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As special assistant to then-National Security Advisor Henry A. Kissinger, Winston Lord¹Lord is the son of Mary Pillsbury Lord, heir to the Pillsbury Flour Co. and a prominent political figure and former head of the UN Human Rights Commission was one of a handful of people who took part in Kissinger’s secret visit to China in July 1971, which paved the way for President Richard Nixon’s historic trip to the People’s Republic of China the following year. Lord later held various roles in government, including the post of U.S. ambassador to China from 1985 to 1989, and later assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific Affairs during the Clinton administration. He was also president of the Council on Foreign Relations from 1977 to 1985. Mr. Lord, 83, now lives in New York with his wife, the novelist Bette Bao Lord. He has also described his career in government in an oral history project that can be found here.

Q: Fifty years ago, you accompanied Henry Kissinger on his secret trip to Beijing, to reach out to Chairman Mao and Zhou Enlai and to seek better relations with the People’s Republic of China. How would you characterize that diplomatic mission?

A: I believe the secret trip to China in July ‘71 was the single most consequential foreign policy event of the Nixon presidency, and the most important milestone in Henry Kissinger’s career. It was also one of a handful of geopolitical earthquakes in the last half of the 20th century. You have to recall that when Nixon and Kissinger came into office, we had no relationship with China and indeed a hostile relationship with one-fifth of the world’s population. We had a tense, unstable relationship with the other nuclear superpower. We had a long, agonizing and costly war in Vietnam. We had riots, assassinations and anti-war demonstrations at home. We had an American public that was fatigued and disillusioned about our place in the world. And we had an America that could not act boldly on the world stage.

But as a result of the trip, we set in motion a series of developments. First of all, we had Kissinger conferring with Zhou Enlai in July ‘71 about a proposed presidential trip [to Beijing] that made sense for both countries and would have an historic impact. Secondly, this led to immediate movement with Moscow, where we had had a fraught relationship. And indeed, within weeks Moscow agreed to a summit with us as well. They’d been dragging their feet. We made major progress on the Berlin negotiations, and major progress on the first major arms control treaty. With regard to Vietnam, just days after the trip, Zhou Enlai went to Hanoi. Of course, he was not going to overtly pressure his ally, but he certainly was indicating that they should be reasonable when negotiating with us. And indeed with the two summits, one in Moscow and one in Beijing, both of Hanoi’s patrons were demonstrating they had a relationship developing with us which was more important than their alliance with Hanoi. In addition, the significance of this major opening to one fifth of the world’s people dwarfed what was undoubtedly going to be an ambiguous, messy outcome to Vietnam and showed the American people that this was more important as a geopolitical development. And finally, the world could see that America indeed was capable of acting boldly on the world stage and was not bogged down by its domestic and war time constraints.

The significance of this major opening to one fifth of the world’s people dwarfed what was undoubtedly going to be an ambiguous, messy outcome to Vietnam and showed the American people that this was more important as a geopolitical development.

In addition, the secret trip put Kissinger on the international map. He was still relatively unknown and hadn’t given press conferences. This made him an international figure. And it helped lead to Nixon’s landslide re-election. Within 18 months of the secret trip, we had the Beijing summit, the Moscow summit, a breakthrough in a few months with Hanoi on the eventual agreement. And as I said, domestic and international appreciation of America’s position was greatly enhanced.

So that’s why I believe that of all the events that took place in the ‘70s, this was the single most important one, both for America’s position in the world and for Kissinger, in terms of his diplomatic credentials.

With that said, please set the stage for us. What was the situation like on the eve of your secret trip to China with Henry Kissinger in July 1971? What was the state of America’s relationship with China?

