlantic relations in greater depth, declaring that the U.S. was effectively asking the
near impossible of the Europeans - an Atlantic Alliance that required European unity on
American terms.271 The key premise in Kissinger’s analysis was that Europe had changed
a great deal from the Marshall Plan years and would no longer tolerate certain levels of
U.S. intervention as it had done before and that for there to be equilibrium in Europe it
would have to be through European “authorship.”272
268
Reyn discusses American public opinion toward de Gaulle in great detail. Reyn, 355-77 .
Frédéric Bozo, Susan Emanuel, Two Strategies for Europe: De Gaulle, the United States, and the
Atlantic Alliance, (Lanham: Rowman & Littlefield, 2001).
270
So critical was Kissinger of this strain in U.S. foreign policy that he turned a Council on Foreign
Relations lecture series into a book titled The Troubled Partnership in 1965. In it Dr. Kissinger concluded
that it would be “absurd” to “insist on centralized strategy where diplomacy remains national.” Kissinger,
The Troubled Partnership, 94; On the issue of NATO’s multilateral force initiative (MLF), Kissinger sided
with de Gaulle’s reaction, maintaining that “political unity must precede nuclear integration.” Ibid,155.
271
Moreover, Washington was making it “costless” for someone like de Gaulle to act in the truculent
nationalist manner that he did. Alfred Grosser’s report for RAND vindicated Kissinger’s view by stating
that “the attitude of the United States makes the General’s prejudices and errors costless to him.” Alfred
Grosser, “Franco-Soviet Relations Today,” RAND Corporation, 1967, accessed via:
http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM5382.html.
272
To Kissinger’s credit, his analysis proved correct given the considerable economic recovery of many
European states, including France and West Germany, as well as the relaxation of tensions with the Soviets.
Moscow and Washington both appeared unwilling to use nuclear weapons. In the economic zone, European
Common Market nations had revived their economies and by 1965 their gold reserves equalled those of the
U.S. In matters of national security, there was a greater relaxation of tensions as it seemed that Moscow,
with its outward posture of ‘peaceful co-existence,’ would not readily seek war, nor would there be a threat
269
88
Kissinger’s insights were not merely the product of armchair intellectualizing
about European balance of power politics. On the contrary, his views were informed by a
substantial level of interaction with European leaders. Hired by President Kennedy in
1961 as a part-time consultant on nuclear strategy and European affairs, Kissinger acted
as a semi-official messenger for both the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations. It was in
this position that Kissinger was to meet with many influential European leaders and
diplomats, including those from the Quai d’Orsay.273 Thus, having listened to a wide
variety of opinions from European foreign policy elites, Kissinger could credibly accuse
Washington “Atlanticists” of misunderstanding “the European view of world affairs” and
failing to realize that European independence might “be the price worth paying for
European unity.”274 He could also vindicate his thesis that a “strong Europe” was the way
to achieve European détente and greater equilibrium.
of nuclear war between the US and USSR in Europe, as the Cuban missile crisis suggested. Waïsse, Le
Grandeur.
273
Such as Jean Laloy, Général Paul Stehlin, Jean de la Grandville, and François de Tricornot de Rose, to
name a few. In one exchange with Jean de la Grandville, French Director of the Quai d’Orsay’s Service des
Pactes, de la Grandville revealed to Kissinger that “the official French theory […] was that the world was
tripolar” [with] one center [at] Washington, another in Peking dominating East Asia, the third [in] Europe
dominated by Moscow-Paris.” In other words, the French saw themselves as having a great role to play in
the games of “grand diplomacy.” According to de la Grandville, de Gaulle had intimated to Soviet Premier
Alexei Kosygin that “because of the war in Vietnam the United States is becoming more unpopular in
Europe every day. This is the way for us to build Europe together.” De la Grandville stressed that despite
de Gaulle’s posturing about “neutralization,” France “was not neutral on Vietnam.” He recounted a
discussion with French Foreign Minister Maurice Couve de Murville in which Couve de Murville declared
that the U.S. had to be “taught a lesson in South East Asia and that this would help affect her pretensions
elsewhere.” These views highlighted to Kissinger that the French wanted European unity strictly on French
or at least ‘European’ terms and were not above using relations with the Russians or the North Vietnamese
to divert American attention away from their European project. According to de la Grandville, French
officials were also frequently meeting with Ho Chi Minh and had recommended him to “adopt a more
flexible stance which the United States would find it more difficult to counter” as well as urging the NLF to
“constitute itself with a formal government and seek recognition.” “MemCon de La Grandville,” January
28, 1967, Henry A. Kissinger Papers, Library of Congress.
274
Kissinger warned that “a united Europe is likely to insist on a specifically European view of world
affairs - which is another way of saying that it will challenge American hegemony in Atlantic policy. This
may well be a price worth paying for European unity; but American policy has suffered from an
unwillingness to recognize that there is a price to be paid.” Kissinger, The Troubled Partnership, 40.
89
On French affairs, more specifically, Kissinger sympathized with de Gaulle’s
perspective.275 Applying his scholarly specialty - balance of power in 19th century
Europe - Kissinger acknowledged the French President as the modern-day reincarnation
of Bismarck with France acting as Bismarck’s Prussia and Europe as Bismarck’s
Germany in the analogy:276 Kissinger concluded from this comparison that men like
Bismarck and de Gaulle clearly displayed the benefits of maintaining a degree of
flexibility and independence in relations with other great powers, often via contradictory
commitments with two enemies.277 In other words, de Gaulle was able to achieve the
almost “impossible” situation of maintaining “simultaneous friendship[s] with Bonn and
Moscow,” in the way that Bismarck had been able to do with 19th century Austria and
Russia.278 Kissinger’s appreciation of Gaullist-Bismarckian strategy and his intellectual
penchant for realpolitik would become critical elements in his conceptualization and
operationalization of the Nixon administration's détente strategy, influencing the way that
he pursued improved relations with both the Chinese and the Soviets.
Outside the scholarly halls of Harvard, Richard Nixon was also deeply aware of
the public misreading of de Gaulle. While Johnson criticized de Gaulle’s recognition of
the PRC in 1964, Nixon conveyed his utmost respect and approbation to the general. In a
meeting with Ambassador Alphand in Washington, Nixon revealed that he saw de
275
Kissinger not the only one at Harvard who was sympathetic to de Gaulle. Others included Stanley
Hoffman, Walter Lippman, Henry Kissinger, and Robert Neustadt who actively supported the moderate
“McBundy/Klein school” in the State Department by providing policy analyses and commentaries.
276
Kissinger wrote about this analogy: “that is, unified on the basis of states, one of which (France) would
play the dominant role.” Kissinger, Diplomacy, 606; Bruce Mazlish, Kissinger: The European Mind in
American Foreign Policy (New York: Basic Books, 1976).
277
Like the German statesman Otto von Bismarck, Henry Kissinger argues that “[de Gaulle] assumed the
perfect flexibility of international relationships limited only by the requirements of national interest.”
Kissinger, “White Revolutionary,” 911; Niall Ferguson, Kissinger 1923-1968: The Idealist, 703.
278
Alfred Grosser described how de Gaulle had achieved the seeming “impossibility” of “simultaneous
friendship with Bonn and Moscow.” Grosser, RAND, 76.
90
Gaulle’s recognition as an “inevitable consequence of the split in the communist bloc”
and opined that it “was necessary to take advantage of this split.”279 In 1965, Nixon’s
admiration for de Gaulle and his own realist intuitions were further deepened with his trip
to Europe during which he met with the French President as well as West Germany’s
Chancellor Konrad Adenauer and Romanian President Nicolae Ceausescu. De Gaulle and
Adenauer separately expressed to Nixon that the U.S. should recognize the PRC because
“[it] is so big, so old and very much abused, including by Western colonial power.”280
Nixon’s embracement of political multipolarity, especially in Asia, was guided in no
small part by what European policy-makers like de Gaulle were telling him as well as by
European détente moves in Asia, especially the French recognition of China.281
Reflecting on these meetings in an interview with his biographer, Herbert S. Parmet, in
1984, Nixon stressed that this 1965 trip and meetings with the general and the chancellor
played a large role in his thinking about China. Nixon’s evolution from hard-line anticommunist “cold warrior” to America’s self-fashioned “de Gaulle” achieved full
expression during his trip to Asia in 1967 in which he gained a “well developed” view of
279
Alphand wrote back to President de Gaule that Nixon “said he perfectly understood France’s current
policy, and in particular vis-à-vis the recognition of China, which he considered to be the inevitable
consequence of the rupture at the heart of the communist bloc. One must, he held, try to take advantage of
this rupture.” “Letter addressed to Hervé Alphand (French Ambassador to the U.S.) a.s. Meeting with
Richard Nixon,” March 18, 1964, Direction d’Amérique, Série 9, Carton 4, Dossier 119, Etats-Unis, AD.
