Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
Claire Berlinski ·
September 8, 2012 at 3:56am
Good morning, Ricochet--miss me yet?
I'm in Delhi, where I'm puzzling over the state of the world. I'd like to have a rational, polite, debate with people whose politics might best be described as center-right, conservative or libertarian. Fortunately, I know just where to find that.
Here's the proposition I'd like to debate:
This photo represents the biggest foreign policy blunder of the 20th Century.
A Ricochet glory badge will be awarded to the member who helps me to think about this in the most useful way.
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Comments:
Jan '12
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
We Americans will sell the rope to hang ourselves...
Sep '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
Claire,
Welcome back. I think to start the debate you would have to take a position affirming or denying the proposition, would you not?
Feb '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
Welcome back, Claire! We missed you greatly. Glad to hear of your new address on the globe.
As a Sinophile, I have mixed feelings about this. I'm happy for the Chinese who are experiencing much better conditions than under the Mao regime. On the other hand, I'm decidedly ambivalent about the current government in China, for obvious reasons.
My current thinking is that due to generational dynamics, war with China may prove inevitable regardless of the president we choose.
Edited on September 8, 2012 at 5:00amSep '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
I respectfully disagree, the Neville Chamberlain picture with the treaty that Hitler signed is the winner.
Jan '11
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
I was going to send a lugubrious email to the contact email lamenting your absence, soooooooo happy to see you back. (pssssst also to Judith Levy!). :)
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
Pseudodionysius: Claire,
Welcome back. I think to start the debate you would have to take a position affirming or denying the proposition, would you not? · 5 minutes ago
Usually, I would. But I'm really first struggling with all the questions I need to think about even to approach a meaningful answer. The reason this comes up now, of course, is that someone here said it to me--and I realized I hadn't given the idea enough thought. At all.
Jun '11
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
Well the "blunder" was "brilliant realpolitik" in the short term, but perhaps knells our very end in the long term.
By enabling China to embark on its long transition from Communism to Fascism, and 3rd world to 1st: we've groomed a replacement for American economic and military power whose political philosophy is 180 degrees from Classical Liberalism.
Obama re-election means the US enters its decline. If trends continue, Obama will make the US more like China (without the productivity.) Influencing China to be more like us is a bad joke. Useful?
Edited on September 9, 2012 at 12:58amJun '11
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
I have always wanted to ask Derb about this.
Jul '11
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
Anybody know what Derb is up to these days?
May '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
Knowing nothing myself, I'm looking forward to learning from the rest of you. What John says rings true to me, off the bat.
My son-in-law is Nixon fan. I haven't quite understood it yet.
May '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
grotiushug
Anybody know what Derb is up to these days? · 0 minutes ago
I know he and NR parted ways over an unfortunate column of his elsewhere on the web. And he is battling cancer.
May '11
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
I doubt very much that Reagan would have been able to win the Cold War, at least between '89-'92, if Nixon had not pursued Détente and opened China.
Further, including China in the global economic system, which required opening China, is the only way China will become prosperous enough to ever adopt some alternate form of government.
Jul '12
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
I'm not going to debate that as such. I don't say that it wasn't a mistake. I will say that the photo/newsreel of Chamberlain holding up the Munich Agreement and proclaiming "Peace in our time", is clearly representative of a bigger foreign policy blunder, the Surrender at Munich. Its also tragically comical, almost camp, in retrospect. QED
Jul '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
Big? Possibly. Biggest? No:
Jun '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
The China visit was not a blunder. Normalizing relations and bringing China into the international community enabled China to begin moving (albeit slowly) toward a free market system, which has been a tremendous boon for the USA and China. Trade with China has allowed millions of Chinese to move out of poverty and toward a productive economic outcome. It allows citizens of the USA to purchase goods at a very low cost, which has been a net positive for our economy. As the owner of a manufacturing firm that works with China daily, I can testify that the relationship is a net benefit to both countries. It started with Nixon.
Sep '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
I missed you, Claire. Glad to see you back. Unfortunately I'm too tired from moving into a new house to think about issues like that, but I will smile and nod as others write about it more coherently than I can.
Jun '11
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
A blunder, probably in the 20th C's top five. (Asquith's Cabinet deciding to enter the war against Germany in 1914 is far and away the worst blunder in that century or any other. It was a close run thing, only Churchill and Grey being keen to fight.)The only justification I can see for ANY accommodation with Communist China was to keep them from burying the hatchet with the USSR. Some well timed amd variable gestures should have been more than enough to achieve that end. Full blown recognition seems overdoing it -- in short, a blunder. Derb once quoted a Chinese dissident on the proper comportment of the West in dealing with China: "You always should ask yourself, How is this going to look to the guys in camps?" They get news quicker than you think, he said.Well that test, a humanitarian one, Nixon failed badly. Think how the news of his visit must have edged the sufferings of those millions, already so wretched.
Edited on September 8, 2012 at 4:55amNov '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
I hadn't ever though about this particular picture, but now that you mention it, Claire, Mao really sullied his reputation by shaking Nixon's hand.
The murderous dictator, who held the distinction of being more-or-less directly responsible for the murder of more people than any other single man in history, who dreamed of subjugating the entire world under his regime, and who impoverished a billion people to the verge of mass starvation, really began to lose steam when people started associating him with a man known to have once lied under oath in a congressional hearing, and whose evil henchmen placed a hidden microphone, apparently with his knowledge, in the headquarters of his political opponents.
Up to that point, Mao was practically worshipped by his adoring minions. Guilt by association with the loathed American paper tiger eventually toppled their esteem for him and, by the time he lay in state, his powerful legacy was crumbling, never to recover.
Surely, then, this photo is a record of Chairman Mao committing the biggest foreign policy blunder of the 20th Century.
Sep '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
Claire, I can't recall Nixon's motivations at the time (and I can't recall Kissinger's bloviations either) but my dim recollection of the period is that the worry was about Russian and China forming an alliance that would be damaging long term to the US interests. I believe, but cannot remember with certitude, that Nixon's thinking was to attempt to drive a bigger wedge between the Soviet Union and China than had been possible before. Whether you can argue that this made Reagan's counter Soviet masterstroke (along with Maggie) possible is at least worth a book length examination.
I suppose the counter argument is that the Chinese were already distancing themselves from Russia and all Nixon's visit did was give Chinese hackers a fast track to stealing our intellectual property and national secrets.
Well, those are my thoughts on a Friday night off the top of my head anyway.
Jul '12
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
I was before Peter Christofferson, Claire, so I want the glory badge if you buy the argument. EDIT FIX: Sorry Aelreth, I didn't see you there at #4. Hope you get the badge.
Edited on September 8, 2012 at 5:20am