[CTRL] Kissinger told China 'you can claim Taiwan'

[William Shannon]

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/0,,3-222282,00.html March 01, 2002 Kissinger told China 'you can claim Taiwan' From Oliver August in Beijing THE memoirs of Henry Kissinger are a bible in the diplomatic world, but according to newly released US government documents they may not be quite as accurate as previously thought. The former Secretary of State made much in his memoirs about his secret 1971 trip to Beijing that led to America’s eventual establishment of diplomatic relations with China. According to The White House Years, Dr Kissinger and Zhou Enlai, the Prime Minister, hardly discussed Taiwan, one of the most divisive issues of the day. The US Government officially recognised Taipei as the capital of China, while the Beijing-based Communists led by Chairman Mao and Mr Zhou claimed Taiwan as a renegade Chinese province. Yet the National Security Archive papers disclose that Dr Kissinger indicated US willingness to accept the legitimacy of China’s claim over Taiwan. This was a huge policy U-turn. The official transcript, released this week, suggests that the first third of the crucial talks with Mr Zhou concerned Taiwan. Dr Kissinger told Mr Zhou: “As for the political future of Taiwan, we are not advocating a ‘two China’ solution or a ‘one China, one Taiwan’ solution.” Instead, “the political evolution is likely to be in the direction which Prime Minister Zhou Enlai indicated”. Speaking of his memoirs, published in 1979, Dr Kissinger, 78, told The New York Times yesterday: “The way I expressed it was very unfortunate and I regret it.” The publication of Dr Kissinger’s comments to Mr Zhou in 1971 could have undermined both the Secretary of State’s career as well as the “ping-pong diplomacy” practised by him. Public sentiment in Cold War America strongly favoured Taiwan, the Westernised underdog that refused to kowtow to the Communists. If the American public had known of Dr Kissinger’s attitude, the Sino-US thaw formalised by President Nixon with his historic 1972 China trip might not have had the same effect. The transcript of the Zhou-Kissinger meeting was part of a batch of documents released by the National Security Archive. Other related documents concern President Nixon’s deliberations over who to send to meet the Chinese for the first time. Before settling on Dr Kissinger, he considered and then dismissed George Bush, then US Ambassador to the UN and later to become President himself, as “too weak”. According to telephone transcripts, the then National Security Adviser objected when Mr Nixon proposed Mr Bush, saying: “Absolutely not, he is too soft and not sophisticated enough.”