280
Quoted from Speer, 343.
281
Nixon’s embrace of political multipolarity was guided a great deal by what Nixon saw in Europe,
including de Gaulle’s actions, as well as in Asia. Jon Roper argues that he wanted to be “America’s de
Gaulle. Jon Roper, “Richard Nixon’s Political Hinterland: The Shadows of JFK and Charles de Gaulle,”
Presidential Studies Quarterly 28 (1998): 422-434. Schlesinger observed that Nixon was trying “to
establish a quasi-gaullist regime in the United States.” Arthur Schlesinger Jr., The Imperial Presidency
(New York: Popular Library, 1974), 247-8. Bundy said that “the model of de Gaulle was always with
[Nixon].” William Bundy, A Tangled Web, 55.
91
Asia and China. His meetings with Asian leaders and diplomats would greatly inform his
“realist” China strategy when he became president.282
Nixon’s “realism” grew from a mixture of his own analysis of world events, the
influence of de Gaulle, and the relative decline of the U.S. in the 1960s. Nixon’s
obsession with solvency was fed by his assessment of America’s growing difficulties in
multiple areas - military, economic, and diplomatic. American public debt had grown due
to the costs of the Vietnam War and the Great Society programs. U.S. gold reserves had
constantly fallen since 1957.283 Inflation was causing spiraling prices at home: 1970
would become the most inflationary year since the Korean War. Militarily, the Soviets
seemed to be gaining ground with a noticeable doubling in Soviet missile-launching
capabilities as of January 1968.284 Lastly, the Vietnam war was contributing to heavy
military expenditures and widespread anti-war protests that posed high political and
economic costs for the White House.285 Hence, Nixon believed it was essential for the
president to cut back on costly campaigns and recalibrate foreign policy around core
282
According to former NSC staff members Winston Lord, Peter Rodman, and Richard Solomon. Quoted
from Komine, p. 26; Nixon met notably, among others, with U.S. Ambassador to Indonesia, Marshall
Green, with whom he shared a long discussion about East Asian affairs, particularly China. Green recalled
that Nixon took down notes and recorded the conversation with tapes. See Marshall Green, Evolution of
US-China-Policy 1956-1973:Memoirs of An Insider.
283
The U.S.’s policy was to print more money to meet its increasing expenses. This caused the balance of
payments deficit and the exportation of inflation overseas, which the Europeans and Japanese consistently
complained about. In March 1967, Americans actually attempted to dissuade major dollar holding nations,
especially in Western Europe, from purchasing U.S. gold. In January 1968, the U.S. implemented austerity
measures to cap capital exports that would lower outflow of gold reserves, in response to an already
dwindling gold supply.
284
This was the opinion of the CIA and Defense Department. “Statement of Secretary of Defense Robert S.
McNamara on the Fiscal Year 1968-1972 Defense Program and Defense Budget,” (Washington: U.S.
Government Printing Office, 23 January, 1967).
285
Leonard Kusnitz, Public Opinion and Foreign Policy: America’s China Policy, 1949-1979 (Westport,
1984), 115-117.
92
interests, declaring in a Senate hearing in 1970 that “our interests must shape our
commitments, rather than the other way around.”286
Thus, Nixon and Kissinger independently came to similar conclusions about de
Gaulle’s strategies, the nature and limits of US power and foreign policy, and the way in
which polycentrism - a stronger Europe and a stronger China - could create the conditions
for détente and peace. Kissinger was able to bring to bear a keen understanding of
European affairs and balance-of-power diplomacy. This complemented Nixon’s nuanced
grasp of Asian geopolitics and the dynamics of the Sino-Soviet split, which surpassed
most of his contemporaries, including Kissinger. Both concluded that multipolarity - a
stronger China and a stronger Europe was the route to détente. With this truly global
balance-of-power framework in mind, Nixon and Kissinger were united in their interest
to “acknowledge and promote” the “existence of multiple military, political, and
economic centers of power in the world.”287 Thus, when Nixon and Kissinger came to the
White House on January 20, 1969, there was an expectation that the two men would
succeed in finally resolving the French and European issues as well as initiating some
kind of future breakthrough in Sino-US relations. After all, they clearly understood the
theory of détente.288
2. The Year of China289
286
“First Annual Report to the Congress on United States Foreign Policy for the 1970s,” 18 February 1970,
in Nixon Papers, (1970), 119.
287
Reyn argues that Nixon’s “recognition of the ever-changing balance of power between nation-states,
rather than their cooperation within a multilateral framework, as the central regulating mechanism in world
politics” resembled Gaullism. Reyn credits how “Nixon was quite prepared to acknowledge - and even to
promote - the existence of multiple military, political, and economic centers of power in the world.” Reyn,
355.
288
Howard Jones, Crucible of Power: A History of American Foreign Relations, 419.
289
Evelyn Goh, Constructing the U.S. Rapprochement with China, 1961-1974: From “Red Menace” to
“Tacit Ally,” (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 106-110. Dong Wang, “From Enmity to
93
In 1969, de Gaulle and Nixon met twice to discuss world affairs.290 In both
meetings on February 28 and March 2, 1969, de Gaulle advocated pursuing “triangular
diplomacy” with the Russians and the Chinese.291 Motivated as always by French
national interests, de Gaulle was not just offering sound counsel when he suggested
China as the way out of Nixon’s “Algeria.”292 Like Bismarck, de Gaulle believed that
equilibrium was built on fear, flexibility, and uncertainty. The French goal was not to see
a complete U.S.-USSR rapprochement because it could dangerously undermine European
security, but to keep the USSR guessing and uneasy about its Asian border, by having the
U.S. insert itself between the Soviets and the Chinese.293 U.S. rapprochement with China
would not hurt French or European interests directly. In fact it would alleviate pressures
on Europe by drawing Russia’s attention from their Western border to the Eastern border
such that the Europeans could finally work to “build Europe together.”294 The French
were joined by the West Germans in proposing this analysis. As de Gaulle observed, the
Russians were worried that the “specter of China and Germany working together against
Rapprochement: Grand Strategy, Power Politics, and U.S.-China Relations, 1961-1974,” Dissertation,
University of California, Los Angeles, 2007.
290
“President de Gaulle’s cooperation would be vital to ending the Vietnam war and my plans for
beginning a new relationship with Communist China,” Nixon recalled in his memoirs. Nixon, RN: The
Memoirs of Richard Nixon, (Grosset & Dunlap, 1978).
291
National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 1023, Presidential/HAK MemCons.
292
De Gaulle said to Nixon in 1967, “if I can do Algeria, you can do Vietnam.” Quoted from Sulzberger,
The World and Richard Nixon, 158-159.
293
Many Europeans shared the French fear of a “U.S.-USSR condominium.” Reyn, 340-2.
294
As Jean de la Grandville had revealed to Kissinger in 1967, there was an element of expedience in de
Gaulle’s Asia strategy, especially vis-à-vis Vietnam and China. De Gaulle was determined to reduce
American domination of NATO, perhaps even change NATO into an old-style traditional alliance. The
major thrust of De Gaulle’s policy was thus to reduce America’s standing in the world. De la Granville
recalled that de Gaulle had said that “we will puncture the American balloon in Vietnam.” This, according
to de Gaulle, was a “way for [the Europeans] to build Europe together.” “MemCon, Jean de La Grandville
to Henry Kissinger, Henry A. Kissinger Papers, Library of Congress. Kissinger also picked up on this
strategy of “building Europe” in 1965. Kissinger, “The Illusionist,” 76.
94
Russia in the next five to ten years” and that China specifically was one of the “the real
cause[s] of their alarm and actions.”295 De Gaulle therefore encouraged Nixon to quicken
his rapprochement with China, arguing that it was “better for the U.S. to recognize China
before they were obliged to do it by the growth of China” and that the Chinese would be
more receptive than ever to such moves.296 Criticizing the sentiment in the State
Department in favor of a Soviet-U.S. détente and “lineup of the Soviets, Europe and the
U.S. against [the] Chinese,” the general argued that it was in the U.S.’s long-term
interests to “develop parallel relationships” with the Soviets and the Chinese. De Gaulle
was basically advocating for “triangular diplomacy.”
While de Gaulle certainly did not write Nixon’s China strategy, he gave Nixon
further encouragement and incentive to quicken it, perhaps even before the Vietnam war
deadline that he had initially set for himself. As Kissinger recalls, Nixon had already
decided even before 1969 that the “opening to China” would be the “right strategy.”297
Compared to Rusk and Johnson before him, he was already keen on theory of the idea
when de Gaulle presented it to him.298 Unbeknownst to the general, his own
295
“Memorandum of Conversation between De Gaulle and Schriver.” National Archives and Records
Administration, RG 59, Central Files 1967-69, POL 1 FR. French Ambassador to the U.S. Hervé Alphand
reflected that French rapprochement with China would be more severely taken in Moscow than in
Washington. Alphand, 419-20. De Gaulle intimated to Nixon: The Soviet leaders’ “principal concern from
tomorrow would be China…the Chinese have always detested the Russians and probably detest them more
now than at any other time in the past…China is [the Soviets’] main preoccupation…They are thinking in
terms of a possible clash with China tomorrow. They cannot face both China and the West (the US in
particular) at the same time.”
