Special Section: THE CHINA CONNECTION

In negotiations, the Soviets tend to be blunt, the Chinese insinuating. The Soviets insist on their prerogatives as a great power. The Chinese establish a claim on the basis of universal principles and a demonstration of self-confidence that attempts to make the issue of power seem irrelevant. The Soviets, with all their stormy and occasionally duplicitous behavior, leave an impression of extraordinary psychological insecurity. The Chinese convey an aura of imperviousness to pressure; indeed, they pre-empt pressure by implying that issues of principle are beyond discussion. Chinese diplomats, at least in their encounters with us, proved meticulously reliable. They never stooped to petty maneuvers; they did not haggle; they reached their bottom line quickly, explained it reasonably, and defended it tenaciously. They stuck to the meaning as well as the spirit of their undertakings. As Chou was fond of saying, "Our word counts."

Kissinger had a chance to compare Soviet and Chinese negotiating styles because of a momentous development: the opening to China. As he notes, "policy emerges when concept encounters opportunity, "and Nixon realized that the bloody border clashes between Soviet and Chinese troops in the summer of 1969 presented just such an opportunity. Fearful of a pre-emptive attack by Moscow or an all-out war, the Chinese were looking for a counter-threat to Soviet pressure. At that very moment, the U.S. was subtly signaling Peking that it was interested in a fundamental change in their relationship. There followed what Kissinger calls "an intricate minuet, so stylized that neither side needed to bear the onus of an initiative, so elliptical that existing relationships on both sides were not jeopardized." The complex maneuvers began paying off. In October 1970, Nixon asked Pakistan's President Yahya Khan, who was about to visit Peking, to let the Chinese know that the U.S. was ready to improve relations.

Head to Head

On Dec. 8, Pakistan's Ambassador Agha Hilaly said that he had "a message" for me relating to Yahya's trip. I invited Hilaly to the White House the next day, where in my office a few minutes after 6 p.m. he produced an envelope containing a handwritten missive on white, blue-lined paper which had been carried to him by hand, Yahya not trusting the security of cable communications. (This was to be the form for all messages through the Pakistani channel.) Hilaly said he was not authorized to leave the document with me.

He therefore had to dictate it as I copied it down. We did not notice the incongruity of this elegant spokesman of the elite of a country based on an ancient religion dictating a communication from the leader of a militant Asiatic revolutionary nation to a representative of the leader of the Western capitalist world; or the phenomenon that in an age of instantaneous communication we had returned to the diplomatic methods of the previous century—the handwritten note delivered by messenger and read aloud.

The message was not an indirect, subtle signal. It was an authoritative personal message to Richard Nixon from Chou Enlai, who emphasized that he spoke not only for himself but also for Chairman Mao and Vice Chairman Lin Biao (Lin Piao).