Henry Kissinger talks with CGTN (2) about US-China relations

CGTN | 23-Sep-2020

WANG GUAN, CGTN

In your book On China, you coined the word “co-evolution” (Kissinger: right.) in a Pacific community. What exactly does that mean?

HENRY KISSINGER, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE

What it means is we should not require China to act like we do. And China should not expect us to act like China does in all respects. What we should expect from each other or try to achieve is that we each develop our societies in a way we think the most appropriate. But as we do this, we keep in mind that we move towards similar and sometimes identical goals. So we possibly progress side by side, but not necessarily to the same music.

WANG GUAN, CGTN

Now I want to talk about China’s new leader Xi Jinping. He has been in power for almost two years now. You met him. You talked with him. What kind of a leader do you think he is and where is he taking China?

HENRY KISSINGER, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE

My impression of President Xi is of a very thoughtful and strong personality who has assessed the situation of China when he took over. And he has concluded that to make comparable progress as had been made in the 30 years before he took office, China needs to take significant reforms in key areas and he has specified these areas. He’s starting a process of reform that history will consider as significant as any of the previous.

WANG GUAN, CGTN

We know this year is a big anniversary–35th anniversary of the (U.S.-China) relationship. Can you take us back to those weeks and months in 1971 and 1972, how hard was it for you, President Nixon, and for your Chinese counterparts to rise above domestic politics and establish this very relationship?

HENRY KISSINGER, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE

I consider myself very lucky to be able to participate with a number of great men in doing something new. One doesn’t often have that opportunity in life. When we started, there had been 162 meetings between Chinese and American diplomats which had no progress whatsoever. (Wang Guan: In Geneva and Warsaw) I think both sides were lucky in the sense that Chairman Mao on the Chinese side and President Nixon on the American side said, let’s put aside the quarrels of technical subjects. Let’s concentrate on talking to each other about where you want to go. That way we can understand what we are trying to achieve. And when you hear the first conversations between the two leaders, they talk almost like philosophers. We had to overcome a number of established principles but it happened, and it happened in a friendly atmosphere. It laid the basis for 40 years of, on the whole, improving relations.

WANG GUAN, CGTN

You are 91 years old. You have been in diplomacy for 60 years. What do you think current and future leaders, and young people, in both countries should remember from those weeks and months in 1971 and 1972 where you engaged in behind-the-room maneuvers and public diplomacy? Those months that proved to have changed the world. What should young people from it these days?

HENRY KISSINGER, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE

You have to begin with a correct analysis of where you are, where you find yourself. Then you need an agreement or at least an understanding of where you are trying to go. To set yourself objectives, I would say to be at the outer limits of what you are capable of. And that is not easy. And third, you have to treat each other with mutual respect. Neither side should impose its preference by pressure. Those are the three requirements and I am optimistic.

WANG GUAN, CGTN

In your new book World Order, which I read, you said the search for world order has been “defined almost exclusively by the concepts of western societies and this concept is now in crisis.” What should a new world order look like and what does it take to build it?

HENRY KISSINGER, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE

I don’t know what exactly it will look like because it is being built. It has to recognize that the system of world order that existed in the 19th and early 20th century was an European invention. China has had its views of world order. Islam has had its views of world order. We now have to find a way of doing one of the two things: making these various concepts compatible with each other. Or when there is one concept, like the caliphate concept that asserts that it wants to dominate the world, that is defeated by joint effort.

WANG GUAN, CGTN

Thank you very much Dr.Kissinger. Thank you for your time.

HENRY KISSINGER, FORMER U.S. SECRETARY OF STATE

Great pleasure.

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