296
De Gaulle opined his belief “that with prudence and with some steps forwards and some backwards [the
PRC] may well opt for a policy of rapprochement with the West.” American analysts agreed with this
assessment. See Allan Whiting’s memo to Kissinger. Letter from Allen S. Whiting, 16 August 1969,
enclosing report, “Sino-Soviet Hostilities and Implications for U.S. Policy,” National Archives, Nixon
Presidential Materials Project, box 839. China.
297
Henry Kissinger, interview with author, March 2016.
298
Secretary Rusk in a meeting with de Gaulle in December 1963 had stressed that China was a threat to
world peace and stability and was responsible for unrest in many parts of the world (e.g. Laos, Indonesia,
Cuba, Africa). The Secretary of State insisted on containing and isolating China while de Gaulle suggested
95
encouragement was intensified further by events that unfurled the same day on the SinoSoviet border at Ussuri river.
On the same day that de Gaulle and Nixon met to discuss the possibility of setting
up a secret direct channel from Paris to Beijing, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA)
ambushed an armed and annihilated a Soviet contingent that had entered Chinese
territory.299 The Sino-Soviet split had burst forth into the public eye. The intense and
rapid kinetic escalation to the threat of nuclear war and the frenzied nature of the Soviets’
reactions led the White House to believe that they had a window of opportunity to
seriously improve their hand.300 No longer setting himself the post-Vietnam deadline, as
he had originally conveyed to both de Gaulle and the Romanian President Ceausescu in
1969, Nixon leapt with newfound fervor to find a channel to Beijing. The incident also
convinced the previously skeptical Kissinger of the view that Nixon had instinctively
gravitated towards in 1967: that China could be a powerful and plausible “tacit ally” and
balancing partner in the U.S.-Sino-Soviet triangle.301 As Kissinger reflected later in his
using engagement policy with Beijing and even abandoning Taiwan as an option, citing how “Western
engagement with the Soviet Union changed its behaviour.” Rusk refuted this claim, declaring that it was
the West’s military strength that was deterring Soviet aggression. De Gaulle informed Rusk that France
would inform the U.S. before any action were to be taken on China in order to avoid embarrassing the
Americans. This was expressed despite the fact that De Gaulle and his ministers were pursuing
normalization with the Chinese in Berne. Telegram from Secretary of State Rusk to the Department of
State, December 16, 1963, in FRUS, 1961 - 1963 ,Vol. 22, 409 -410.
299
Roderick MacFarquhar, Michael Schoenhals. Mao’s Last Revolution. 310.
300
Almost all historians and political scientists see the Zhenbao Incident as a turning point in Sino-US
relations towards rapprochement.
301
Before Zhenbao, Nixon’s readings were not consensus nor were they shared by his future National
Security Advisor, Henry Kissinger. Even Kissinger himself was uncertain about the Chinese. Asked in
February 1962 “which is more of a threat to peace— Russia or China?,” Kissinger responded that “in the
long run probably Communist China is likely to be in more of an expansionist phase than Soviet Russia. At
the same time, most of the recent crises have been commanded by the Soviet Union. . . . In their tactics, the
Chinese Communists are probably the greater menace; in their potentiality, the Russians are the greater
menace, and much of the debate between them has somewhat of the character of two thieves arguing
whether they have to kill you to get your wallet or whether they can lift your wallet without hitting you
over the head. You lose your wallet either way.” In 1967, Kissinger also spoke in secret meetings with
Czech Snejdarek and said: “It seemed to me that the key lay in Moscow. If the United States had the choice
96
memoirs, “[all] ambiguity vanished [after Zhenbao] and we moved without further
hesitation towards a momentous change in global diplomacy.”302 Allan Whiting’s policy
analysis and the revelation of the Soviets’ evident fears of a Sino-US rapprochement in
the Davydov-Stearman meeting solidified Kissinger’s strategic intuitions.303 Finally, by
November 1969 it seemed that de Gaulle’s vision of “triangular diplomacy” was in sight
for Washington - although the one missing but crucial element was Chinese interest. With
the impetus to go to Beijing to look for peace, Nixon and Kissinger now needed to ask for
the gates to be open to them.
Encouraged by de Gaulle and the Zhenbao Incident, Nixon and Kissinger set out
with energetic zeal to find and play the “China card” to increase the U.S.’s foreign policy
hand. Yet this was not without substantial difficulties. Although Nixon and Kissinger
greatly desired to improve relations with the PRC, de Gaulle’s analysis of the difficulty
of establishing contact with the Chinese communists was to a large extent accurate as the
complexity of securing a diplomatic back-channel from 1970 to 1971 revealed. The
history of tensions, estrangement, and mistrust continued to complicate initial steps
toward rapprochement from 1969 to 1971, as the multiple failed rounds of Warsaw talks
illustrated. Having inherited the “containment” strategy from previous administrations,
to settle either with Moscow or with Peking, it would probably prefer the former if only because it was
more predictible.” “Conversations in Prague, January 30-31, 1967, with A. Snejdarek, Head of Czech
Institute of International Affairs and others,” Feb. 6, 1967 report, Henry A. Kissinger Papers, Library of
Congress. Kissinger still perceived Chinese to be more aggressive than Soviets until Zhenbao in March
1969. See: Kissinger, White House Years, p. 172. For more analysis of how Kissinger was won over to the
idea much later than Nixon, see: Yukinori Komine, Secrecy in US Foreign Policy: Nixon, Kissinger and the
Rapprochement with China,” (Burlington: Routledge, 2008).
302
Kissinger, White House Years, 170-1.
303
U.S. State Department Memorandum of Conversation, "US Reaction to Soviet Destruction of CPR
[Chinese Peoples Republic] Nuclear Capability; Significance of Latest Sino-Soviet Border Clash, ...," 18
August 1969. State Department cable 141208 to U.S. Consulate Hong Kong etc., 21 August 1969, Secret,
Limdis.
97
Nixon had to work hard to efface the hardline rhetoric and strategy of his predecessors,
which had given so much fodder to Mao’s descriptions of the U.S. as “imperialists” and
China’s “primary threat.” Moreover, in 1969, China had only just come out of the most
radical period in its diplomatic history - the Cultural Revolution - in which it recalled all
its ambassadors for mass purging and completely burnt down the British embassy.
Johnson himself had tried to make a breakthrough and confronted major setbacks because
of the radicalization and isolationism of P.R.C. foreign policy during the Cultural
Revolution.304 Following NSC China expert, Alfred Jenkins’ counsel, Johnson had
decided not to make any public moves to reach out to Beijing, beyond the relaxation of
travel bans and an increase in official meetings. Instead, Johnson had decided to wait
until things quietened down.305 Johnson and Nixon both knew that if Europe was a messy
can of worms, China was almost impossible to open without Beijing letting them in. The
Chinese clearly had a big say in the matter.
Leading up to 1969, the U.S. and Chinese had little to no channels of
communication, aside from foreign nations’ embassies or through CIA operatives in
Hong Kong. The Warsaw Sino-US ambassadorial talks had broken down by January
1968. Getting closer to the Chinese seemed both physically and theoretically harder than
getting closer to the French but this did not dissuade Nixon. Nixon’s policy going into the
304
Johnson was surrounded by several advisors who suggested a softening in attitude towards China,
notably: Averell Harriman, Robert Komer, James C. Thomson, as well as A. Doak Barnett. Although
Secretary of State Dean Rusk was still extremely wary of this position. In his speech, “The Essentials of
Peace in Asia,” Johnson reiterated reconciliation and engagement toward the Chinese, adopting Doak’s
principle of “containment without isolation”: “Lasting peace can never come to Asia as long as the 700
million people of mainland China are isolated by their rulers from the outside world.” Quoted from Jones,
Matthew. “Groping toward coexistence’: US China policy during the Johnson years.” Diplomacy and
Statecraft. 12:3 (2001), 175-190. There was also a major upswing in the frequency of People’s Daily
articles criticizing U.S. “imperialism” and Soviet “revisionism” during the last few years of the Johnson
Administration, coinciding with the Cultural Revolution.
305
Alfred Jenkins to Walt Rostow, 16 September 1966, FRUS 1964-1968, 30: 388-389.
98
presidency was that he would engage with China after Vietnam in a “long-range”
strategy. This is what he told de Gaulle in March 1969 and the Pakistani and Romanian
Presidents in July 1969. After reading Kissinger's NSC report on China strategy in
January 1969, Nixon scribbled back: “Chinese Communists: Short range—no change.
