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Quote of the Day: Kissinger on China, Diplomacy, or Both
Diplomacy was not a bargaining process between multiple sovereign interests but a series of carefully contrived ceremonies in which foreign societies were given the opportunity to affirm their assigned place in the global hierarchy. In keeping with this perspective, in classical China what would now be called “foreign policy” was the province of the Ministry of Rituals, which determined the shades of the tributary relationship, and the Office of Border Affairs, charged with managing relations with nomadic tribes. A Chinese foreign ministry was not established until the mid-nineteenth century, and then perforce to deal with intruders from the West. Even then, officials considered their task the traditional practice of barbarian management, not anything that might be considered Westphalian diplomacy. The new ministry carried the telling title of the “Office for the Management of the Affairs of All Nations,” implying that China was not engaging in interstate diplomacy at all.
–World Order, p. 214
Find one thing wrong with any of that!
Well, it – the quote itself, I mean – is long. Splendid gibes like “Upper Volta with rockets” and “It’s a pity they both can’t lose” aside, Henry Kissinger was not a lapidary kind of guy. Some concepts just require elaboration, minute or broad or both. And yet in this passage there are so many portable chunks, their value not at all diminished by isolation.
“Ministry of Rituals.” Perfect. “Barbarian management.” Bingo.
The more I read Kissinger’s work, the more I am impressed by it. I do however confess a fear that he may have, uh, farmed out some of this writing. Elsewhere in this 2014 book, he – or an amanuensis – credits South Korea with something “vibrant.” I find it very hard to believe Kissinger himself ever resorted to that word, with a straight face anyway. And later in this book, speaking of the enthusiasm that greeted what would prove to be World War I, he says that there was in Europe “nary even token opposition” to it. “Nary”? Hank, you ain’t no goober.
What else, as long as I’m on the line? Reading long ago the English Wikipedia article about Kissinger, I had felt the desire, and I do still feel the desire, to campaign for the automatic superscripting of the word “controversial” with [so what?] And contrary to my earlier guess that this volume pretty much skips Latin America – no doubt because of its conspicuous absence of order, world or otherwise – Kissinger does mention the region, in connection with the Monroe Doctrine. He points out what we all could guess: President Monroe didn’t consult with anyone actually in Latin America. But he also, and very efficiently, gives a good reason why not: in 1823, there just weren’t many Latin American countries.
Published in Foreign Policy
An Editor’s Choice for The Collected Works.
Or briefly, Thx.
Love it!
More descriptive than “Executive Branch”. Or “Legislature.”
You have the right idea! For sure it’s a better* term than “Executive Branch.”
* * *
*But, better in what way?
Not because it’s less descriptive, but because it’s incorrect.
There is a difference between (a) a term that is correct but not very descriptive and (b) one that represents a category error.
More particularly, calling a department of the Executive Branch “the Executive Branch” is confounding the part with the whole.
Kissinger, being well-read, is just as prone as the rest of us to drop in a colloquialism that strikes his fancy. And if he did not write every last word, and I concede he may not have, I have no doubt he directed and approved every word. At least until proven otherwise.
I object to many of his conclusions but I like to drink endlessly from his arguments for them and his general reflections. Which surprised me, because I expected to not like him very much and I am appalled by his China policies.
Most of Latin America was independent by 1823 – Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Costa Rica, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemla, Haiti, Honduras, Mexico, Nicaragua, Paraguay, Peru, Uruguay, and Venezuela were.
The US didn’t have the naval power to enforce it at the time, but the British did. They welcomed it as a moral statement to be used to keep their continental rivals (France, Spain, Austria, Russia) from expanding their influence in the New World.
I thank everyone who upvoted this post! It’s my first attempt at a QOTD. Who’da guessed there’d be such acclaim? Or, to use a word Henry Kissinger used a lot, at least in this book of his, approbation. Approbation being different from approval. And acclaim. Hey, I’ll take any one of the three!
I was going to venture, here in the comments rather than in further posts drawing from the same book, more passages, but they are all just a bit long. Kissinger seldom if ever spoke in mottoes or slogans. His best quotes are usually a bit lengthy. So, instead, I’ll just mention he used, at one point in this book, the word “inured.” I think it was in connection with Iran and its apparently tireless and evidently productive diplomatic and other-than-diplomatic actions. Iran always gets what it wants. And the world is simply used to its far-from-empty boasts.
