tat struggle... sometimes not going and sometimes going for negotiations..." 16 In the general framework of unlimited struggle to win total victory over the United States and imperialism, Chinese Communist doctrine sanctions and practices limited negotiation and temporary coexistence to gain specific tactical targets: 1. To facilitate diplomatic undertakings which extract concessions from the "enemy," thus enhancing the position of the Chinese People's Republic and the socialist camp, while weakening and hastening the defeat of "imperialism." 2. To promote commercial, financial, technological and cultural exchange which will assist the internal development and international standing of the People's Republic of China. 3. To disengage from some situations which are embarrassing or untenable for Peking because of the counteractions or initiatives of Washington and other Western governments. 4. To promote dissension among the "imperialists" or weaken their flank by negotiating arrangements with the allies of the United States or other countries in Asia, Africa, Latin America, and even Europe. Peking has negotiated with all of these considerations in mind at the Geneva Conferences and in the Ambassadorial Talks. But it should be stressed that limited negotiations with the United States and "imperialists" rule out the possibility of seeking or concluding any general "all-round" settlement of over-all issues which would lessen the struggle and lead toward lasting reconciliation and peaceful relations. As long as the Chinese Communists adhere strictly and fanatically to Maoist ideology at home and abroad, there can be no détente or secure settlement with Peking. Any limited negotiation or temporary coexistence is part of the struggle and not any evidence of favorable attitude or change in posture. For example, an agreement on a general settlement in Southeast Asia would only mean that Peking had found such an agreement tactically expedient; it would not mean any real accommodation of mutual interests with the United States in Southeast Asia. Nor could it be taken as a binding commitment to renounce the use of "proletarian forces" to support and expand the revolutionary struggle there. It is hardly likely that the present leadership of Communist China would agree in practice or in theory to negotiate and enforce an agreement which would prevent Peking from engaging in all-out support for "national liberation movements" and the expansion of Communist subversion and seizure of power for the ultimate triumph of "socialism" in the "countryside" of the whole world. On the other hand, Peking would negotiate with Washington for a general settlement providing the withdrawal of American armed forces and influence from Taiwan and East Asia in general. But it is doubtful that in exchange Peking would agree to any meaningful nonaggression pledge regarding other countries in East Asia and the Pacific. Any such negotiation and settlement with the United States would be viewed in Peking primarily as a tactical retreat by Washington and a net gain for Peking in the unlimited struggle, and not 16 Peking Review, Vol. IX, No. 35, August 26, 1966. as a beginning of a new period of good relations with the Americans. The Chinese Communist secret documents acquired in 1961 have revealed that Peking's secret strategy for dealing with the United States then envisioned a single total negotiation, all on Peking's terms: It is better to maintain a frozen relationship between China and the The Chinese Communist documents exchanged in the polemics with Moscow have publicly confirmed Peking's general line on its American strategy. As the Ambassadorial Talks have abundantly demonstrated, Taiwan is the only negotiation in which Peking is interested. . . . ADVERSARY NEGOTIATING WITH PEKING What motivates the Asian Communists and particularly the men from Peking to negotiate is an enigma. On the one hand, they can ignore major concessions and significant assurances as they did in 1958 during the Taiwan crisis and as they so conspicuously have during 1965-67 with regard to Vietnam. They even take the risk of incurring overwhelming retaliation from the United States as they apparently did in Korea and Taiwan, by engaging in hostilities outright. On the other hand, the Maoist regime has negotiated with the United States and kept up a form of diplomatic contact with Washington, and followed a strategy of restraint. What is Peking's propensity to negotiate? Can a pattern of incentives be traced? How is Peking's reversal in dealing with Washington to be explained? Does some interaction of diplomacy and power override strictly ideological dictates to induce the Chinese to come to the table, whether to bargain or merely to preserve some semblance of contact? Our experience in dealing with Peking strongly suggests that the "mix with the mostest" does promote a negotiating propensity and