Well, Nixon and Kissinger inherited a terribly tense and complicated landscape, both in domestic and international affairs. Certainly, with respect to Nixon, the China opening was foreshadowed in his foreign policy. In that 1967 Foreign Affairs article, he wrote about the need to bring China into the world of nations. And he felt in terms of global stability, it was important to move towards China. Kissinger also came to that independently, believing that we should move towards China. But he was thinking more about triangular diplomacy and having leverage with the Soviet Union, not to constrain or antagonize the Soviets but to induce them to be more cooperative by saying we had this other option with China. And so that was the general mindset.

On February 1, 1969, one week after his inauguration, Nixon sent a memo to Kissinger saying, essentially, “I want to get in touch with the Chinese and indicate that we want a new relationship.” That shows you the high priority. The Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia in ‘68 had unnerved the Chinese, and the Brezhnev doctrine declared that Moscow would be the center of the communist world. And above all the border clashes along the Ussuri River [border area of northeast China] in 1969 made it clear that the Chinese were concerned about their northern neighbor. There was no longer any unity in the communist world, and therefore they might have been set to open up to us. We figured it would be a strong incentive for them. And secondly, that they would want to try to come out of their diplomatic isolation. They were still in the midst of the Cultural Revolution. They had only one ambassador abroad, and they might judge that opening up with us would lead to other countries. Those were the Chinese goals and they were met, as were ours — such as the improvement of relations with the Soviets and help on the Vietnam negotiations, general stability in Asia, showing the world we could act dramatically on the world stage, and lifting the morale of the American people. We met those objectives. 

There would seem to have been so many obstacles. There was a war in Vietnam, and China was tied to that, in some ways, and Nixon had been known as a stauch anti-communist. At the same time, Mao’s propaganda machine was running in overdrive, producing caricatures and railing against the “American imperialists.” This out-reach seemed somewhat improbable, no?

The challenge for Nixon and Kissinger was: How do we begin to move, given the fact that we had no communications and we had 22 years of mutual antagonism, having fought a war in Korea, among other things? So we proceeded on two tracks, public and private. The public track was this: indicate our direction through unilateral signals of relaxing some trade and travel restrictions, using proper nomenclature with respect to the Chinese government, and sending signals in foreign policy reports and speeches. We wanted to condition our public and send signals to the Chinese and the world that we’re ready to move ahead.

The second challenge was the private one. How do we get in touch with the Chinese since we had no relationship with them? We tried several channels before we found a mutually agreed upon one, using the Pakistani channel. So two years of effort with signals through the private channel. We set up the secret trip, to send Kissinger there to see whether a presidential trip would make sense. It was a courageous move, because it was not assured in advance that it would succeed. And both the Chinese and the US had to overcome the historical and ideological framework of 22 years to reach out to each other.

There was also that sticky question of how to deal with Taiwan, an American ally and a tiny island ruled by a group that claimed to be the legitimate government of all China, including mainland China. At the time, Chiang Kai-shek was still alive, right?

That’s correct. All of us had great respect and affection for Taiwan. It had not yet become a democracy like it is today, which gives an added solidarity to friendship, but it was important in terms of being a de facto ally, and in terms of world credibility, not to mention humanitarian concern. And so we knew this was going to be uncomfortable. We were determined to try to protect Taiwan as best we could. There’s no way to get around the unsettling issue, obviously. But I would argue that on the Taiwan issue, the Chinese made the major concessions. The U.S. had to make some. Kissinger and then Nixon expressed a “One China policy,” which then was supported by Taiwan as well as China. The final communique, which we negotiated, talked about people on both sides of the Straits believing in this, and we had to go that far — certainly to have the Chinese agree to anything.

