‘This recollection is your hóngbÄo (red envelope) in the new lunar year of the Water Tiger.’
US Imperialism Is A Paper Tiger” — Mao Zedong, 14 July 1956. This chant is fished from the book of spells on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Nixon-Mao parley — an unusual face-to-face encounter between the leading American anti-communist and the architect of the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution.
According to Mao: “When we say US imperialism is a paper tiger, we are speaking in terms of strategy. Regarding it as a whole, we must despise it. But regarding each part, we must take it seriously. It has claws and fangs. We have to destroy it piecemeal. For instance, if it has ten fangs, knock off one the first time, and there will be nine left; knock off another, and there will be eight left. When all the fangs are gone, it will still have claws. If we deal with it step by step and in earnest, we will certainly succeed in the end. Strategically, we must utterly despise US imperialism. Tactically, we must take it seriously.”
According to Nixon: “The US presence has provided tangible and highly visible proof that communism is not necessarily the wave of Asia’s future. This was a vital factor in the turnaround in Indonesia… It provided a shield behind which the anti-communist forces found the courage and the capacity to stage their counter-coup and, at the final moment, to rescue their country from the Chinese orbit… This is particularly important when the threat takes the form of an externally supported guerrilla action, as we have faced in Viet Nam, as is even now being mounted in Thailand, and as could be launched in any of a half-dozen other spots in the Chinese shadow.” [“Asia After Viet Nam,” Foreign Affairs, Vol. 46, No. 1, October 1967, pp. 113-125; https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v01/d3]
The eyeballing between Tricky Dick and the Helmsman took place in Chairman Mao’s living quarters, February 21, 1972, 2:50-3:55 p.m., Monday — Mao: “Our common old friend, Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, doesn’t approve of this. He calls us communist bandits. He recently issued a speech. Have you seen it? President Nixon: Chiang Kai-shek calls the Chairman a bandit. What does the Chairman call Chiang Kai-shek?”
“Prime Minister Zhou Enlai: Generally speaking we call them Chiang Kai-shek’s clique. In the newspapers sometimes we call him a bandit; we are also called bandits in turn.
Anyway, we abuse each other. Chairman Mao: Actually, the history of our friendship with him is much longer than the history of your friendship with him.
President Nixon: Yes, I know.”
This transcript was barely mentioned Taiwan. The more important question: Was this a ground-breaking but simple stare-down between the Right and the Left? “Chairman Mao: I like rightists. People say you are rightists, that the Republican Party is to the right, that Prime Minister Heath is also to the right.
President Nixon: And General DeGaulle.
Chairman Mao: DeGaulle is a different question. They also say the Christian Democratic Party of West Germany is also to the right. I am comparatively happy when these people on the right come into power.
President Nixon: I think the important thing to note is that in America, at least at this time, those on the right can do what those on the left talk about.” [https://china.usc.edu/mao-zedong-meets-richard-nixon-february-21-1972]
Reactions to the Nixon-Mao tete-a-tete: From the Albanian leader — “When Nixon was invited to China, and the Chinese leadership, with Mao Tsetung at the head, proclaimed the policy of rapprochement and unity with American imperialism, it became clear that the Chinese line and policy were in total opposition to Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. Following this, China’s chauvinist and hegemonic ambitions began to become clearer.” [Enver Hoxha. Imperialism and the Revolution. Part Two. III. “Mao Tsetung Thought-An Anti-Marxist Theory.” Tirana, 1978]
From a Trotskyist: “The Peking leaders, like the Russian Stalinists, are now committed to a policy of power politics in the interests of the ruling caste of managers, bureaucrats, army officers and the other privileged people in China. They are not interested in world socialism or the interests of the Chinese workers and peasants, or the working class of the world, but engage in the same filthy game of power politics as the Russian Stalinists have done for decades.” [Ted Grant. “Nixon-Mao–What Talks Mean,” Militant, No. 94, March 3, 1972]
From the American Right: “Their complaints–and professed fears of a possible American loss of face in Asia–are shared by many other conservatives, including members of the right-wing California Republican Assembly, the more militantly anti-Nixon United Republicans of California and followers of the John Birch Society. Thousands of round-robin letters have been sent by the Birch group to the White House protesting the President’s dealing with ‘the murderous criminals’ of Peking.”
[https://www.nytimes.com/1972/02/26/archives/in-conservative-san-diego-nixons-trip-is-traumatic.html]
From the Japanese: “It seemed that the Soviet Union, on its part, intended to apply psychological pressure on the People’s Republic of China and, at the same time, to downgrade the effect of developments in Sino-American relations on international politics by showing anew that, in international politics, it is American-Soviet relations that are of basic importance… In connection with President Nixon’s visit to China in February this year and the consequent Sino-American Joint Communique, the tone of Soviet criticism against the United States and China showed that it was aimed mainly at China.” [https://www.mofa.go.jp/policy/other/bluebook/1971/1971-1-2.htm]
And the winner? The “discourses originating from photos of Nixon shaking hands with Mao and Brezhnev remind us that Nixon ‘opened China’ and ‘made peace’ with the Soviets.” [Johnson, Evan L., “Conspiracy, Pragmatism and Style: An Analysis of Richard Nixon’s Antecedent Anti-Communist Conspiracy Rhetoric” (2013).
https://surface.syr.edu/crs_thesis/3] Lesson: only a Nixon can go to China. Caveat: “We imagined engagement with China would produce a future with bright promise of comity and cooperation. But today we’re all still wearing masks and watching the pandemic’s body count rise because the CCP failed in its promises to the world. We’re reading every morning new headlines of repression in Hong Kong and in Xinjiang. We’re seeing staggering statistics of Chinese trade abuses that cost American jobs…And we’re watching a Chinese military that grows stronger and stronger, and indeed more menacing.”
[https://sv.usembassy.gov/secretary-michael-r-pompeo-remarks-at-the-richard-nixon-presidential-library-and-museum-communist-china-and-the-free-worlds-future/]
This recollection is your hóngbÄo (red envelope) in the new lunar year of the Water Tiger.
