44, October - December, 1991 the Opening to China
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China Coune 1 #44, October - December, 1991 The Opening to China The following are excerpts from the speech by Alfred trips to China negotiating with Premier Zhou Enlai Jenkins, retired foreign service officer in China, made at leading up to a Nixon visit. the China Council's annual dinner on September 11. My office was charged with preparing the talking Editor's note. papers for those negotiations, on every conceivable subject. The project was so secret I could only get y first and last assignments in diplomatic ser- two members of my staff cleared for it. We could Mvice were to Beijing, with a quarter century hia- draw on any resource in Washington as needed, if tus between, when we had no diplomatic we camouflaged the request. representation in the mainland of China. Virtually the whole world paid attention when repre- sentatives of two great nations that had been in inim- As early as the summer of 1954I began to wonder ical, at times actively hostile, confrontation for 23 about the Sino-Soviet alleged fraternal collusion. I years, sat down together to try to find common was negotiating with the Chinese in Geneva, ground on which to build trust and mutual respect. attempting to get Americans released who were held It had to be one of the great shows of the 20th cen- against their will in China. My opposite number tury to see Henry Alfred Kissinger and Zhou Enlai was the Chinese official who had maintained an sparring across the table during three pre-Nixon unsullied record of anti-American vituperation and negotiating visits to China, each of a week's dura- bombast in the Panmunjam talks in Korea, and here tion. Surely two of the most intelligent men on he was dealing with me a couple of years later with earth, each with a saving sense of humor, with unfailing civility. I decided it was because the Chi- utmost seriousness, were literally starting to reshape nese were having trouble with the Soviets, and the world as we had known it. maybe wanted to hold onto our little finger. Irreconcilable differences were set forth baldly, noth- Finally, at the end of the 60's, all signals turned ing was swept under the rug. There was no diplo- green--courtesy of the Soviets! The invasion of matic doubletalk. The thing that impressed me most Czechoslovakia, the Breshnev Doctrine that said any was the danger inherent in a lack of communication errant communist regime would be dealt with sum- for a quarter century. Of course we had met with the marily, and the enormous Soviet military build-up Chinese in Warsaw periodically, but we were not on the Chinese border, the longest border between really listening to each other. In the Kissinger- any two nations on earth and one with a history of Zhou talks both sides were listening-carefully. problems, had the Chinese deeply concerned. This Many things were cleared up, including one serious ushered in ping-pong diplomacy and soon ushered misunderstanding due to a mistranslation of a key me into Henry Kissinger's office at the White House. phrase in one of President Nixon's speeches that led He said he wanted me to accompany him on several the Chinese to believe we sought world dominance! 1 China Council Quarterly The President's week in China was a tour de force. Who could have imagined a few months before that _SP_E_C_I_A_L_E_V_'E_N_T_S ~ the Chinese People's Liberation Army Band would be playing the American national anthem on Chi- Wild Swans: Three Daughters of China nese soil to honor the arrival of the President of the Author Jung Chang Reads in Portland United States or that our President and their Prime Minister would be toasting one another in the Great Thursday, October 3 Hall of the People to the strains of "America the 7:30PM Beautiful" ! Powell's Books 1005 W Burnside At the end of the week a communique was signed in No admission charge; call 725-4567for information Shanghai, turning a new page in Sino-American rela- tions. It was a hard-bargained document in which he China Council and Powell's Books are jointly we attempted to take into account the sensitivities of Tpresenting Jung Chang, who will read from her the Chinese Nationalist government on Taiwan. new book, Wild Swans: Three Daughters oj China, pub- On April 6, 1973,as the first American diplomat to lished by Simon & Schuster. enter China on assignment in 23 years, I crossed the Now directing Chinese Studies at London Univer- Hong Kong border into China with a small staff sity, Chang has written about the lives of her grand- including two security men. My mission was to set mother, mother, and herself during the upheaval of up a United States Liaison Office, equivalent to an 20th-century China. Chang's grandmother was Embassy in all but name, and to head it until the born in Manchuria in 1909,and became the concu- arrival several weeks later of David Bruce, our most bine of a warlord general at age fifteen. She escaped senior officer in the entire Foreign Service. I then with her infant daughter (Jung Chang's mother) in became his Deputy. 