pattern. Diplomacy without force produces a farce, while force without diplomacy can leave a fiasco. Without both diplomacy and power, 17 J. Chester Cheng, cited, p. 486. negotiation with Peking is unlikely or impossible. In each case that Washington informed Peking of the readiness of the United States to resort to the use of preponderant power, despite its strong preference for a diplomatic settlement, the Chinese Communists negotiated the outcome in a prudent accommodation: the Korean Armistice was finally put into effect in 1953; cease-fire agreements for Indochina were reached in 1954; the Taiwan Crisis was eased in 1958, the conference on Laos, opened in 1961, was completed in 1962. Unlike the style and process of Western litigation and transaction, only a dynamic bargaining process of adversary negotiations which produces parallel advantages by offsetting mutual risks, gains, and losses will induce Peking to join a conference and transact an outcome. The pattern of adversary negotiation with Peking includes formal and informal, explicit and tacit, bargaining processes. Some outcomes emerge only from a precise, organized transaction and formal written agreements. Others arise from intimations alone, inferred from statements or even changes in attitudes. In its particular negotiating pattern, Peking has put unusual emphasis on immutable ideology and nonnegotiable principle compared with the conventional negotiating process which always requires the parties to indicate their fixed points or "ideological" minimum. The need to identify and analyze Peking's pattern of being in favor of negotiations but against haggling over principle requires a proper assessment of the relative weight attached at any one time to adherence to ideology and principled policies on the one hand, and tactical flexibility on the other. The American experience in dealing with Peking has shown that its policy-makers and negotiators have, in fact, merged theory and practice, Marxist ideology and national interest in their process of bargaining, communicating and maneuvering. However, this pattern is by no means clearly conceived or properly defined; it reveals a conglomeration of styles, tactics and objectives rather than a systematically devised scheme. The Chinese Communists have given some evidence of pragmatism, too, but among the Communist nations the Maoist regime has tended least in the direction of moderating ideology in the pursuit of short-range objectives. Historical and ideological contrasts and divergencies in styles of negotiation have inevitably created this special style and process of "adversary negotiation" between Peking and Washington, given Peking's dualistic concept of "allowed" or limited negotiation. What, when, and how to concede and bargain, or to elude in discussion, is the hard crux of any negotiating process and always a problem. For the men from Peking and Washington it becomes particularly acute. How can a concession be extended to or accepted from a sworn enemy? How can the American be expected to submit to ultimatums, act "sincerely" and accept Peking's demands while being treated with belligerent, abusive, and uncompromising language in the Communist press and official speeches? And if the man from Peking intends to sit out the Talks for years, will he ever come half-way to bargain for conces sions or will he wait for a future, more auspicious time? Should con This analysis of Peking's negotiating style and the Washington-Peking negotiations, in the context of the interplay of diplomacy and power, is based upon the useful discussions of intergovernmental negotiations contained in F. Charles Ikle, How Nations Negotiate, and Thomas Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict. cessions be so much as spelled out, given the impossibility of negotiating, and then kept alive by endless reiteration? Indeed, where is the room for surprise, maneuver and the so-called give-and-take of modern diplomacy in dealings between Washington and Peking? In short, how can these negotiators conciliate the irreconcilable? One answer, and perhaps the only one, lies in capitalizing on Peking's version of expedient negotiations in limited coexistence. The American can emphasize the pragmatic and leave the ideological to the future. For reasons of national interest and to avoid abstract ideological confrontations, both parties can theoretically offer and transact concessions and compromises within this limited frame of reference if they both play the risky and difficult rules of the same game in what might appropriately be called "adversary negotiations." ADVERSARY DIPLOMACY, PEKING STYLE The differences, not the similarities, between negotiating with friends and negotiating with enemies are the significant elements in the adversary negotiating process of the Chinese Communists. Peking's style is quite the reverse of ours. In the context of Western civilization, American