Dr. Kissinger: Partly. We are proposing a trade bill which gives both the power to raise and lower barriers, in order to get it passed through Congress. We must create the impression that we might increase barriers. We want executive authority to do it without Congressional approval, but if we ask Congress to reduce barriers they would refuse. (Prime Minister Chou laughs.) And this is why we are asking for executive authority to move in either direction.
Chairman Mao: What if they don't give it to you?
Dr. Kissinger: We think they will give it to us. It will be a difficult battle, but we are quite certain we will win. We are proposing it also in such general language that we can remove discrimination that still exists towards the People's Republic.
Chairman Mao: The trade between our two countries at present is very pitiful. It is gradually increasing. You know China is a very poor country. We don't have much. What we have in excess is women. (Laughter)
Dr. Kissinger: There are no quotas for those or tariffs.
Chairman Mao: So if you want them we can give a few of those to you, some tens of thousands. (Laughter)
Prime Minister Chou: Of course, on a voluntary basis.
Chairmain Mao: Let them go to your place. They will create disasters. That way you can lessen our burdens. (Laughter)
Dr. Kissinger: Our interest in trade with China is not commercial. It is to establish a relationship that is necessary for the political relations we both have.
Chairman Mao: Yes.
Dr. Kissinger: That is the spirit with which we are conducting our discussions.
Chairman Mao: I once had a discussion with a foreign friend. (The interpreters hold a discussion with Chairman Mao.) I said that we should draw a horizontal line—the U.S.–Japan–Pakistan–Iran (Chairman Mao coughs badly.)–Turkey and Europe.
Dr. Kissinger: We have a very similar conception. You may have read in a newspaper that Mr. Helms has been moved to Iran, and there was a great deal of speculation how this affected my position. In fact we sent Helms to Iran to take care of Turkey, Iran, Pakistan and the Persian Gulf, because of his experience in his previous position and we needed a reliable man in that spot who understands the more complex matters that are needed to be done. (Chairman Mao lights his cigar again.) We will give him authority to deal with all of these countries, although this will not be publicly announced.
Chairman Mao: As for such matters we do not understand very much your affairs in the United States. There are a lot of things we don't know very well. For example, your domestic affairs, we don't understand them. There are also many things about foreign policy that we don't understand either. Perhaps in your future four years we might be able to learn a bit.
Dr. Kissinger: I told the Prime Minister that you have a more direct, maybe a more heroic mode of action than we do. We have to use sometimes more complicated methods because of our domestic situation. (Chairman Mao queries about the translation and Miss Tang repeats “mode of action.”) But on our fundamental objectives we will act very decisively and without regard to public opinion. So if a real danger develops or hegemonial intentions become active, we will certainly resist them wherever they appear. And as the President said to the Chairman, in our own interests, not as a kindness to anyone else.
Chairman Mao: (Laughing) Those are honest words.
Dr. Kissinger: This is our position.
Chairman Mao: Do you want our Chinese women? We can give you ten million. (Laughter, particularly among the women.)
Dr. Kissinger: The Chairman is improving his offer.
Chairman Mao: By doing so we can let them flood your country with disaster and therefore impair your interests. In our country we have too many women, and they have a way of doing things. They give birth to children and our children are too many. (Laughter)
Dr. Kissinger: It is such a novel proposition, we will have to study it.
Chairman Mao: You can set up a committee to study the issue. That is how your visit to China is settling the population question. (Laughter)
Dr. Kissinger: We will study utilization and allocation.
Chairman Mao: If we ask them to go I think they would be willing.
Prime Minister Chou: Not necessarily.
Chairman Mao: That's because of their feudal ideas, big nation chauvinism.
Dr. Kissinger: We are certainly willing to receive them.
Chairman Mao: The Chinese are very alien-excluding.
For instance, in your country you can let in so many nationalities, yet in China how many foreigners do you see?
Prime Minister Chou: Very few.
Dr. Kissinger: Very few.
Chairman Mao: You have about 600,000 Chinese in the United States. We probably don't even have 60 Americans here. I would like to study the problem. I don't know the reason.
Miss Tang: Mr. Lord's wife is Chinese.
Chairman Mao: Oh?
Mr. Lord: Yes.
Chairman Mao: I studied the problem. I don't know why the Chinese never like foreigners. There are no Indians perhaps. As for the Japanese, they are not very numerous either; compared to others there are quite a few and some are married and settled down.
Dr. Kissinger: Of course, your experience with foreigners has not been all that fortunate.
Chairman Mao: Yes, perhaps that is some reason for that.