Long range—we do not want 800,000,000 living in angry isolation. We want contact ...
[want] China—cooperative member of international community and member of Pacific
community.”306 Coming into office it was quite clear that Nixon wanted to normalize
relations with China after Vietnam, all the while casually exploring options and
communication channels on the ground and making it seem to friends and contacts that
the Administration was intensely interested by “plant[ing]” the idea in their minds. In
other words, to “give every encouragement to the attitude that this Administration is
exploring possibilities of rapprochement with the Chinese.”307 In Nixon’s mind, China,
like the issues of European integration and the NATO alliance, could wait while
diplomats and operatives explored possibilities on the ground. In effect, détente-making
would be put on hold. Indeed, Vietnam was taking a great deal of the White House’s
306
National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 341, Subject Files, HAK/President
Memoranda, 1969–1970. No classification marking. A typed note, attached but not printed, reads: “Copy
sent red tag to Dick Sneider on 4 Feb 69 by Col Haig.” The memorandum was not initialed or signed.
Nixon's handwritten notes from meetings held January 20–21 covered a wide range of domestic and
international issues, including China. He wrote in part: “Chinese Communists: Short range—no change.
Long range—we do not want 800,000,000 living in angry isolation. We want contact—will be interested in
Warsaw meetings. Republic of China—cooperative member of international community and member of
Pacific community.” National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, NSC Institutional Files
(H-Files), Box H–134, NSSM Files, NSSM 14. Secret; White House Special Files, President's Office Files,
Box 1, President's Handwriting File, January 1969)
307
National Archives, Nixon Presidential Materials, NSC Files, Box 341, Subject Files, HAK/President
Memoranda, 1969–1970. No classification marking. A typed note, attached but not printed, reads: “Copy
sent red tag to Dick Sneider on 4 Feb 69 by Col Haig.” The memorandum was not initialed or signed.
“This, of course, should be done privately and should under no circumstances get into the public prints
from this direction. However, in contacts with your friends, and particularly in any ways you might have to
get to this Polish source, I would continue to plant that idea.” Kissinger explored options in Poland, France,
the Netherlands, Romania, and Pakistan.
99
bandwidth with the My Lai massacre in 1969, the secret bombing of Cambodia beginning
in March 1969, and the disastrous leaking of the Pentagon Papers in 1971, not to mention
the massive war protests throughout this period. Moreover, many of the advisors in the
White House and the Republican Party believed that the best strategy might be to wait
until after Mao’s death - which seemed imminent - and deal with a new guard that could
be more moderate and conciliatory.308 Nevertheless, emboldened by de Gaulle’s counsel
and the outbreak of a potential Sino-Soviet war, Nixon became zealous to implement his
China initiative. By the end of 1969 the Nixon Administration had the ‘end’ and a general
idea of the ‘way,’ but not the ‘means’ in their blossoming China strategy. 309 For that they
needed a back-channel to Beijing.
By far the greatest obstacle to Nixon’s China initiative was the willingness of
Beijing elites to normalize relations with the Americans. An analysis of internal Chinese
foreign policy debates and frank conversations with the French as late as April 1971
reveal that the Chinese themselves had deep-set reservations about U.S. intentions and
the prudence of Sino-US rapprochement. The last meeting of the Sino-American
ambassadorial talks at Warsaw took place in January 1968, after which they were
indefinitely suspended. While the Chinese showed interest in improving relations, they
308
In his memoirs, Marshall Green recollected that the Nixon initiative “was out of line with the thinking of
many in the Republican party…he was undertaking this trip at a time when the war in Vietnam was raging
and when the U.S. was suffering heavy casualties at the hands of an enemy supported by Peking.”
Furthermore, Green noted, Nixon's "approach to China could be seen as a bit premature. Why not wait," he
asked, "until Mao passed from the scene— which seemed fairly imminent?,” and one might add, more
logical and politically expedient.” "The very fact that the President took all these risks underlines the great
importance he attached to a U.S.-China rapprochement. Quoted from Glenn Speer, “Richard Nixon’s
Position on Communist China, 1949-1960: The Evolution of a Pacific Strategy,” Ph.D. Dissertation, City
University of New York, 1992.
309
Looking at Washington’s options from a counterfactual standpoint, Nixon and Kissinger had four
options. Simply put: 1) do nothing; 2) align with the Soviets; 3) align with both the Soviets and the Chinese
(triangular diplomacy); 4) or align only with the Chinese. But from Washington’s perspective in 1969,
options 3) and 4) were tricky because getting the Chinese to the table was proving difficult.
100
also seemed to be avoiding the Americans and increasing their anti-American rhetoric
publicly. The prevailing understanding among historians is that the Zhenbao Incident of
March 1969 and the subsequent threat of Sino-Soviet nuclear war acted as a tipping point
the way Washington and Beijing saw each other.310 Understandably, Soviet aggression,
as demonstrated in the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia and the Zhenbao border conflict
made the Chinese deeply frightened of an escalation to total war, especially a nuclear
one. Many historians view Chinese softening to be “deterministic” or structurally
inevitable due to the confluence of Chinese weakness, escalating Soviet threats, and
Nixon’s interest in engagement. But these events alone were not enough to push China
immediately toward the U.S. In the “Four Marshalls Report” of 1969, Mao’s strategy by
the end of 1969 was to improve relations with the U.S. and pursue high-level strategic
dialogue only when the time was “proper.”311 There was no definition of when this was to
be the case. As is proposed in chapter two, given the plausible alternatives for Beijing
policy-makers, there was every indication to believe that Mao would continue to close
himself off from the West or right for the opportune moment.312 In fact, the significant
and controlled delay in China’s opening up of the channel to Beijing from the end of
310
The Chinese were even beginning to mobilize their forces for a nuclear war.
See the “Four Marshalls’ Report” presented to Mao on September 17, 1969. The report concluded that
the USSR was the “principle threat” and that the Chinese should improve relations with the U.S. “The
Soviet revisionists are scared by the prospects that we might ally ourselves with the US imperialists to
confront them…We must wage a tit-for-tat struggle against both the United States and the Soviet
Union…The US imperialists have suggested resuming Sino-American ambassadorial talks, to which we
should respond positively when the timing is proper. Such tactical actions may bring about results of
strategic significance.” Chen Yi’s addendum to the report read the following way: “Because of the strategic
need for dealing with the Soviet revisionists, Nixon hopes to win over China. It is necessary for us to utilize
the contradiction between the United States and the Soviet Union in a strategic sense, and pursue a
breakthrough in Sino-American relations. Thus we must adopt due measures, about which I have some
‘wild’ ideas. First, when the meetings in Warsaw are resumed, we may take the initiative in proposing to
hold Sino-American talks at ministerial or even higher levels so that basic and related problems in SinoAmerican relations can be solved…Second, a Sino-American meeting at higher levels hold strategic
significance.”
312
Mao had three options: 1) do nothing; 2) align with the USSR; 3) align with the US.
311
101
1969 to at least April 1971 suggests hesitation in Beijing but also a level of control in the
timing of the “opening to China,” that is not conventionally emphasized.
From the Zhenbao Incident in March 1969 until April 1971, two months before
Kissinger’s secret visit, the Chinese led the Americans on a diplomatic cat-and-mouse
chase.313 They continued to defer the Warsaw ambassadorial talks and were slow on
returning messages that reached them from Washington via Pakistan and Romania.
Receiving a flurry of messages from Washington via the Pakistanis and Romanians in the
summer of 1970, Zhou responded positively but asked the Pakistanis and Romanians to
postpone their returning messages to Washington until at least December 1970 and
January 1971. Kissinger himself would later report that he was deeply puzzled by this
move in his memoirs but that in hindsight he attributed it to a desire not to seem too
“eager,” especially to domestic audiences.314 Another reason for the delay was Chinese
frustration at Nixon’s invasion of Cambodia in May 1970. Beijing did not think it
sensible therefore to be engaging so soon after American military aggression against an
Asian ally.315 In response to Cambodia, Beijing postponed the Warsaw talks and a
million Chinese protesters took to Tiananmen Square to condemn the invasion. In a
public statement, Mao himself called for “the people of the world to unite and defeat the
U.S. aggressors and all their running dogs.” Diplomatic discussions between the French
Foreign Minister Etienne Manac’h and Zhou Enlai revealed the Chinese frustrated
confusion as to why Nixon was signaling conciliation on one hand but ramping up
313
For instance, they rejected General Vernon Walters’ (Nixon and Kissinger’s secret messenger and the
military attaché at the American embassy in Paris) two attempts to send secret signals and messages to
them in June 15, 1970. Walters recounts how he was instructed to send the messages to Fang Wen, the
Chinese military attaché at Paris. Walters asked that the Chinese open another “confidential channel of
communication” because the “Warsaw forum was too public and too formalistic.”
