Kissinger’s China legacy is Washington’s burden
The true impact of the Kissinger era will be felt in the coming decades as the US increasingly grapples with a power that owes much of its rise to him
Henry Alfred Kissinger has died a centenarian. For more than half a century, he was both celebrated and reviled as a colossus who strode the world of strategists. He helped reshape the boundaries of the Cold War and sculpted the rapprochement between the United States (US) and China which led to the latter’s emergence as an economic giant, albeit one that now haunts its benefactor as the most potent challenge to a US-led world order.
Kissinger’s identity as one of the foremost strategic thinkers of the past century had its origins in his books such as Nuclear Weapons and Foreign Policy (1957) and The Necessity for Choice: Prospects of American Foreign Policy (1961). These impressed the political leadership and helped him make the transition from academia to government positions.
Henry Kissinger was not a China specialist by training nor was he a Mandarin speaker. In 1957, China had no nuclear weapons and could not have figured centrally in his writings as it did subsequently. Today, its long-range inter-continental missiles can reach every corner of the continental US. The PLA Navy in the 1950s was a ramshackle coastal force, a far cry from the ocean-faring armadas that it now boasts. His familiarity with China was predicated on the plasticity of strategic thought and appreciation of the geopolitical currents of his era. But equally, he lacked a genuine historical perspective of China that might come naturally to nations with long histories of co-existing with China.
Kissinger was a true polemicist. His thoughts about US-China relations and China’s future place in the emerging world order were unburdened by the baggage of history. They were imbued with fresh purpose and anticipation of a new convergence with China against the erstwhile Soviet Union.
Morality in geopolitics is an encumbrance that limits choices. Kissinger, on his part, displayed dispassionate objectivity in dealing with Pakistan’s immoral and bloody military campaigns against innocent civilians in its eastern wing that led to the birth of Bangladesh. The disdain President Nixon and Kissinger had for India was well-known, though the latter struck a different note during his visits to India in subsequent decades. That too was perhaps a reflection of the morality-agnostic realism that he practised as well as an appreciation of the gradual yet inevitable rise of India.
A European immigrant to the US, Kissinger was steeped in the statecraft of Klemens von Metternich and Carl von Clausewitz and the Westphalian balance of power politics of three centuries past. At Harvard in the 1950s, Kissinger would no doubt have considered Wilhelmine Germany’s inheritance of a powerful state unified by Otto Von Bismarck and how it disrupted the balance of power at the dawn of the 20th century through imperialism, hubris, a naval arms race with Britain and colonial exploitation in Africa. In the 21st century, especially as he approached his centenary mark, Kissinger could not have failed to notice the parallels of that era, 100 years on, to the disruptive rise of China.
Today, the world is navigating precariously through the miasma of major power contestation between the US and China. The wheel has come full circle. A full half century after President Nixon’s path-breaking visit to China, the two countries are caught in a struggle for supremacy.
Kissinger’s book On China (2011) reveals a certain fascination for creating history. The awe in which Kissinger held Chinese leaders, from Mao Zedong to his successors, is apparent from his regular visits to China. His last trip was in July this year, less than two months after he turned 100. His fascination for Mao led him to view the latter as a “philosopher king”, one who could summon President Nixon, during his historic visit in 1972, for an impromptu meeting. In opening up the US to China, Kissinger’s naivety lay in the expectation that economic prosperity in China would pave the way for democracy. Till the end, he urged the US administration to seek accommodation with China.
Chinese obituaries described Kissinger as an “old friend” of the Chinese people. At the time of the centenarian’s passing, US-China relations were in disarray. Ironically, China which once used the US as a counterweight to the Soviet Union is today cultivating Russia in its struggle to displace the US. The true impact of the Kissinger era will be felt in the coming decades as the US increasingly grapples with a power that owes much of its rise to Henry Alfred Kissinger.
Sujan Chinoy, a former ambassador, is currently the Director General of the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. The views expressed are personal