negotiators tend to think in terms of "good will" and "bona fide" negotiations. Although deliberate deception has not been entirely absent from the conventional style of Western negotiating, its thrust is toward the shared notions and values of mutual trust, good faith, reciprocal respect, and common interests. The Western negotiating process tends to encourage fair dealing, accurate statements, courteous behavior, and conciliatory practices. It assumes, and is designed to facilitate, a mutual desire for a common outcome by the accommodation of some mutual conflict and by the development of a common understanding. In this type of negotiation, compromise is prized as a good thing in itself, and the full and faithful performance of a negotiated contract is revered with "immutable sanctity." Adversary negotiations, however, are based on reverse notions-mistrust, suspicion, the utter lack of any good faith, and the intent to upset and not accommodate "the other side," even to widening rather than adjusting a basic conflict. In fact, the adversary negotiating process can sanction a breach of contract and usually scorns reciprocal compromises. As Thomas Schelling has reminded us, this style of negotiating is as old as mankind: The ancients exchanged hostages, drank wine from the same glass to demonstrate the absence of poison, met in public places to inhibit the massacre of one by the other, and even deliberately exchanged spies to facilitate transmittal of authentic information. It seems likely that a well-developed theory of strategy could throw light on the efficacy of some of those old devices, suggest the circumstances to which they apply, and discover modern equivalents that, though offensive to our taste, may be desperately needed in the regulation of conflict.18 The Chinese Communists have only brought this up to date with their own unique variations. Inasmuch as the standard Western approach to a mutual negotiating process for a shared outcome is imprac 18 Thomas C. Schelling, The Strategy of Conflict (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, tical, we need to formulate a new understanding and strategy to cope with Peking's adversary negotiations. The Chinese Communists adversary style can indeed be "foxy" and "wolfish" in treating with the "imperialist" negotiator as a carefullydefined expedient or a well-timed temporary retreat. According to Mao Tse-tung: "First to go back and then get a better run for a bigger leap for- The line and the movement have a single objective: total and final victory. The Chinese negotiators and policy-makers do not seem to consider cooperative negotiations and concessions as valid bargaining devices to find a common ground for genuine and lasting agreement, or for seeking a compromise of principles in order to conclude a basic agreement. For example, the Agreement on prisoners in 1955 was a short-term tactical link in the long-range design to surround Taiwan, while the refusal after 1960 to make any more such tactical or expedient agreements on newsmen or bilateral contacts undoubtedly reflected Peking's changed estimate of the limited value of short-term gains. As our experience has shown, the Chinese Communists have not negotiated or signed agreements, whether on prisoners, renunciation of force, the offshore islands, disarmament or Vietnam, which precluded Peking from ever reaching the top of the mountain, i.e., total victory, to paraphrase Lenin. Dogmatically and fanatically, the Chinese Maoist negotiator appears to assume that the American negotiator is similarly motivated in viewing China as the adversary to be beaten, destroyed, and never appeased. Thus, in the typical Chinese Communist martial and adversary outlook, neither representative is seen as regarding the other as a negotiator on equal and acceptable terms. Nor is the other side a "party to negotiations" in a normal framework on a bona fide basis, as Westerners put it. Only hostile motives and irrevocable goals determine the strategy and techniques of both sides according to Peking's views. In any such contest of categorical extremes and ideological ultimates, if the ground rules are not modified by both parties, concessions will never be made by either side. The United States negotiator will get nowhere with unilateral expressions of good will, sincere intentions, and conciliatory assurances. His honest efforts to achieve “a negotiated settlement" in good faith will seem fraudulent and deceitful to the Peking negotiator, who is preconditioned to consider American overtures and genuine compromises inconsistent with imperative struggle and inevitable defeat of the United States government. He takes for granted from incessant indoctrination that any concession or conciliatory gesture by Washington is nothing but sham and evidence of weakness. In such mortal combat, the United States could 19 Mao Tse-tung. Selected Works. |