[From U.S. News and World Report, Vol. LXI, No. 1, July 4, 1966. Copyright 1966 by U.S. News and World Report, Inc. Ambassador Gronouski was interviewed by Robert A. Haeger of the magazine's International Staff. Reprinted by permission.] THE AMBASSADORIAL TALKS-IN WARSAW (Interview with John Gronouski, American Representa- At WARSAW Q. Mr. Ambassador, has anything really useful ever come out of our talks with the Red Chinese? 4. You must remember that I'm just getting started with this operation. I've attended three sessions. But there have been 130 of them in all, going back to 1954. If we look upon the whole history of the meetings, there have been many cases, I think, where useful things have happened. In the early period, the China talks were related very largely to prisoners in China and, over a period of time, I think-certainly partly as a result of the talks--a good share of them were released. Secondly, over the years there have been any number of situations which have come up where it has been very useful for both the United States and Communist China to be able to get their points of view and positions across very clearly and distinctly. Q. Would you say the talks are worthwhile right now, in connection with Vietnam? A. Well, I think they are useful for a whole series of reasons. In the first place, we have to realize that in mainland China there are some 700 million people. Just the fact that the talks are going on and that both sides obviously want them to go on-just this communication that is happening between the United States and Communist China-I think is important in itself. They provide a forum for discussing a whole series of issues that confront both nations, in Southeast Asia particularly, but also throughout the world. The very seriousness of the situation in Southeast Asia makes these meetings even more important. We are in a position to express our point of view very clearly, so that neither side makes any mistake with respect to what the attitudes and positions are on the other side. Q. Who is the Chinese representative in these sessions? A. Wang Kuo-chuan, Peiping's Ambassador here in Poland. A. We meet in a room in the Mysliwiecki Palace provided by the Polish Government. Ambassador Wang and myself are the participants in the conversations. We each have an adviser, an interpreter and a secretary. On my side, these people are all professional Foreign Service officers. Two of them are stationed in the Embassy here. The adviser flies over from Washington a few days before each meeting and we prepare for it together. Meetings have been taking place on an average of one every two months. Q. So there are just eight people in the room A. Yes. The discussions are conducted without an agenda. In fact, there is only one rule of procedure followed: If it is my turn to open the discussion, then, at the end of the meeting, it is his turn to suggest the time of the next meeting. Q. And vice versa? A. And vice versa. We each, in effect, establish the agenda by introducing in our opening remarks those issues and questions which we want to raise and discuss. Each side presents a relatively brief opening statement. Well over half the time of the last meeting-and I think this may be typical-was spent in give-and-take discussion of the issues. I think this is important, because we are able then to get not only a statement of position and a statement of argument, but we are also able to explore the nuances of the argument. We can raise questions on both sides and get answers to questions. Q. Does it ever develop into an exchange of polemics? A. Well, we express-and sometimes rather forcefully-our points of view on issues, but it doesn't become a shouting match. It's done in a fairly relaxed tone in terms of attitude and mannerism; the positions are pretty clearly and directly expressed. There are some polemics-it is impossible to avoid them-but essentially it's a discussion of the issues which both sides regard as important at that point in time. Referring back to your first question: One reason why I think these talks are important is that they provide the opportunity for us to put forth, from time to time, suggestions aimed at reducing the tensions between us. And while I can't suggest that we've made great progress in this area, I'm always hopeful that having this vehicle to make these kinds of proposals and to raise these kinds of questions will one day prove fruitful. Q. Obviously, you lose half your time because of translations, but how long do the meetings usually last? A. One meeting I attended lasted three hours and 10 minutes. The newsmen told me that I was within three or four minutes of setting a record. Usually they go about two or two and a half hours. Q. Is there anything afterward, or do you just march out separately? A. Oh, no. When we come in, I make it a point to exchange greetings, informally, before I sit down. And before we leave we chat briefly about extraneous matters. I think it important that we develop some kind of personal rapport, which I hope will enable us better to understand each other and contribute to the progress of the talks. Q. Is there any socializing-such as having a drink afterward, or A. I wouldn't mind. So far, it hasn't developed that way, but I'd be very susceptible to having a drink with my counterpart afterward. Q. Do you get indications of any change of attitude at all, any thaw or friendliness on the Chinese side? A. Well, we still have many of the same old problems creating and maintaining the tensions. I would think probably we've had relatively little progress toward any thaw, but I'm hopeful that, over time, we can show some progress. Q. Would you describe Wang as friendly? Or is he a stiff and difficult man to deal with? A. He is a very articulate man who gives the impression of hewing very closely to his instructions. He is also quite formal, perhaps in keeping with Chinese traditions or custom. But, in any event, we haven't developed a buddy system.* *NOTE BY SUBCOMMITTEE STAFF.