314
Kissinger, White House Years, 704–705.
315
On May 18, 1970, Beijing announced the postponement of the Sino-American talks in Warsaw.
102
military aggression in Indochina on the other hand.316 The French would later carry this
information back to the Americans.317 Despite Washington’s signaling, public speeches,
and the relaxation of trade and travel restrictions, the Chinese were still not responding to
U.S. attempts to reach them throughout 1970. All Kissinger and Nixon could do was to
“wait and see if they [were] willing to respond.”318
On November 9, 1970, the very man that Nixon had looked to for advice on the
U.S.’s troubles in Asia and Europe passed away suddenly in his residence in Colombeyles-Deux-Églises in France. Nixon had been confident that de Gaulle’s cooperation would
help end the Vietnam War and bring him closer to Communist China.319 Yet due to the
persistence of Gaullist principles and agents in the Pompidou administration, de Gaulle’s
death did not put an end to this Franco-American cooperation nor Nixon’s hopes of
détente in Asia. In fact, the General’s disciples remained at Elysée - Pompidou, Manac’h,
Couve de Murville, Jobert, Soutou, Koziusko-Morizet. While they bristled against the
Americans on transatlantic and European affairs, they were happy to facilitate the
channel to Beijing and Hanoi.320
316
Another reason for the delayed response was that Mao was preoccupied with internal leadership
struggles with Lin Biao. The turn to domestic affairs meant that the foreign policy was set aside
temporarily. Chen Jian, “The Path Toward Sino-American Rapprochement, 1969–1972,” GHI Bulletin
Supplement I (2003):36-37.
317
Via the French Ambassador to the U.S., Charles Lucet
318
“I agree that it would be useful to establish contact with the Chinese at this time. However, we have
made clear signals, and I think we have no choice but to wait and see if they are willing to respond.”
Kissinger recounted to Nixon two failed attempts to hand a message to the Chinese on June 16, 1907 and
September 7, 1970, at a Pakistani reception. Kissinger to Nixon, "Contact with the Chinese," circa 12
September 1970, 1032, [Fortune] Cookies II [Chronology of Exchanges with PRC Feb. 1969 - April 1971].
319
Nixon recalled that “President de Gaulle’s cooperation would be vital to ending the Vietnam war and
my plans for beginning a new relationship with Communist China…. Paris would be the best place for
opening “secret channels of communication” with Hanoi and Peking.” Quoted from Sulzberger, The World
ad Richard Nixon, 157.
320
They were particularly combatant on international monetary affairs i.e. “The Nixon Shock” and the U.S.
balance-of-payments deficit.
103
From 1969 to 1972, the Pompidou regime continued to facilitate U.S. interactions
with the North Vietnamese and Chinese communists, vindicating the Nixon-De Gaulle
vision of a secret “Paris Channel” to Asia. In fact, Pompidou did more than de Gaulle to
support Nixon and Kissinger’s secret diplomatic initiatives while instructing his ministers
to advocate U.S. perspectives to Chinese policy elites. From 1971 to 1972, Pompidou
agreed to cover up, even from his own ministers and diplomats, Kissinger’s secret trips to
Paris to meet with North Vietnamese and Chinese communists. This, it should be noted,
coincided with tensions over the unilateral “Nixon shock,” which upset many in Quai
d’Orsay. Beginning in December 1969, Nixon and Kissinger charged General Vernon
Walters, the U.S. attaché in Paris and a talented interpreter, to secretly relay messages to
the Chinese leadership in Paris. Meanwhile, Kissinger relied upon his old friend, Jean
Sainteny, to use his connection with the Chinese Ambassador to France, Huang Chen,
after Dr. Kissinger asked Sainteny if “he could set up a channel with Huang Chen.”321
Kissinger was confident that Paris was the key, writing to the President in September 12,
1970 that “we have also been trying since the beginning of the year to open a channel
through the Dutch, but I believe if we are to have any success it will be through Paris.”322
Washington was not alone in thinking France was the way to go. Senator Mansfield met
with former US Senator Cabot Lodge, head of the US delegation to the Paris Peace talks,
in September 1969 to discuss the possibility of meeting Zhou Enlai. In September 1970,
Nixon, still confident in the image of Paris as the key to Beijing wrote to Kissinger, “K—
321
In Sainteny’s apartment in Paris on September 27, 1970, Kissinger complained that while he had “tried
to have conservations with the Chinese,” “they seemed to get nowhere.” He lamented that “our other
channels were not satisfactory, and the one in Warsaw was too much in the public (and the Soviet) view.”
“Memcon: Kissinger and Sainteny,” September 27, 1970, box 1032, NSC, NPMP.
322
Kissinger to Nixon, "Contact with the Chinese," circa 12 September 1970, 1032, [Fortune] Cookies II
[Chronology of Exchanges with PRC Feb. 1969 - April 1971].
104
should you not try again on your Walters contact with the Chinese in Paris? Or do we
have an offer outstanding?”323
Although the Paris backchannel ultimately failed to be a decisive portal to
Beijing, it continued to be instrumental well after Kissinger’s first secret trip to Beijing.
The complications of the Paris channel were felt keenly by a disappointed Kissinger
when he felt that Quai d’Orsay was spying on his meetings through Sainteny.324 While
the Pakistani and Romanian channels opened up, in contrast, and became critical for
planning Kissinger’s secret trip. Nonetheless, the Paris channel proved highly
instrumental to subsequent planning for Nixon’s trip. General Walters met the Chinese
Ambassador Huang Chen fifteen times to send secret messages to Beijing through the
Ambassador’s secondary residence in Neuilly and smuggled Kissinger on several
occasions into Paris to meet with both the North Vietnamese and the Chinese beginning
in July 25, 1971. These meetings were so secret that Walters could not tell anyone else,
not even State Department officials, nor Ambassador to France, Chip Bohlen.325 In his
conversations with Huang Chen from July to August 1971, Kissinger planned the details
323
Kissinger later responded to the President that General Vernon Walters’ attempt to pass a message to
Chinese contacts had not worked. Memorandum for the President, “Contact with the Chinese;” Document
90, FRUS, 1969–1976, vol. XVIII, China, 1969–1972. For Walters’ account, see Vernon Walters, Silent
Missions, (New York: Doubleday & Company, 1978), 453-505; 522-550. Walters was a former general and
talented linguist who was working as the U.S. military attaché in Paris. He was involved in many
negotiations with the North Vietnamese and Communist Chinese during this period.
324
Kissinger put a stop to the channel when he discovered that Sainteny was passing information about
these exchanges to the Elysée. Albers, 223.
325
Walters recalls that “somewhat later in 1970 I became involved in the secret negotiations with the
ChiComms that led to Mr. Nixon’s visit to China and a new relationship with them… However, these
negotiations and the constantly smuggling into France of Henry Kissinger to meet with them made my life
as attaché very difficult...I do not believe that Pres. Nixon or Henry Kissinger ever realized how complex
my situation was. They had instructed me to tell no one what I was doing - neither the Ambassador for
whom I worked nor my superiors in the Defense Department. In fact, shortly before I returned to the United
States, I was paying farewell calls on the French forces in Germany and on two of the four days Iw as there,
I received phone calls from Dr. Kissinger ordering me back to Paris to see either the Chinese or the
Vietnamese. ” Walters even gave Kissinger an alias every time he came to stay in his apartment - General
Harold Kirschman. Walters, Silent Missions, 472-531.
105
of Nixon’s forthcoming trip and concluded that “Paris [would] remain the primary
channel,” rather than Warsaw or any other means. According to Kissinger, this channel
would be critical to “keep[ing] the Chinese informed on all significant subjects of
concern to them, which give them an additional stake in nurturing our new
relationship.”326
Beyond the Paris Channel, French influence and significance had occurred further
upstream with de Gaulle’s influence on Chinese foreign policy. Relatively few scholars
in the current Cold War scholarship have written about the impact of Sino-French
relations on rapprochement between the U.S. and China. There are a number of reasons
for this: first and foremost, Sino-French relations were certainly not the “ultimate" causes
or principle factors that drove U.S.-China rapprochement starting in 1972. There is a
great deal of Cold War detente literature that addresses more immediate causes.
However, as argued in chapter 2, the Chinese were frequently hearing the French vouch
for U.S. actions, which even the Chinese admitted carried some weight. Receiving
instructions from de Gaulle and later Pompidou, Manac’h continued to impress on the
Chinese in 1969 and 1971 that the Americans were serious about normalization.
