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:
May '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
http://takimag.com/radioderb
Jul '11
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
katievs
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. · 24 minutes ago
I knew about his departure from NR but I didn't know he was ill. I hope he beats it.
Aug '11
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
Please "Claire"ify your question.
If one, then I agree with Aelreth. The failure to stand up to Hitler when he sent troops across the Rhine was the biggest by France and Britain. Just a token response would have forced Hitler to retreat, destroying his credibility and following when his stature was most vulnerable.
If two, I would say it was our failure to help the South Vietnamese in 1975. The North Vietnamese 1975 invasion was their last gasp. Stopping the North then would mean South Vietnam would still be around today. Instead, our ignoring South Vietnam created the impression that the U. S. was a paper tiger, afraid of a real fight. This impression lead directly to September 11, 2001.
I see no downside to Nixon's opening relations with the PRC. Kenneth Gauck's observations are sound.
Nov '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
May '11
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
Mao, always the practical joker, had applied glue to his hand before this photo was snapped. Nixon didn't take it well and the US has been stuck to China since that time.
Sep '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
How about when the Communist sympathizers in the State Dept threw China to the Communists?
Apr '12
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
grotiushug
Anybody know what Derb is up to these days? · 35 minutes ago
Writing, selling books, doing his podcast. And the cancer thing.
Sep '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
katievs: Knowing nothing myself, I'm looking forward to learning from the rest of you. What John says rings true to me, off the bat.
well, you don't meet too many of those!
Oct '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
John Derbyshire is a good man, despite what his detractors did to him last April. And I still listen to his podcast (now hosted at TakiMag) regularly.
Apr '12
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
*joking* How can it possibly be bad? It resulted in the least offensive, most amusing political joke in any Star Trek movie.
May '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
You run away to India and break my heart, then come back into my life posing a question illustrated with a Nixon and Mao grip-and-grin.
My response is that great Vulcan saying: Only Nixon could go to China.
Jun '12
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
I don't think the biggest. It made sense in the larger, more pressing chess game with the Soviets as others have said. But as always, its unintended consequences are yielding bad geo-political mojo now. I definitely worry about our financial solvency at a time when China has unbelievable liquidity and want to flex it hegemonic muscle more. Ponder also that for the first time in history, one of the most academically smart cultures is also peopled almost exclusively by secular atheists with no moral framework, with a ton of cash and a rapidly modernizing military. That bodes well for when the global economic [expletive] really hits the fan, doesn't it? Graciously, their long term demographics are a disaster thanks to their abominable one child policy (they'll get old before they get really rich). But a lot could happen in the interim.
Oct '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
As for the topic at hand, I believe that what Nixon did regarding China was a brilliant maneuver. I doubt that we could have won the Cold War had he not forged an alliance with the PRC.
Jun '12
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
I don't believe that actions of a president visiting China caused the subsequent events, rather I feel that events were moving in that direction, likely in a way that no single president could stop, maybe only delay, and that the big effects were a reaction to weakness on the part of the Soviet Union, commercial opportunity that massive population of china could serve, and that these mostly unseen economic and macro-political forces caused Nixon to make an overture, which at some point would have happened anyway. How it impacts the US is a function of our belief in ourselves and our ability to follow conservative principles. Were mistakes made, certainly, but in a larger sense they didn't matter. Today, China has become a manufacturing center for most of the world, and we will have to compete. Trying to preserve barriers would be futile, and ultimately self defeating. Trade with China could have been delayed, but I think in the final analysis not avoided. It becomes how can we make the best response to a geo-political situation, not under our full control, to minimize the damage. Overall, to the extent we can, let markets decide.
Sep '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
I think this is really the key question at hand.
Oct '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
Pseudodionysius
I think this is really the key question at hand. · 7 minutes ago
Oops, and I just saw that Kenneth Gauck made the very same point upthread. Well, that's what I get for not reading the preceding comments more closely.
Jun '12
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
Also, given your new digs, I hope the Indians realize that they have REALLY got skin in the game on the PRC issue going foward.
Mar '11
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
Well, are we saying the photo itself was the blunder? I'll concede the shot could have been framed a bit better, and maybe adjust the greytones a bit... But really, it's just a photo...
As for Nixon going to China, well... On one hand it did put us in a position to influence Deng Xioping when Mao died, this may in some slight way have prevented the hardliners from keeping the Mao program in place to the misery of all Chinese. This is similar to Maggie Thatcher's line of reasoning RE South Africa during Apartheid - that embargoing a nation entirely meant you had zero influence either for good or ill. Trading at least meant you had bargaining chips and cards in play.
On the other hand we've been all made a party to China's evil child polices, Tibetan repression, and vast (and vastly under-reported) military buildup. When (not if) China's economy stagnates, we'll all reap that whirlwind.
But no human endeavor is perfect, and there was no way Nixon could have foreseen the next 40 years.
My vote therefore is either Neville Chamberlain, or Versailles 1919, or Pottsdam 1945.
Mar '11
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
I should add that Clinton's selling of advanced tech to China & fundraising (with possible bribes of tech and spies) was the bigger blunder.
Jun '10
Re: Weekend Debate: Nixon, China
I would have to seriously think about shaking Obama's hand so this is even harder to swallow. But, the way to analyze this is to compare it to our allying ourselves with Stalin to win WWII. That was essential and this is of a similar nature -- very unsavory characters in the world. As a private person I would never shake Mao's hand, but if I were president -- and for the sake of our country -- this is an easy decision to do so. Nixon wasn't as naive as FDR was with Stalin -- you can at least say that. And I do think it changed the direction the world was going in.
Could Nixon have prevented a war between China and USSR by doing this? I think it might be argued he did -- this was definitely a good thing to do, especially so in hindsight. It weakened the Soviet's public image considerably.
So, not a blunder -- a great coup. But, it must have almost made him gag to have to make small talk with the greatest beast of the 20th Century. Only Stalin can compare (and it was Stalin who put Mao in place and supported him).