REPARTEE WITH MAO

(4 of 6)

Mao's principal concern was not our Soviet policy but our domestic situation, specifically Watergate. What good was a strategy of containment if we sapped our capacity to implement it by our domestic divisions? He contemptuously dismissed the whole affair as a form of "breaking wind." He saw no objective reasons for an assault on a President who had done a good job: "The number of unemployed has been cut down and the U.S. dollar is relatively stable. So there doesn't seem to be any major issue. Why should the Watergate affair become all exploded in such a manner?"

It was not possible to explain to the absolute ruler of the Middle Kingdom the finer points of a constitutional system that placed even the highest officials under the rule of law. At the same time, Mao had a point. Watergate interested him primarily for its impact on our fitness to resist Soviet expansionism. The geopolitical consequences threatened to dwarf the original offense.

Moscow, according to Mao, looked strong but was actually overextended. It had to be wary of Japan and China; it had to keep an eye on South Asia and the Middle East; and in Europe it had to maintain forces larger than those facing China. Hence, Mao concluded, the Soviet Union could not attack China "unless you first give them the Middle East and Europe so they are able to deploy troops eastward." The converse was also true. The U.S. was thus the key to global security. The real danger was the potential victims' lack of understanding of the requirements of the geopolitical balance. It was Mao's core conviction that while our European allies were wavering for various reasons, they would not in the end succumb to Soviet blandishment. It was important, therefore, not to confuse temporarily irritating tactics with long-term trends. We must stick to a firm line even if some of our friends seemed hesitant; in time they would gain courage from our leadership.

Mao spoke in lapidary sentences each of which required physical effort to articulate. Perhaps his stroke-induced infirmity imposed the need for the dialogue form to give him the chance to regroup. Perhaps he had always preferred dialogue. Whatever the reason, Mao spoke in short paragraphs.

After about an hour, Mao suddenly brought up Taiwan, hinting obliquely at a solution. He had heard that the three Baltic states, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia, still had embassies in the U.S. I affirmed it. Chou helpfully chipped in that though maintaining diplomatic relations with the U.S., the Baltic states did not have access to the United Nations. Did this mean that China might acquiesce in a separate legal status for Taiwan, contenting itself with excluding Taiwan from the U.N.?