-On March 16, 1966 Secretary of State Rusk made this authoritative comment on U.S. contacts and negotiations with Communist China in testimony before a Subcommittee of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs: I think it is accurate to say that no other non-Communist nation has had such extensive conversations with the Peiping regime as we have had. The problem is not lack of contact between Peiping and Washington. It is what, with contact, the Peiping regime itself says and does. Although they have produced almost no tangible results, these conversations have served and still serve useful purposes. They permit us to clarify the numerous points of difference between us. They enable us to communicate in private during periods of crisis. They provide an opening through which, hopefully, light might one day penetrate. But the talks have, so far, given no evidence of a shift or easing in Peiping's hostility toward the United States and its bellicose doctrines of world revolution. Indeed, the Chinese Communists have consistently demanded, privately as well as publicly, that we let them have Taiwan. And when we say that we will not abandon the 12 or 13 million people on Taiwan, against their will, they say that, until we change our minds about that, no improvement in relations is possible. Today we and Peiping are as far apart on matters of fundamental policy as we were 17 years ago. [From Negotiating with the Chinese Communists: The United States Experience, 1953-1967. McGraw-Hill Book Company. Copyright © 1968 by the Council on Foreign Relations, Inc., New York. Reprinted by permission.] ADVERSARY NEGOTIATION, PEKING STYLE* By Kenneth T. Young (Deputy Representative at the post-armistice Panmunjom meetings; Adviser, U.S. Delegation, Geneva Conference, 1954; U.S. Ambassador to Thailand, 1961-63; now President, the Asia Society) MARXIST-MAOIST IDEOLOGUE A Chinese Communist negotiator is an ideologist more than anything else. In his dealings with Americans, this makes him a formidable adversary because his version of negotiation thus becomes so different from, and even incompatible with, the American. Ideology molds and controls the Party man. The principles of Marxism-Leninism and the "Thought of Mao Tse-tung" arm him with a complete strategy, or "Tao," for negotiations with the United States. "MarxistLeninist-Maoist ideological orthodoxy" can be conveniently labelled "Marxist-Maoism." Here, in Mao's own pictures, is an expression of this strategy, often repeated in Peking's declarations and indoctri nation: Make trouble, fail, make trouble again, fail again . . . till their In the context of Peking's protracted time cycle, Mao's words contain the three essential elements for dealing with Washington: the unchangeability of "Marxist laws," the total enmity towards the United States, and the tactic of temporary coexistence with limited negotiations. The "immutable" Maoist theory of contradictions and practice of struggle determine the world outlook, objectives, and tactics of Chi *NOTE BY SUBCOMMITTEE STAFF. The entire book, from which this selection is taken. is recommended reading as the fullest story to date of United States negotiations and contacts with Communist China since the Korean armistice of July 1953. In particular, the author recounts the evolution of the talks in Warsaw into a useful "pseudo embassy" for Peking and Washington-in a third country instead of in the two capitals. 1 John K. Fairbank, The United States and China (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, rev. ed., 1958), p. 309. : For a detailed analysis, the reader is referred to Franz Schurmann's Ideology and Organization in Communist China (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1966) Harold C. Hinton's Communist China in World Politics (Boston: Houghton, Mifflin Co.. 1966); Robert S. Elegant's The Center of the World (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday and Co., Inc., 1964); A. Doak Barnett's Communist China and Asia (New York: Harper, for Council on Foreign Relations, 1960); and R. G. Boyd's Communist China's Foreign Policy (New York: Praeger, 1962). 2 Mao Tse-tung, Selected Works, Vol. V (New York: International Publishers, 1962), p. 428. nese Communist negotiating style. According to Mao, the process of development of everything exists in and by contradictions between opposites, which in all but a few exceptions move inevitably toward a new beginning "in a never ending series of dualities." In his words: "Contradiction and struggle are universal, absolute, but the methods of solving them, that is, the forms of struggle differ according to the nature of the contradiction."3 Mao has made the notion of constant and desirable struggle towards a goal the core of his life and thought since he became a Communist in the early 1920s. This ideology of contradiction and struggle molds and dictates the automatic response of the Communist state of mind in the Central Committee or at the negotiating table. In Mao's own oft-quoted words, repeated in Peking again in October 1966: The socialist system will eventually replace the capitalist system; this is an objective law independent of man's will. However much the reactionaries try to hold back the wheel of history, sooner or later revolution will take place and will inevitably triumph.* Accordingly, all the world is divided into two parts, or two camps, in the doctrine according to Mao. And never the twain shall meet when the split involves "imperalism" and socialism. The beginning and the end of our story of United States dealings with Communist China illustrate this Maoist dialectic view of the world. In Ambassador Johnson's original meeting with the Chinese Communists in Geneva, he arranged the chairs more or less in a circle just so as to avoid the dialectic division into two sides and facilitate a more informal give-and-take than had obtained at Panmunjom. But when their turn came to arrange the next meeting, the Chinese Communists placed the chairs so that the opposing sides again confronted each other across a divide. The Panmunjom bisection and stalemate has lasted ever since. A decade later, in September 1965, Foreign Minister Chen Yi concluded a remarkable news conference, after violently attacking the United States, by telling the world that it had to choose between "two alternatives": the reimposition of colonial shackles under United States imperialism or the waging of "resolute struggles" to defeat United States imperialism. Chou En-lai's declaration in 1966 ended our story in the same dichotomy.5 Despite the availability of much factual information, the Chinese Communist leaders must fit every development into the LeninistMaoist mold. Despite their collection of facts, they seem to make little if any logical deductions from what others would call the criteria of objective analysis and empirical observation of the real world. In the American phrase, they know all the answers. Because of their discipline and dogma, the Chinese Communist representative believes in his infallibility. The American negotiator, accordingly, can expect his Chinese Communist opposite number to adhere rigidly to a whole set of doctrinal preconceptions and ideological behavior patterns. Although many contradictions can be reconciled, the struggle between the two camps is the cardinal exception in the dogma. It excludes any lasting compromise, doctrinal acceptance, or basic reconciliation and accommodation. The Chinese Communist Party definitively stated 3 John W. Lewis, Major Doctrines of Communist China (New York: W. W. Norton & Co.), p. 89. Peking Review. Vol. IX, No. 44. October 28, 1966, p. 7. 5 Same, Vol. VIII, No. 41, October 8, 1965, p. 14. |