But where to go from here? I mean for me, not Iran. Well, I am dipping, as I promised, a biography of Rubén Darío, and I happened to plunk myself in the middle of an artistic imbroglio in Argentina in 1896. Seems our Nicaraguan man-o’-letters excoriated a certain poet and a critical rumpus ensued. Perhaps unintentionally exploiting a rift within the anti-Modernists – some old guys just didn’t like things that were new, while others were grudgingly pleased that some of these young’uns were reviving some cherished Spanish phrasings of yesteryear – Darío’s comments led to just enough agreement to delete the poet’s name from the rolls of Córdoba’s local esthetic-affairs society. This was not formally announced. But it sure was noticed. Latin American glitterati being incapable of a stony silence. If I can’t get a quote of the CENTURY out of all THAT, then I’m just not trying.
Direct quote: “No Latin American countries were consulted (not least because few existed at the time).” I had to go back for that, because I couldn’t remember the exact phrasing – only that it was terse. What I expected to find was some coyly technical workaround, something to suggest the real problem was not the actual count of sovereign states, but the stabilities of them. Monroe COULD HAVE sent envoys to all, but few had governments capable of receiving – much less understanding – what the U.S. president was proposing on their behalf. But Kissinger didn’t say that. Your point is well-taken!
By the way – and this will be the subject of my next post – the five Central American countries were confederating that very year, while Mexico was itself determining its southern border. So…if “exists” means “must not only exist but still be findable on the same map you were using when you left Washington or London,” then yeah, Monroe’s summary pen-strokes were reasonable. Or no more unreasonable than any others.
Your Kissinger quotes illustrate what bugs me about his books. Most of his books are brilliant (e.g., his comments about the names of China’s ministries of foreign affairs), but then he has these bone-headed errors of fact. Perhaps research assistants and editors couldn’t correct the great man and had to leave these mistakes in. But then it’s hard to know how much to trust the rest of his work.
When I read his comment that there weren’t many Latin American countries in 1823, I thought that had to be wrong; so I looked it up; and he was wrong. But then that raises the question of whether Monroe and J. Q. Adams actually did consult with Latin American countries and if not, why not. Was it because the Latin American governments were rudimentary? Was it because the Monroe Doctrine was more a statement of ideals and not intended to be taken as a serious statement of strategy since the US had no power to enforce it anyway? Was it because the Doctrine was directed at European states and only indirectly concerned Latin American states; after all, the message was a warning to Europeans. I saw some hints online that it was a result of US and British discussions but that the US didn’t want to issue a joint declaration with Britain because the relationship was still too raw after the War of 1812. Is that true? I also saw a suggestion on Wikipedia that the Russian decree of 1821 that banned non-Russians from the Pacific Northwest was the trigger for issuing the Doctrine, which would be interesting since that would expand the focus of the Doctrine to the West Coast. There is a lot that could be explored around the issuance of the Monroe Doctrine.
In any case, thanks for doing a QOTD, especially one that sparked some discussion.
No…but I think they got on it as soon as they could! The book I am currently reading having turned from the Central American Confederation’s local history to its international one, I now know that Monroe and Adams were visited by a Salvadoran delegation requesting annexation! But then word came that that country either had successfully repelled an invading Mexican army, or that army itself quit the area once Iturbide had abdicated, so there was no urgency. Much of this happened in 1823, in December of which the Monroe Doctrine was issued, and I still haven’t got all the exact dates straight. I also don’t know if getting them straight would make the narrative more sensible, as communications were so difficult. How difficult? The first two envoys sent by the U.S. died en route! Whatever anyone still alive was reacting to, it was weeks or months in the past.
But enthusiasm always ran high. Monroe and Adams were excited by commercial prospects (this book says nothing, so far anyway, about promoting or thwarting slavery). I have to wonder if, back in the day, the more obscure a place was, wherever it was, the more it was imagined to possess great wealth. The only philosophical difference among the big powers may have been whether you could harness it locally or carry it away outright. Yet Central America’s dimensions had been well known for centuries. That the isthmus had for all that time remained a tough place to do pretty much anything – build a church, fight a war, dig a ditch – seems not to have dissuaded anyone.
Anyway, it is clear that Central America’s preoccupations were with Mexico to its north and Colombia to its south. Bolívar may or may not have been YOUR liberator! The U.S.A. was already seen as a mediator/arbiter/savior. A power you could play off against other powers, such as England – which gained and diligently hung onto Belize – or even Holland – which sought a canal-building concession in 1833 but did nothing further, being distracted by a revolution back home. A treaty with the U.S.A. not only promised a canal route – somewhere – we’ll figure it out – but American rights to it in perpetuity. And already, Central Americans were wondering at the wisdom of this. To guarantee one’s sovereignty, one must give up some sovereignty? Maybe.