1932and lived under the Japanese occupation. Jung For the next year and a half I learned a great deal Chang's mother joined the underground Communist more about life in China in the Cultural Revolution. movement and was arrested by the Nationalists. She While United States attitudes and actions have some married one of Mao' s guerrillas and they moved to importance to China, we should never harbor the Sichuan province. Jung Chang was born in 1952, illusion that our action is likely very immediately or and grew up among the Communist elite: her par- profoundly to affect China or the Chinese people. ents were both senior officials. Chang describes the Massive China has its own momentum, and will go starvation during the Great Leap Forward and her its own way. experiences as a Red Guard during the Cultural Rev- olution. Both her parents were sent to labor camps, Having said that, it is also true that there are global and her father was driven insane. As a young magnetisms te ding to pull even a China of provin- woman, Chang worked as a barefoot doctor, steel- cial and anachronistic leadership into articulation worker, and electrician before she became an English with the adva ced world. Attractive as that world is student. In 1978,she won a fellowship to study in to the Chinese, its demand is harsh. The future Britain, and was the first Chinese student to get a belongs both to free competition and to transnational doctorate from a British university. symbiosis-mutually supporting relationships. Those unarticulated will lose out. I think China will not lose out. T e articulation so far is too slow and Get Back Into Chinese too sporadic-and to the leadership too uncomfort- Five-Week Chinese Review Classes at Elementary able, but I believe acceleration of it is a certainty. and Intermediate Levels Alfred Jenkins Elementary Level-Two Sections: Tuesday evenings, October 15-November 12,7-9 PM PSU, Smith Center 294 China Council Quarterly Thursday evenings, October 17-November 14, Published by the Northwest 7-9 PM Regional China Council. PSU, Smith Center 326 P.O. Box 751 Portland, Oregon 97207 (503) 725-4567 Intermediate Level-One Section: Editor: Joanne Wakeland. Tuesday evenings, October 15-November 12,7-9 PM Published quarterly; printed Oil recycled papa PSU, Smith Center 296 Cost is $50, members; $75,non-members 2 China Council Quarterly nterested in brushing up your Chinese?The China ICouncil will offer five-week-long Chinese review CHINA COUNCIL NEWS ¥ classes at the elementary and intermediate levels this fall, based on the success of our summer review pro- Staff Changes gram. Class time for both levels will be devoted to practicing speaking and reading Mandarin, and ince June, the China Council staff has seen many homework will be assigned. Schanges; as employees left Oregon for destina- tions ranging from Washington, DC to Beijing. The elementary-level class, intended as a review for Kelly Lundquist, our Secretary I Membership Coor- those who have already completed at least one year dinator since late 1990, left in June for a Willamette of college-level Chinese, will be offered in two sec- University internship in Washington, DC. She was tions, one on Tuesday evenings and one on Thurs- replaced by Ellie Pine, a Portland artist with many day evenings, from 7 to 9 PM. The instructor, Lu ties to China. Ellie has studied Chinese and twice Lina, is a native of Jilin Province who has taught Chi- sojourned in China, once in 1981, when she taught nese language and speech communications in Ore- English at the Shan dong College of Oceanology in gon and Washington for the last five years. Students Qingdao and again in 1983, when she studied Chi- in her previous China Council Introductory Chinese nese in Beijing. She has worked with the China class called her the best teacher they ever had. The Council on many occasions, helping with graphic textbook for this course, New Chinese 300, is a book of art, writing, and clerical work. basic practical dialogues used in daily life. Feroza Allee, the Oregon-China Database Coordina- The intermediate-level class is intended as a review tor since August 1990, has moved to Beijing with her for those who have already completed at least two husband John, where she will teach management to years of college-level Chinese.