Nixon in China Wrong Model for Iran
Sunday marked the 38th anniversary of the beginning of President Richard Nixon’s historic trip to China. Since then, “Nixon goes to China” has become one of the most overworked clichés in the political book, signifying an uncharacteristic move by a political leader. The temptation to do another “Nixon goes to China” has proved irresistible to many political leaders usually to their disappointment and the disadvantage of the countries they lead. (South Korea opening to North Korea; Israel signing the Oslo Accords with the PLO.)
When Barack Obama began trying to “engage” Iran last year, he explicitly cited Nixon’s policy as a precedent on several occasions. That got me curious, so I decided to read Margaret Macmillan’s Nixon and Mao: The Week That Changed the World. It’s worth reading for a closer look at why Nixon’s policy succeeded, and most attempts at imitating it don’t. (I must admit I had another motive for reading it. I knew I was going to be sitting across the table from Henry Kissinger at a dinner last fall and I wanted more background. I asked him what he thought of the book. He replied, “It is about 70 percent accurate,” which, for a non-fiction book about recent events, is pretty solid.)
The most critical reason for the success of Nixon’s policy is the simple fact that he was pushing against an open door. His motives for warming relations with China were obvious. He was seeking to exploit the Sino-Soviet rift. (The Russians and Chinese had fought a short but sharp border war in 1969.) He also hoped that it would help extricate the United States from the Vietnam War.
China’s motives are less well known, but were absolutely crucial to making the process work. Not only were they concerned about the Russians too, but the chaos of the ongoing Cultural Revolution had left China dangerously isolated in world politics. There were daily demonstrations against foreign embassies in Beijing, and those of the “fraternal socialist allies” were not exempt. At home, the Chinese foreign service was an exceptional target for the Red Guards. When China unexpectedly won her 22-year campaign to be admitted to the United Nations in 1971, Beijing had to hastily transfer China’s ambassador to Canada to New York because so many other senior diplomats were languishing in re-education camps. English-speaking Chinese were so terrified of being found out and denounced as spies that the government had a very hard time locating enough interpreters to service the large delegation of U.S. diplomats and journalists who descended on China in February 1972. (Kissinger made the wry observation about his own Brooklyn-born Chinese interpreter that “She is eligible to serve as president and I am not.”)
Even so, working out the details consumed more than three years of delicate, secret negotiations before the visit actually took place. And even though Henry K. has often been quoted as saying that one “doesn’t go to a summit without the final communiqué in your pocket,” he spent most of his time in China negotiating with Zhou Enlai on the final Shanghai Communique. In spite of all the commonalities at work, it was, in the end, a close-run thing.
One need not be a geopolitician to see that almost none of the same conditions apply with regard to Iran. Iran is facing no external threat comparable to the one China faced from the Soviet Union. (Indeed, Iran is far more threatening to its neighbors than the other way around.) As a result, Iran’s diplomatic isolation is not as consequential as China’s was 40 years ago. Nor is Iran’s internal turmoil comparable to the Cultural Revolution. The U.S. had no sympathy for the Red Guards and what they represented. The Iranian opposition is potentially a very different matter, though Obama has so far refused to give them the time of day. Iran can also sell its oil on the world market, the only export it really cares about. It’s hard to see what the United States can offer that is of any real value to the Islamic regime.
Then there’s the issue of how successful was Nixon’s visit. The Soviet Union is no more, of course. In 1972, China was a backward, third world country. Now, it is a powerful economic competitor that looks to be transforming itself into a rival. Maybe Nixon should have stayed home.