But look at the Chinese side. For 22 years, in Geneva and Warsaw they had insisted that the Taiwan issue was key to talking about anything else. And this had to be resolved and progress had to be made on it before you could talk about any other parts of the agenda. Indeed, when we started out with our secret messages, the Chinese were indicating that they were happy to have someone come to China, but he has got to talk about Taiwan and solve that problem. We insisted in our message through the Pakistanis that we would only come to talk about items of general interest as well. Indeed, when we went on the secret trip, and we were negotiating the announcement that was going to be issued jointly in both capitals after we returned to announce Kissinger’s trip and the President’s [planned] trip, their first draft said, essentially, “Nixon’s eager to come to China. We’re happy to meet his objective. And secondly, he’s going to come to talk about Taiwan and try to solve that issue.” We rejected that trap. We ended up with an announcement that basically said, “Knowing of Nixon’s interest, the Chinese are happy to have him come.” There was no mention of Taiwan. In that announcement, we talked about items of common interest and the normalization of relations.

Now look at what the Chinese accepted during the Nixon summit. We did not shift diplomatic relations. We maintained diplomatic relations with Taiwan. We maintained our defense treaty. We maintained our troops in Taiwan. We had a formulation saying that they could be reduced as tensions in the area subsided. But that was a way of saying, effectively, “You help us end the Vietnam War, and we’ll remove those troops that are related to the Vietnam War.” And while Henry [Kissinger] was doing a press conference at the end of the President’s trip, he reaffirmed on Chinese soil our defense treaty with Taiwan. And also we continued to sell them arms. So China went from maintaining that we could only talk about Taiwan, diplomatic relations and cutting our security ties to postponing all these factors in exchange for our general affirmation of an ambiguous “One China Policy.” I’m not saying that we didn’t have to move our position on Taiwan. I am saying the view that we sold it out is ridiculous. Of course, the Chinese modified their position because they were more concerned about the Soviet threat. And they were willing to kick the Taiwan issue down the road and try to solve it later. And indeed, in the Mao-Nixon meeting, which I was part of, Mao said the Taiwan issue could wait 100 years. 

Back to the secret trip, which you took part in. It must have been difficult to keep this trip secret…

There were some amusing close calls. First, Kissinger swore me to silence. I couldn’t even tell my wife, who was born in Shanghai. And of course, this whole episode was even more meaningful for me because it was the native land of my wife. She had left China at the age of eight. And indeed, on a secret trip, I dug out some dirt outside the Diaoyutai guesthouse and brought it home in an envelope. Henry told me that I couldn’t tell her about the trip, even though he knew I told my wife everything. He said that since she’s Chinese, any leaks would be assigned to me. So I promised not to tell her. And I also was damn sure I was going to tell her. How was I going to square this circle? I wanted to fulfill my pledge to Henry but I also wanted her to know what was up. In those days, the capital of China was called Peking, not Beijing. As I was packing my bags for the public cover trip to South Asia, I pointed out the window. I said to her, “Look, I see a Peking Tom.” She’s smart. She picked it up, but I had not told her.

Also, I called my mother-in-law, who was Chinese and living in New Jersey, to say goodbye on this public trip. And she said: “I hope you enjoy your Peking duck!” I almost fell off my chair. I don’t know how she sort of picked it up. Finally, there was a journalist at the airport in Islamabad who saw us getting on the plane. He was working for a British newspaper, said he saw us, but his editor thought he was delusional. Luckily the story never got out. The secrecy of this expedition could never be duplicated again.

Tell us about the logistics of getting to Beijing secretly.

We had to go through various channels to get in touch with the Chinese. We gave them several options, including Romania and France. And we finally settled on the Pakistani channel. The Pakistani ambassador in Washington would pass notes from Zhou Enlai to us. And Kissinger and I would draft responses. So during the course of ‘71, we got closer to having an envoy go to China. There were still the issues of where — maybe outside of China or in southern China. Also, there was debate about who would go. Nixon was not anxious for Henry to steal his thunder by being the first person in Beijing. So gradually, during the course of 1971, we began to solidify that somebody would be going and then Kissinger was chosen. We also made sure, as I said, that Taiwan would not be the only issue. We’d have a broad agenda.