Manac’h’s discussions also revealed the Chinese perspective to be shuttled back to the
Americans through Ambassador Lucet in Washington. As Manac’h related to his
American counterparts, whereas the Chinese were launching strong attacks on the U.S.
verbally from 1969 to 1971, they privately “expressed [to him] an objective and rather
sympathetic view of US policy toward the Sino-Soviet dispute, noting that the US has not
326
Kissinger to Nixon, "My August 16 Meeting with the Chinese Ambassador in Paris," 16 August 1971,
Records of the Policy Planning Staff, Director's Files (Winston Lord), 1969-1977, box 330. China
Exchanges July-October 20, 1971.
106
attempted to take advantage of it or tried to worsen it, and that the US clearly does not
see a Sino-Soviet war as in its interest.”327 Premier Zhou also intimated to Manac’h that
the question of renewed Sino-U.S. talks was “complicated” because of “domestic
problems.”328 Upon receiving Manac’h’s intelligence, Americans analysts concluded that
the Chinese were beginning to soften their position towards the U.S.329 Though by no
means decisive, Sino-French discussions therefore played a significant role in influencing
the extremely intense internal Chinese debate over U.S. intentions and national security
strategy in 1969 as well as reassuring the Americans of their analysis of Beijing’s
softening.330 France, as Sebastian Reyn avers, “played an important role in getting the
new administration to engage China and the Soviet Union in the game of “triangular”
diplomacy, which would become a hallmark of Nixon’s foreign policy.”
More subtly, Sino-French interactions throughout the 1960s and 1970s provided
an intellectual and cultural framework through which to understand the West.331 In this
way it acted as an important precursor to future Sino-U.S. discussions. These
understandings cut both ways - the French were able to then transmit their diplomatic
experiences and understanding of Chinese strategy and negotiating style to the Americans
in preparation for Kissinger and Nixon’s visits to Beijing.332 In 1973, the final decisive
piece for achieving détente in Asia was put in place with the signing of the Paris Peace
Accords and the U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. While the story of France’s contribution
327
Green to Richardson, “Next Steps in China Policy,” October 6, 1969, POL Chicom-US. 1967-1969, Box
1973, SNF, RG59, NA.
328
Lin Biao dispute. Cambodia.
329
While this is “far removed from a major shift in Chinese foreign policy toward the US,” it suggests “a
slight softening of their position as compared with a year ago.” Ibid.
330
Komine, 111.
331
Shen Zhihua, interview with the author, August 2015.
332
André Malraux’s visits to the White House were designed to do just that.
107
is not frequently heard in the Sino-US normalization story or the narrative of détente in
Asia, its influence or significance should not be discounted. To do so would be to
understate the influence of Gaullism beyond Europe during the Cold War as well as the
power and agency of intermediary states like France and China to change the dynamics of
the international system through acts of grand diplomacy. Nixon and Kissinger had been
leading advocates of opening to China within Washington at a time when many advisors
and senators cautioned against it but, compared to the compared to the Chinese and
French, they could hardly be considered architects. At best, they were contributors to the
architecture of détente.
Giddy from the diplomatic successes they were achieving with the Chinese and
the Soviets in 1972, Nixon and Kissinger looked eagerly for an equivalent European
breakthrough in 1973. Perhaps too eagerly, Kissinger, in particular, felt that he could
work his diplomatic magic on the state of Franco-American and transatlantic relations
and succeed where his predecessors had failed.333 When Kissinger gave his speech on the
“Year of Europe” at the Waldorf-Astoria on April 23, 1973, citing “the need [for] a
shared view of the world we seek to build,” the Europeans, in particular the French,
333
Henry Kissinger, “The Year of Europe,” April 23, 1973, in Department of State Bulletin, 14 May 1973,
pp. 593–598. Jussi M. Hanhimäki, “Kissinger et l’Europe: Entre intégration et autonomie,” Relations
internationales, No. 119 (2004), pp. 319–332. Home argues that Kissinger’s desire was to have his own
initiative to rival Nixon’s China initiative. “Europe was not an area where Nixon felt at ease, or even a
paramount interest in its affairs. But to Kissinger, as of 1973, it had represented almost the totality of his
academic input.” Hence, Kissinger launched the “Year of Europe” only a few months after the Shanghai
Communiqué. Alistair Home, Kissinger: 1973, The Crucial Year, 107. “We want to use the time that this
Administration has to put our relations with Europe on the same symbolic level as the successes we had
with the USSR,” Kissinger revealed to the NATO Ambassadors in June 1973. MemCon HAK and NATO
Ambassadors, June 30, 1973, LOC.
108
bristled.334 The French declared that they not support a "transatlantic directorate” that
threatened their mobility and flexibility to deal with the Soviets on their own terms.335
Kissinger had overlooked that in striving to build both Europe and maintain independent
state-level bilateral relations with Moscow, the Europeans were already establishing an
equilibrium in Europe that would be more promising and stable than any “Atlantic
Charter” could propose.336 An “Atlantic Europe” threatened that that vision of
equilibrium. Ironically, Kissinger had made this very argument in 1965 when he praised
de Gaulle for understanding that “France and Europe must contribute to bringing about
this balance not as the objects of policy but as their author.”337 Intriguingly, Mao
understood this better than Kissinger in 1972 when he commented on the “disastrous”
state of European affairs to French Foreign Minister, Maurice Schumann, in 1972.338
Mao in 1972 understood what Kissinger had forgotten: that détente in Europe had to be
of the Europeans’ making.
334
They compared Kissinger's speech to President Kennedy's 1962 Philadelphia Speech, which presented
the idea of a "Charter of Interdependence.” MemCon HAK and NATO Ambassadors, June 30, 1973, LOC,
Memnon. Jean-Bernard Raimond, a conseiller diplomatique to French President Georges Pompidou
described Kissinger's speech as an “imperial text that fundamentally conveys the will to power of the U.S,”
and expressed concern that the other European partners would go down “the American path.” It was no
coincident that Raimond used the Nitzchean phrase “la volonté de puissance” (“will to power”) to highlight
his concern, nor that he likened it to Kennedy’s Philadelphia speech eleven years previously. « texte
impérieux, qui exprime fondamentalement la volonté de puissance des États-Unis. » Note du 3 mai 1973
pour Pompidou, 5AG2/1 021. French Ambassador to the U.S., Kosciusko-Morizet, declared that it “did not
make sense” for “someone like [Kissinger and Nixon] who admired de Gaulle” to want to “return to the
Kennedy period.” Kissinger Meeting with Nixon et al., 25 May 1973, in DNSA/KT00738.
335
Kissinger-Kosciusko-Morizet meeting, May 14, 1973, pp. 2-3, DNSA/KT00723.
336
MemCon HAK and NATO Ambassadors, June 30, 1973, LOC, Memnon. Kissinger conveyed to the
NATO Ambassadors that it was difficult “to understand [European] accusations that the [U.S.] want[s]
hegemony and condominium.” “The reasons for it,” he wrote, “are not fully clear to me even today.”
Although Kissinger also blamed Michel Jobert for French antagonism and specifically for pursuing “the old
Gaullist dream of building Europe on an anti-American basis.” Kissinger, Years of Upheaval, 163.
337
Kissinger, “The Illusionist,” 76
338
“Soviet Policy is a Diversion,” July 10, 1972, Mao Zedong wai jiao wen xuan (Beijing: Zhong yang wen
xian chu ban she, 1994), 597.
109
The Year of Europe demonstrated that rather than being agents of détente in
Europe, Nixon and Kissinger put their leadership objectives above détente. While Nixon
and Kissinger rhetorically advocated for a strong united Europe in public, in private they
were frustrated about European insubordination on monetary affairs and opined that it
“might serve our interests in keeping the Europeans apart” and strove to “force [the
Europeans] to deal separately with us” so as to “to prevent a united European position
without showing our hand.”339 If the Nixon administration were at all serious about
détente in Europe they would have followed Kissinger’s initial theorizing in the 1965 in
Troubled Partnership that a “strong Europe” would ensure détente and equilibrium and
they would have let the Europeans deal with Moscow on their own terms and fostered
European integration and unity, especially in economic affairs. But in economic dealings,
in particular, they tried to pit European nations against each other (in particular France
and West Germany), seeking to undermine European unity and integration for the sake of
greater leadership in the globalized age.340 While Nixon and Kissinger theoretically
339
Hence, they adopted an interventionist country-by-country policy in European monetary problems. By
doing this, they believed that they could “bust the common float” and “prevent a united European position
without showing our hand.” “Nixon to Kissinger,” March 10, 1973, in FRUS, 1969–1976, vol. 31, 119;
“Nixon-Kissinger-Shultz Meeting,” 3 March 1973, Tape Transcript, in FRUS, 1969–1976, vol. 31, 83. In
one meeting with Kissinger and Schultz, Nixon declared that “the French are selfish bastards….We say to
France, where would you be without the United States? Down. Nothing….Now, in order to play that game,
we can perhaps…split them [the Europeans] up, don’t let them get together.” Nixon expressed concerns
about how the European “insubordination” would affect their election prospects: “we have got to take a
position which we can sell the American people that “thank God, the President of the United States might
be as strong as the Europeans and the Japanese, and we’re looking after Uncle Sam.” “My point, is that
right now, we are in a period, where the United States, the people of this country, could very well turn
isolationist unless their president was looking after their interests. And we must not less this happen.” Ibid.
