US Foreign Policy Should Listen to Kissinger

Former U.S. Secretary of State Henry Alfred Kissinger participated in the 2013 China Development Forum in China last month. He said in a speech, “When an existing power and a rising power meet, conflict is inevitable. This conflict is an evolving process, not a fixed state. Now the U.S. government truly hopes to establish a new relationship with China and to change fundamentally the old relationship, at least in the next decade.”* Unfortunately, the present behavior of U.S. politicians and policymakers is quite different from Kissinger’s statement. Three factors demonstrate this.

First, in foreign policy, the U.S. is stubborn and conservative and is not innovative in the least. Yet the U.S.’ strong ability to innovate is a generally acknowledged fact. During his previous term, President Obama often met with elite American scientists. He also forgave the past and appointed one of his strongest critics, Intel CEO Paul Otellini, to an important position. However, in contrast to this technological innovation, the U.S. has not made much progress in international politics and foreign policy for almost 40 years.

For example, when North Korea blew up a cooling tower in the Yongbyon nuclear complex, it should have been a huge step forward in the denuclearization of the Korean Peninsula. However, today, the Korean Peninsula is in a dangerous situation. The U.S. should take direct responsibility for its stubborn and conservative policies in Northeast Asia. Americans want to keep a mentality leftover from the Cold War. They are taking advantage of these problems in the Koreas in pursuit of maximizing profit in East Asia, unlike China, who is truly sincere in seeking to solve these problems.

Currently, Americans still utilize a Cold War mentality to run presidential elections, bring up the matter of the renminbi, deal with international affairs, “refocus on Asia” and contain China. In the Rim of the Pacific Exercise involving 22 nations, only China is excluded.

Second, U.S. foreign policy focuses only on profit and lacks a moral compass and a wise, philosophical basis. Kissinger declared last month, “Chinese people think on a conceptual level, from the philosophical point of view. Americans are more pragmatic.”* He is right. On one hand, the U.S. acknowledges the One-China Principle, while on the other hand, it exports advanced weapons to Taiwan. The U.S. also interferes with Chinese internal affairs by implementing the Taiwan Relations Act. For 34 years, the U.S. has violated U.N. Charters at all costs in favor of its own strategic interests. The lack of moral philosophy explains why, in 1972, Nixon tried to discuss Sino-U.S. diplomatic relations during his visit to China, while Chairman Mao chose to talk philosophy with him. Today, the U.S.’ profit-centered approach seems completely unchanged.

Third, Americans cannot learn to be logical. Even worse, they have amnesia. On one hand, the U.S. promises to remain neutral in regard to the rights to the Diaoyu Islands. On the other hand, it declares that the U.S.-Japan Security Treaty can be applied to the entire Diaoyu Islands region. This demonstrates a flaw in logic. It is not tenable on the basis of legal theory, either.

The problem now is that Americans suffer from severe amnesia. In order to resist the Soviet Union, Americans carefully cultivated bin Laden by spending money on developing weapons. Unfortunately, all they got for their efforts was the huge disaster of 9/11. Iraq was once an ally of the U.S., but in the end the U.S. wanted to eliminate Iraq. This is the type of foreign policy the U.S. has always pursued. The U.S. should not forget that its appeasing and conniving with Japan at the beginning of World War II led to the attack on Pearl Harbor, which was a serious blow to the U.S. Pacific Fleet. Look at Japan today: The U.S. could have united the victorious nations together to discipline and restrain Japan and make it “observe law and discipline” and become a global citizen. Instead, the U.S., haunted by its Cold War mentality, pledged to defend Japan under the U.S. nuclear umbrella. As a result, Japanese right-wing powers have once again become a destabilizing factor in East Asia.

Thankfully, the new U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry has recently shown some signs of following Kissinger. He emphasizes the importance of Sino-U.S. cooperation, warning that, “the tendency to demonize China, to consider it the next great threat, just isn’t based in reality.” He believes that, “there is incredible potential for cooperation, even as [China and the U.S.] have to deal with certain disagreements now.” One hopes that Kerry will act on his judgments and create a new atmosphere for U.S. foreign policy. This would not merely be a boon to both China and the U.S., but would be joyous news for the entire world.

The author is the head of the Research Institute for Marine Political Strategy at Guangdong Ocean University.

* Editor’s note: These quotes, while accurately translated, could not be verified.