But there was one nerve wracking period. We sent a message in January 1971 to the Chinese to propose the trip and we had heard nothing by April 1971. Well, lo and behold, we then had the famous ping-pong diplomacy. There was an American table tennis team in Nagoya, Japan for a championship. The Chinese invited them to come to the mainland and they met with Zhou Enlai and got a very warm reception. We hadn’t heard from Beijing for several months, but we realized that this was a public gesture by the Chinese, and one dictated by Mao himself, which accomplished several things. First, it indicated to us that they would respond shortly. And indeed, a week later, we got a forthcoming message from Zhou confirming the trip. Mao also had to prepare his own public for this move, and his allies. And finally, he was sending us a message that I’m now putting some public pressure on you guys to move forward. So it was a clever move.

I understand that there were some preparations done in Florida. Is that right? 

We prepared in Florida and California. We also met with our ambassador to Pakistan to set up the secret aspects of getting off to Beijing; how we would pull that off. We also met with the CIA, which gave us these special briefcases with special locks. We had to figure out how to protect our classified information. And yes, we went down to Florida, to Key Biscayne, and got ready, with John Holdridge, our Asia expert and Dick Smyser, who was a Vietnam expert. That was an important issue. The three of us were the ones that were going to go [with Kissinger], along with two Secret Service agents.

We worked on the briefing books. Very few people, even in the White House, knew about it. We had to get as much information as we could. We got material from the State Department, Treasury, Defense, the CIA, and all the relevant agencies, as much information as we could get on Chinese attitudes, policies, profiles of their leaders, expected issues and so on. We were very well briefed, and Kissinger and the rest of us went through the various contingencies. We sent a detailed strategy memo to Nixon.

Why Florida?

Since it was secret, and since Kissinger didn’t want to be constantly interrupted by other issues and visitors and so on, he had the excuse that he was out of town, so that he couldn’t see other cabinet members or members of Congress. Also, Nixon had residences in California and Florida. It gave us a chance to get away, with just the handful of us to focus on this very secret and obviously monumental trip. Nixon had the courage to make all these decisions, and he approved the strategic direction and what we were doing. But he was smart enough to leave the detailed negotiations to Kissinger. It was a good balance of responsibilities.

So take us through the trip. How do you get to Beijing? What was the path of this secret trip? Did you travel on the president’s plane?

The major, comfortable planes, like Air Force Two, were being used by the Vice President and others. So we had to travel in a very cramped military plane with tiny windows. It was extremely uncomfortable for this historic 10 to 12 day odyssey. We flew to Vietnam, Thailand, India, and then Pakistan. I was in charge of the briefing books for the trip. And I had a real challenge. We had three different sets of briefing books in this cramped plane for three different types of people. You had the four of us going to China. They had the complete book, with all the detailed talking points and background, agenda and logistics of secrecy. And you had a few others who knew we were going to China but didn’t need this kind of detail. They just needed to help cover our absence from Pakistan while we were in China. They had to have a different kind of briefing book. And then finally, there was everybody on the plane who didn’t even know we were going to China. So they got a third version.

Working with others, I would laboriously keep these books up to date, and I would generally be falling asleep while Henry would be waking up from a nap and calling what I’d done insufficient, as he always did, and instruct me to redo them. All three versions, juggling them, making sure each person on the plane only got the right version to preserve the secrecy. I’m certainly not complaining. It was exciting and exhilarating, but it was also exhausting.

And there was a plan to sort of sneak out of Pakistan, and make a clandestine trip into Beijing, right?

The cover for the story was that Kissinger was going to be taken down by the flu or something in Pakistan. He wasn’t feeling well, so he had to go to a hill house and recuperate. That would give us 48 hours to slip away to Beijing. The problem is that on the way to Pakistan, he got a real stomach ache and he couldn’t admit it because he didn’t want to mess up the story later on. Before we got there, we were offering the Soviets a summit first. We were proposing a summit for a couple years and the Soviets kept dragging their feet. We gave them one last chance. Al Haig called me in Bangkok. Al was Kissinger’s deputy, minding the store in Washington. He said the Soviets had turned us down again. We had been prepared to have them go first. We then decided China would go first.