Transatlantic relations worsened with the 1973 oil crisis and OPEC embargo. Many European countries
condemned American actions in the Arab-Israeli conflict and sought to disassociate themselves from the
U.S. in order to avoid the embargo.
340
Nixon and Kissinger on political principle were opposed to the idea of joint float because they were
averse to the notion of the “ungrateful” Europeans ganging up against the U.S. “as a bloc” and of the
American domestic economy being hostage “to the “international monetary situation.” They feared that
Europe would become their “Frankenstein's Monster.” “Nixon-Kissinger-Shultz Meeting,” 3 March 1973,
110
embraced multipolarity, they couldn’t overcome the persisting American tendency to
want to lead and shape the world order, be it bipolar or multipolar, rather than scaling
back and letting other states assume greater power.341 Détente was clearly easier in theory
than in application.342
But Nixon and Kissinger had détente in Asia to congratulate themselves on. 1972
was the Year of China in all but name. By 1973, the Nixon Administration was able to
achieve the finalization of its détente in Asia with the Shanghai Communiqué signed in
February 1972 and the Paris Peace Accords in January 1973. Détente in Asia had proven
possible in the end through “grand diplomacy” rather than boots and guns. While the
French were unwilling to unravel the European “gordian knot,” they had proven more
than happy to facilitate Sino-US relations and the détente-in-Asia process. Just as the
French had reached out to Beijing in 1964 out of own national interests, they facilitated
the “Paris Channel” between Washington and Beijing from 1970-1972, again, out of
national interests. From Paris’ perspective, Sino-US rapprochement would only divert the
superpowers’ attention away from Europe and toward Asia. In such a way, the French
and their European counterparts could be allowed to “build Europe together” and Nixon
could have his Asian annus miribilis. As Pompidou, de Gaulle’s successor, later revealed
to Nixon in 1971, the French believed the “China card” had assisted the “development of
Tape Transcript, in FRUS, 1969–1976, vol. 31, 79; Luke Nichter, Richard Nixon and Europe: The
Reshaping of the Postwar Atlantic World, 66.
341
Sargent argues that Nixon and Kissinger wanted to shape the new globalization era in the 1970s by
asserting “centrality” and U.S. leadership in the new multipolar world order. Therefore, they were not
willing to sacrifice U.S. leadership interests for greater multipolarity. Daniel Sargent, A Superpower
Transformed: The Remaking of American Foreign Relations, 10. Goh argues that the return to “centrality”
was an attempt to “regain the pivotal hegemonic position that Washington had enjoyed” after WWII, before
it had been unravelled by the Vietnam War. Evelyn Goh, 11.
342
Daniel Sargent argues that the structural realities of globalization and interdependency in the 1970s
forced the U.S. to cede its authority in key areas such as the world economy. Daniel J. Sargent, A
Superpower Transformed: The Remaking of American Foreign Relations, p. 10.
111
[the] policy of European Unity and détente with [Eastern Europe].” Pompidou
commented on the fact that the “the Soviets are [now] not looking for crises in Europe
and are very concerned with Asia.”343 The two détentes were thus mutually embracing.
343
Nixon-Pompidou meeting, May 31, 1973, DNSA/KT00742.
112
Conclusion
The Case for Diplomacy
In 1979, the USSR invaded Afghanistan, marking the end of the “decade of
détente.” By 1976, opposition to détente in the U.S. had gained widespread appeal in both
Republican and Democratic parties.344 Détente itself had become a dirty word that
smacked of appeasement. But what many Americans failed to realize was that détente
was not just about managing tensions between the superpowers; it was a process that
involved other countries in the international order too. Moreover, détente was not about
creating “a structure of peace,” as the Nixon administration had defined it to the
American public, but about creating “stability” or “equilibrium” - a system in which there
would be greater predictability and communication to resolve potential crises. This was
something that the European leaders, on both sides of the Iron Curtain, instinctively
grasped. Along with the Chinese, their collective quest for détente in the form of
“stability” or “equilibrium” was what ultimately made the “long peace” possible for the
superpowers.345
This thesis has proposed that the convergence of Gaullist and Maoist foreign
policy strategies in the 1960s facilitated the shift toward détente by 1973. Despite their
statuses as “secondary” or “intermediate” powers, France and China had more agency
and influence than is traditionally depicted in making multipolarity a structural reality as
well as a paving the way for Washington’s eventual recognition of the PRC. As such, the
344
Notable among them were California governor Ronald Reagan and Washington senator Henry Jackson
during the 1976 primaries.
345
John Lewis Gaddis, “The Long Peace: Elements of Stability in the Post-war International System”,
International Security 10 (1986), 99-142.
113
eventual Sino-U.S. rapprochement was less determinative than is traditionally held in the
transformation of the Cold War from a bipolar system of adversarial ideological blocs to
a tripolar or a multipolar one conducted on balance-of-power principles.346 The FranceChina-U.S. triangle, portrayed in this thesis, suggests four main conclusions that are
significant to historians and international relations theorists alike.
First, the focus on Sino-French normalization challenges the standard Americanled opening-to-China narrative in which Nixon and Kissinger are lauded as the heroes as
well as the architects of Cold War détente. It establishes that the French both understood
and were willing to play the “China card” a whole eight years before the Americans. An
analysis of Mao’s shifting attitudes toward Western Europe during the 1960s also invites
us to rethink the classic opening-of-China tale and the degree to which the Americans or
structural realities “opened” China to the Western world.
Second, studying Gaullist France and Maoist China in this period invites us to
reconsider the Cold War from the perspectives of “secondary powers” while also
shedding light on the agency and role of these powers in the international system.
Pushing past the standard two-player bipolar interpretation that has long been the
framework of Cold War history as well as recent studies on the role of Third World
countries, this analysis leads us to realize that “grand diplomacy” and “détente-making”
are not confined to the superpowers alone. In fact, “grand diplomacy” was pursued by
states like China and France to overcome material weaknesses, increase strategic options,
and shape the global distribution of power.347 What Sino-French diplomatic encounters
346
Goh, Constructing the U.S. Rapprochement with China, 1-2.
In 1967, French professor Alfred Grosser drafted a report for RAND in which he concluded that “with a
power base greatly inferior to that of the two super-powers, and with an economic base inferior to West
347
114
reveal, therefore, is that diplomacy can allow “secondary powers” to shape the world
order by providing valuable information and perspectives to other states, including the
superpowers.
Third, Gaullism, Maoism, and and the Nixon détente strategy can and ought to be
reinterpreted in light of this triangular relationship. As this thesis has sought to show in
chapter one, Gaullist foreign policy was extremely conscious of multipolarity and the
balance-of-power both in Europe and more globally. While motivated greatly by the idea
of grandeur as a means to revivify French influence and prestige, de Gaulle’s foreign
policy was also guided by the conviction that French interests could be pursued through
the understanding and manipulation of the global balance of power even in capitals as
distant as Beijing. In effect, Gaulle’s foreign policy played itself out on a global chess
board stretching across Europe to Moscow and Beijing on the East and across the
Atlantic to Washington on the West. The general grasped the lateral dimensions of two
détentes being played at simultaneously - one in Asia with Beijing as the fulcrum and one
in Europe with France and West Germany as the centers of gravity. During his
presidency, as Kissinger discerned, de Gaulle acted like a Cold War Bismarck, playing
superpowers as well as geographical regions off against one another in the belief that the
application of diplomatic influence in Asia could open up options closer to home. His
overarching goal in this game of diplomatic chess was to divert the superpowers’
attentions away from Europe and toward Asia, specifically China. In opposition to
Germany’s, France skillfully used American power as a lever on the Soviet Union, Soviet power to bring
pressure on the United States, and both to constrain Germany. With luck she could thus make all three
consent to a privileged position for France in world affairs — a position out of proportion to France’s own
economic and military means.” Alfred Grosser, “Franco-Soviet Relations Today,” RAND Corporation,
1967, accessed via: http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_memoranda/RM5382.html.
115
Washington’s Atlantic ideals, the general believed that détente in Europe had to be
achieved through a series of independent European initiatives to relax tensions with
Moscow. In this way, he hoped also that the French could build Europe free of American
or Soviet influence. There is evidence, touched on throughout the thesis, to suggest that
he was not the only European to think in this way.