Yes, in the past hundred years, mainly the eight powers, and later it was Japan during the Boxer Revolution. For thirteen years Japan occupied China, they occupied the major part of China; and in the past the allied forces, the invading foreigners, not only occupied Chinese territory, they also asked China for indemnity.
Dr. Kissinger: Yes, and extraterritorial rights.
Chairman Mao: Now in our relations with Japan, we haven't asked them for indemnity and that would add to the burden of the people. It would be difficult to calculate all the indemnity. No accountant would be able to do it.
And only in this way can we move from hostility to relaxation in relations between peoples. And it will be more difficult to settle relations of hostility between the Japanese and Chinese peoples than between us and you.
Dr. Kissinger: Yes. There is no feeling of hostility of American people at all toward the Chinese people. On the contrary. Between us right now there is only essentially a juridical problem. (Chairman Mao nods agreement.) Which we will solve in the next years. But there is a strong community of interest which is operating immediately.
Chairman Mao: Is that so?
Dr. Kissinger: Between China and the U.S.
Chairman Mao: What do you mean by community of interest? On Taiwan?
Dr. Kissinger: In relation to other countries that may have intentions.
Prime Minister Chou: You mean the Soviet Union?
Dr. Kissinger: I mean the Soviet Union.
Prime Minister Chou: Miss Shen understood you.
Chairman Mao: (Looking toward Miss Shen.) The Chinese have a good command of English. (To Prime Minister Chou.) Who is she?
Prime Minister Chou: Miss Shen Jo-yun.
Chairman Mao: Girls. (Prime Minister Chou laughs.) Today I have been uttering some nonsense for which I will have to beg the pardon of the women of China.
Dr. Kissinger: It sounded very attractive to the Americans present.(Chairman Mao and the girls laugh.)
Chairman Mao: If we are going to establish a liaison office in your country do you want Miss Shen or Miss Tang?
Dr. Kissinger: We will deal with that through the channel of Huang Hua. (Laughter)
Chairman Mao: Our interpreters are truly too few.
Dr. Kissinger: But they have done a remarkable job, the interpreters we have met.
Chairman Mao: The interpreters you have met and our present interpreters who are doing most of the work are now in their twenties and thirties. If they grow too old they don't do interpretation so well.
Prime Minister Chou: We should send some abroad.
Chairman Mao: We will send children at such a height (indicating with his hands), not too old.
Dr. Kissinger: We will be prepared to establish exchange programs where you can send students to America.
Chairman Mao: And if among a hundred persons there are ten who are successful learning the language well, then that would be a remarkable success. And if among them a few dozens don't want to come back, for example, some girls who want to stay in the United States, no matter. Because you do not exclude foreigners like Chinese. In the past the Chinese went abroad and they didn't want to learn the local language. (Looking toward Miss Tang) Her grandparents refused to learn English.66. Tang Wen-sheng (Nancy Tang) was born in the United States. They are so obstinate. You know Chinese are very obstinate and conservative. Many of the older generation overseas Chinese don't speak the local language. But they are getting better, the younger generation.
Dr. Kissinger: In America, all, or the vast majority, speak English.
Prime Minister Chou: That is the younger people. The first generation ones don't learn the local language. There was an old overseas Chinese who came back to China after living abroad. She was old and died in Peking in the 1950s when she was in her nineties. She was a member of our People's Government. She didn't speak a word of English. She was Cantonese, extremely conservative.
Dr. Kissinger: Chinese culture is so particular that it is difficult to assimilate other cultures.
Chairman Mao: Chinese language is not bad, but the Chinese characters are not good.
Prime Minister Chou: They are very difficult to learn.
Chairman Mao: And there are many contradictions between the oral and written language because the oral language is monosyllabic while the written language develops from symbols. We do not use the alphabet.
Dr. Kissinger: There are some attempts to use an alphabet I am told.
Prime Minister Chou: First we must standardize the oral language.
Chairman Mao: (Gestures with his hand and points to his books.) But if the Soviet Union would throw its bombs and kill all those over 30 who are Chinese, that would solve the problem for us. Because the old people like me can't learn Chinese. We read Chinese. The majority of my books are Chinese. There are very few dictionaries over there. All the other books are in Chinese.
Dr. Kissinger: Is the Chairman learning English now?
Chairman Mao: I have heard that I am studying it. Those are rumors on the outside. I don't heed them. They are false. I know a few English letters. I don't know the grammar.
Miss Tang: The Chairman invented an English word.
Chairman Mao: Yes, I invented the English term “paper tiger.”
Dr. Kissinger: “Paper tiger.” Yes, that was all about us. (Laughter) |