Then we arrived in Pakistan. On the first day, we had a private dinner that night. We went back to the guest house. Early the next morning, a Kissinger stand-in went out to a hill station guest house where it was announced that Kissinger was going to recuperate for a day. A day later we put out another press release, saying he’s still sick.

Meanwhile, at about 3:30 in the morning, we drove to the Islamabad airport, where the Pakistani plane was, along with the president of Pakistan’s personal pilot, waiting for us. There were four of us, plus two Secret Service officers, both of whom were shocked and nervous when we climbed aboard and discovered four Chinese sitting on the plane. My recollection is that the Secret Service officers were highly agitated. What happened is that Zhou Enlai, as a gesture of respect and confidence in how this trip was going to go, had sent a delegation of four people from China to accompany us on the flight from Islamabad to Beijing. There was Mao’s grandniece [Wang Hairong], an assistant secretary in the foreign ministry, the famous interpreter Nancy Tang, who had been born in Brooklyn and interpreted for Mao and Zhou, and a protocol officer.

So we got on the plane and of course I want to make sure you understand that I was the first American official into China. After 22 years, no American had visited China in official capacity since 1949 and the world thinks Kissinger got there first. Of course, he did not because as we got closer to the Chinese border, I was in the front of the plane and Kissinger was in the back. And so as we went into Chinese air space, I was there ahead of Henry!

There’s also the famous incident of Henry’s shirts. He had asked the staff assistant to pack a couple of special shirts for his China trip, given its significance. One has to look pretty good. To his disgust, he found out that he didn’t have the shirts. So he was ranting and raving about having no shirts. I said, “Henry, you haven’t even started negotiating with the Chinese and you’ve already lost your shirt.” He ended up borrowing a shirt from Holdridge, who was eight inches taller. Henry looked like a penguin. And the shirt had a label on it that read, “Made in Taiwan.”

[Henry Kissinger] was ranting and raving about having no shirts. I said, “Henry, you haven’t even started negotiating with the Chinese and you’ve already lost your shirt.”

Now, more seriously, this was of course, as dramatic as it gets; the geopolitical earthquake we knew was coming. The drama of trying to overcome 22 years of hostilities. The repercussions that were gonna happen internationally. The James Bond secrecy aspect, flying by K-2, the second highest mountain in the world. And the fact that my wife had been born in China.

How were you greeted upon arrival?

We were met by a high level delegation, which indicated the Chinese seriousness about this. There was Marshal Ye [Jianying], who had been on the Long March and was a member of the Politburo, and others. We landed at a military airport, a secure place, and went to the Diaoyutai [state] guesthouse. The windows of our cars were, of course, covered up so we couldn’t see anything. And shortly after we got to the guest house, Zhou Enlai came over and greeted us. And that evening, he gave us a private dinner. That’s how it started.

This was not easy, despite the fact that we had received these promising signals. We were there for 49 hours, and for the whole first day, both sides avoided the subject of the presidential trip. We were just sort of sketching out where we stood on various issues, trying to see whether there was enough common interest, and enough ways to overcome obstacles so that a presidential trip made sense. That was always the subtext. And that was a little tense. There was a philosophical, conceptual discussion by both sides, as well as talks on specific issues. And some of it was relatively polemic free. But there was a time when Zhou Enlai came back with a pretty firm statement on Taiwan and Vietnam and on some other issues, which Henry countered forcefully. Then we had the specific issue that if we agree to a presidential visit, how are we going to announce it. That became nerve wracking. We didn’t even get around to that until the last evening, with this Kabuki dance on all these other issues.