Maoist foreign policy bore many similarities to Gaullist foreign policy, as
presented in chapter two.348 Observing de Gaulle’s independent and insubordinate foreign
policy behaviour in the West, Mao initially believed that he could exploit the
“contradictions” in the capitalist bloc through diplomatic means. He concluded from his
subsequent interactions with the French that engagement with other “secondary powers”
and greater integration in a multipolar system would be the way for China to overcome
its isolation and become a global “great power,” rather than seeking to lead the Third
World through the exportation of radical ideology as it had done before. Just as de Gaulle
had sought détente in Asia as a way to build up strategic options at home and secure
greater equilibrium in Europe, Mao welcomed the moves toward European détente and
integration because, in his eyes, a stronger Europe would turn the gaze of Washington
and Moscow back toward Berlin where he believed the Cold War was really being played
out.349 As I have argued, 1963 was a turning point in Mao’s previously erratic foreign
policy strategic thinking as he shifted from an ideology-based foreign policy to one
configured around balance-of-power logic, reflected in his revised “Intermediate Zone
348
Chinese historian Qiu Bing writes about the striking similarities in Maoist and Gaullist theories. Qiu
Bing, “The Alignment of Mao’s “Intermediate Zone Theory” and Gaullism in Sino-French Normalization,”
(Master’s dissertation), Sun Yat-sen University, Guangzhou.
349
W.W. Kulski, De Gaulle and the World: The Foreign Policy of the Fifth French Republic, (Syracus:
Syracuse University Press, 1966); “Soviet Policy is a Diversion,” July 10, 1972, Mao Zedong wai jiao wen
xuan (Beijing: Zhong yang wen xian chu ban she, 1994), 597.
116
Theory” and softening of attitudes towards Western capitalist nations such as France.
This calls into question IR theorists’ claims that Maoist foreign policy was driven by
ideology up until 1969. It also provides important background and evidence for modernday discussions of China as a “status quo” power and a historical advocate of
multipolarity.
Contradictions in the Nixon détente strategy also come to the fore in an analysis
of this triangle, calling into question the conventional thesis of a Nixon-led global
détente. As argued in chapter three, Nixon and Kissinger embraced the rising
multipolarity of the world order but more so in theory than in practice.350 Their rhetoric
about a “strong Europe” and a “strong China” was subservient to their desire to preserve
U.S. leadership. They were willing, for instance, to split up Europe when it was
expedient. Like their predecessors, they viewed multipolarity as both a challenge and an
opportunity and considered détente to be the means to an end: the re-consolidation of
American power.351 Yet many historians depict Nixon and Mao as the active architects of
Cold War détente through their embrace of “political multipolarity,” prescient balanceof-power strategizing, and use of “grand diplomacy.” This characterization of Cold War
détente history, as well as the notion of an American ‘breakthrough’ in China,
undermines the determinative role of the Chinese and the French in the détente-making
process. Although not superpowers, China and France made great strides toward
fostering détente in Europe and Asia before the so-called Nixon “breakthrough.” If
anything, Nixon and Kissinger had been more “reactive” than “proactive” in the face of
350
The Nixon administration’s embrace of political multipolarity certainly gave Nixon and Kissinger an
edge over their predecessors in terms of the pursuit of détente.
351
The Nixon Doctrine thus reflects the twin matrix in the DNA of U.S. foreign policy today: an embrace
of globalization and interdependence vs. an adherence to U.S. leadership.
117
structural trends and shifts in the world order catalyzed by de Gaulle and Mao. Mao’s
decisions to open channels to Beijing on his own terms defeats the scholarship of those
who assume that the Chinese “needed” American engagement and hence were materially
or structurally bound to “open” to the U.S. The stillborn demise of the Year of Europe in
1973 also revealed that détente in Europe could not be “created” by the Americans but
rather had to be piecemeal by the Europeans themselves. Détente itself, understood
globally, was not the product of Nixon’s grand design nor was it always his and
Kissinger’s end-goal. Rather, it was countries such as France and China that were the
believers in multipolarity and the engineers of Cold War détentes.
Fourth and last of all, studying the France-China-U.S. triangle elicits a string of
criss-crossing stories within the Cold War meta-narrative. From 1954 to 1973, there were
two openings to China, two détente-making processes at play,352 and two “births”: the
birth of a more integrated China, beginning to orient itself as a status quo power and an
advocate for multipolarity, as well as the birth of a more united Europe seeking strength
and power through an ever-closer union that would ultimately lead to the European
Union. These stories illustrate the billiard ball effect of Cold War geopolitics as nations’
foreign policies could effectively cut across continents, impacting states in other regions.
What do these conclusions signify for the future study of diplomatic history and
international relations? In the realm of history, this thesis reveals the deep
interconnectivity and global dimension of the Cold War, not just structurally but also in
the minds of policy-makers. From an IR standpoint, it places balance-of-power analyses
in a more global framework and invites political scientists to reconsider the role of
352
Western European countries also began to engage with the PRC after 1964, following France’s example.
118
balance-of-power logic in Chinese strategic thought. Moreover, close readings of SinoFrench diplomatic encounters vindicate constructivist hypotheses that China’s
“socialization” through the “social environments” of institutions and interactions has
contributed to its self-identification as a “status quo” power. This transformation, in and
of itself, underscores the value of diplomacy both then and now.353
For many historians, history is not simply a curio or a relic of the past to be tested,
prodded, and stored away in a glass box for the next exhibition. When historians assign
themselves the mission to understand the causality of past events and explain wie es
eigentlich gewesen they are invariably responsible for how people think about the present
and the future. As historian R.G. Collingwood wrote in The Idea of History, the “value of
history” is that it “teaches us what man has done and what man is.” Historians therefore
can equip others with greater foresight and prescience, particularly in areas like foreign
policy that are so filled with uncertainty and risk. This thesis is motivated, above all, by a
personal desire to understand better the nature of diplomacy - specifically, how
diplomacy can change states’ identities, strategies, and perceptions of allies and
adversaries. Certainly, the tides of history and the strings of diplomacy are frequently led
and pulled by “great men” and “great powers.”354 However, lingering in the shadows
behind “great men” invariably stand highly capable, tactful, and well-informed
diplomats, negotiators, and strategists without whom the fruits of diplomacy would not be
353
Alistair Iain Johnston. Interview with Author. Harvard University. February 13, 2016; Alastair Iain
Johnston, “Treating International Institutions as Social Environments,” International Studies Quarterly 45
(2001): 487-515.
354
Note the similarities in leadership style: centralization of power, highly suspicious and aloof natures,
balance-of-power adherents, ability to play weak(er) hands through acts of grand diplomacy.
119
possible. For every de Gaulle, Mao or Nixon there is an Edgar Faure, a Zhou Enlai, a
Henry Kissinger. For every “great power,” too, there are a host of other states like France
and China that can themselves affect transformations in the world order.
Today we live in a world that is arguably more multipolar and chaotic than 1973.
In the 1970s, Henry Kissinger lamented a world “in which tiny, poor, and weak nations
can hold up for ransom some of the industrialized world.” Today, we live in a world
where non-state actors - terrorist groups, religious extremists, and cyberhackers - can use
new technologies to hold countries to “ransom.”355 Globalization has emerged from the
“polycentrism” of the Cold War period, making for an international system that is not
only more complex and interdependent but also less and less in the control of national
policy-makers. What can the Cold War then teach us about our world today? The answer
has to do with diplomacy. Reflecting on the Cold War, Kissinger also wrote that “the
superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a
room,” each side tending to over-ascribe “consistency, foresight, and coherence” to the
adversary.356 But superpowers alone are not “blind men.” Without the instruments of
diplomacy, all states and policy-makers in general are hampered by uncertainty and
asymmetric information and risk making badly calibrated policy responses. It comes as
no surprise, then, that diplomacy can be a cure for foreign policy myopia, allowing “blind
men” to understand better their counterparts, to realize unforeseen opportunities and
355
e.g. cyberwarfare and terrorism.
“The superpowers often behave like two heavily armed blind men feeling their way around a room, each
believing himself in mortal peril from the other, whom he assumes to have perfect vision. Each side should
know that frequently uncertainty, compromise, and incoherence are the essence of policymaking. Yet each
tends to ascribe to the other a consistency, foresight, and coherence that its own experience belies. Of
course, over time, even two armed blind men can do enormous damage to each other, not to speak of the
room.” Henry Kissinger, White House Years, 522.
356
120
unfolding options, and to feel incentivized to adhere to the “status quo.” Less obvious,
perhaps, is the sometimes crucial role of second-tier states (and even allied states) in
pursuing independent flexible foreign policies not only to challenge great powers’
impulse for “occasional impetuosity” but also to enable the transmission of key insights
that can reduce informational asymmetries for more than these countries alone. When
countries such as France and China engage in flexible non-aligned diplomacy, surprising
and unforeseen consequences may arise that can have profound implications for world
order and superpower strategy. What the France-China-U.S. triangle illustrates to us
today is the value of a dense crisscrossing network of diplomatic relations and dialogues
in managing highly complex polycentric systems. It reminds us, too, that the case for
diplomacy is a case for all nations.
121
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