Zhou Enlai casually said, “Well, we ought to talk about how we’re going to announce the visit.” So he was confirming that one would take place. As I’ve already indicated, their first draft announcement suggested that Nixon was falling over himself to rush to China, and we changed that and avoided specifically citing Taiwan but it was tense getting to that point. We were expecting another draft from the Chinese and they said they were going to get back to us in a few hours. And then nothing happened the entire night, Saturday night. But at about 9 a.m. Sunday they came back. And this was about three or four hours before we had to leave, so there was no wiggle room on timing. To our great relief, the new draft was probably even better from our standpoint in terms of Taiwan and mutual interest than what we could have drafted. And so fortunately, they went first and we barely edited their text. You didn’t need a long statement. What was happening could speak for itself. So that morning, Sunday morning, we wrapped up the announcement and there was great elation on both sides. We had a farewell lunch with Zhou, and then climbed on the plane and went back to Islamabad.

There was no meeting with Chairman Mao. Why is that?

No, we did not meet Mao. We knew the Chinese wouldn’t commit Mao to this kind of meeting. And Nixon was understandably nervous about the prominence Henry [Kissinger] was going to get for this trip in any event. So of course that was premature. We were sure that Nixon would meet Mao when he came. We knew Zhou was probably checking with Mao, including on the wording of the announcement. And I now understand the delay may have been due to Zhou having difficulty reaching Mao.

During those 48 hours or so, how much of that time was spent in meetings? 

It was 17 hours with Zhou, including the banquets and so on, and more hours with other officials. Those talks, and the hundreds of hours of Kissinger-Zhou exchanges over the next four years, were the most profound and dazzling I have ever witnessed.

Also out of courtesy, on Saturday morning, the Chinese opened up the Forbidden City for us. They prevented tourists from any access that day. The head of their museums took us around. And it was extremely hot. I was lugging around one of these heavy suitcases but not complaining. Afterwards, we had a Peking duck lunch with Zhou Enlai in the Great Hall of the People, during which he talked about the Cultural Revolution. He wanted to accomplish two things: it was subtle. He wanted to show us that it was extreme. And it wasn’t in China’s interest. On the other hand, he didn’t survive all those years without being loyal to Mao. He basically said there were a lot of excesses and I was locked up and a lot of cultural artifacts were damaged, and some people were punished. But then he went on to say something like, “As always, I didn’t have the vision that Chairman Mao had. He could see that we were becoming bureaucratic, like the Soviet Union, that we had to shake it up. We had to have an enlightened revolutionary spirit among young people.” So when he sent the transcript of the meeting to Mao, he covered that flank, as well as indicating to us that he thought the turmoil was excessive.

Zhou was an incredibly charismatic figure. When he was in meetings with us, there were philosophical musings, historical analysis; he had negotiating skill in defending China’s interests but also a sense of humor — just an extraordinary diplomat. He was, however, obviously ruthless as communist leaders are. But in the five meetings with Mao that I attended, he was extremely deferential, whether it was with Nixon, Ford or Kissinger alone. He showed the acting skills he had displayed in a cast with my father-in-law in a high school production of Ibsen’s “Doll House.”²Lord said that the father of his wife, Bette Bao Lord, had once performed in a high school play with Zhou Enlai.

Weren’t there secret service officers traveling with you to China?

Yes, we had two of them. And they were going crazy. Can you imagine you’re a secret service officer going to a country that is totally hostile, that has taken American prisoners in the past and that fought us in Korea? They weren’t allowed to carry guns around. They had no assurances on transportation or other security issues. And so this was a nightmare for them, although I assume they were excited like everyone else. But we still needed them, obviously more symbolic than real. They also looked after our classified materials. 

Fifty years later, there are now signs of a sharp split, rising nationalist sentiments in both countries, new economic hostilities, and a growing perception that maybe engagement with China opened up so many new horizons, but also has produced a formidable challenger that likes to play by its own rules. What do you say about that?

How much time do you have? First, the opening had a huge positive impact for us beyond just the China relationship. Let’s keep in mind that it helped us stabilize relations with Moscow, which succeeding generations picked up on and to their great credit, Reagan and Bush, finally ended the Cold War. We got some help on Vietnam. We certainly improved our credibility, and it helped us domestically and it elevated the American mood and self confidence. This was well beyond just the China dimension. Then we went into this long period where we had a mixed relationship. We always knew that we had great differences in ideology and national interest. There was always going to be an element of competition, even confrontation as well as cooperation. Eight presidents proceeded over several decades with a bipartisan policy of what’s been called engagement, which is really a process not a policy. But it was always coupled with hedging in case things went wrong, such as maintaining our military, maintaining our Asian presence and allies. Now, it’s conventional wisdom to say that was a naive policy. It was not naive. There was perhaps too much optimism that China might evolve into a more liberal system, such as happened in Taiwan, South Korea, and elsewhere, but this was not the prime goal of our policy. We got a lot of advantages out of that engagement. And there was no real alternative. You couldn’t contain China if you wanted to, for that would require other countries joining us.

There’s no question now that relations are at the worst stage since the opening. I would argue strongly that this is primarily the Chinese fault, particularly under Xi in the last decade or so. Ever since 2008, the Chinese, to their great credit, have developed into a regional and global power, and they want to exert more influence on the world stage. And they have a right to that, in certain ways, without upsetting the whole system. They deserve more seats at the table. But they’ve been much more aggressive abroad, and much more repressive at home; and they are interfering in other societies. Thus, there has been a bipartisan consensus and an across the board reaction to this, by policymakers, the previous administration, this administration, the Congress, academia, the business community. All sectors of society have realized that we need a firmer policy on China, pushing back in some areas while still preserving areas where we might cooperate, like pandemics, non proliferation and climate change. 

And so I think it is correct to switch to a tougher policy. We need firm postures on issues such as human rights, Xinjiang, Hong Kong, meddling in our society, cyber issues, economic mercantilism, maritime issues, Taiwan. But we should use scalpels rather than machetes in some security areas such as Chinese investment, scientists and students. We should prevent anti-Chinese sentiment. Our problems are with the Communist Party, not the people. We should not be hysterical and should keep in mind that we have tremendous assets and the Chinese have big problems.

The Biden administration is correct to focus on building up our own strengths, getting us to run faster, rather than just trying to slow China down. First, get our act together at home. What we need are investments in our future, advanced science, infrastructure, energy, education. Also, we need to boost our soft power, a model for democracy and the rule of law, after the horrors of the last administration, whose fallout continues. Secondly, shore up our alliances so that we have more leverage with China. And thirdly, restore American leadership and international institutions, not leaving the field to China. And there are a few areas where we should cooperate with China, out of our own self interest. Above all, we should compete smartly and with self confidence. We should use this as a Sputnik moment to get our act together. And I think we’re beginning to do the right thing under this administration.

But we should use scalpels rather than machetes in some security areas such as Chinese investment, scientists and students. We should prevent anti-Chinese sentiment. Our problems are with the Communist Party, not the people. We should not be hysterical and should keep in mind that we have tremendous assets and the Chinese have big problems.

Many challenges remain. But we ought to keep in mind our tremendous assets. We have allies and friends around the world, while the Chinese have North Korea, and maybe Pakistan. They’ve got neighbors with nuclear weapons, terrorism and border conflicts. We’ve got Canada and Mexico and two oceans. We have more energy and food independence. We have better universities. We have a demographic advantage with immigration. We’re still ahead in economics, military strength and technology, though the Chinese are gaining. There’s no reason, given their huge problems and our formidable assets, that we can’t compete.

There’s no question that we’re at an inflection point with China. This mixture of competition, confrontation and cooperation will continue with more tension but there really was no alternative to the opening. And the long arc of history in terms of China’s eventual political system has not yet been traced.

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