In the pre-1911 imperial court of China, the etiquette of the Forbidden City required that a personapproaching the throne of the son of heaven must prostrate himself before that living deity,
touching both hands and the forehead to the floor three times. This is the celebrated "kow-tow."
And it was "kow-tow" which sprang to the lips and pens of commentators all over the world as they
observed Bush's elaborate propitiation of the Deng regime. Even cynics were astounded that Bush
could be so deferential to a regime that was obviously so hated by its own population that it had tobe considered as being on its last legs; the best estimate was that when octogenarian Deng finally
died, the communist regime would pass from the scene with him.
In a press conference held on June 9, in the immediate wake of the massacre, Bush astounded even
the meretricious White House press corps by his mild and obsequious tone towards Deng and hiscohorts. Bush limited his retaliation to a momentary cutoff of some military sales. That would be (^)
all: "I'm one who lived in China; I understand the importance of the relationship with the Chinese
people and with the government. It is in the interest of the United States to have good relations..."
[fn 17] Would Bush consider further measures, such as the minor step of temporarily recalling the
US Ambassador, BusWell, some have suggested, for example, to show our forch's CIA crony and fellow patrician James Lilly? efulness, that I bring the American
ambassador back. I disagree with that 180 degrees, and we've seen in the last few days a very good
reason to have him there. [...]
What I do want to do is take whatever steps are most likely to demonstrate the concern that Americafeels. And I think I've done that. I'll be looking for other ways to do it if we possibly can.
This was the wimp with a vengeance, grovelling and scraping like Chamberlain before the dictators,
but there was more to come. As part of his meek and pathetic response, Bush had pledged to
terminate all "high-level exchanges" with the Deng crowd. With this public promise, Bush hadcynically lied to the American people. Shortly before Bush's invasion of Panama in December, it (^)
became known that Bush had despatched the two most prominent Kissinger clones in his retinue,
NSC chairman Brent Scowcroft and Undersecretary of State Lawrence Eagleburger, on a secret
mission to Beijing over the July 4 weekend, less than a month after the massacre in Tien An Men.
Bush regarded this mission as so sensitive that he reportedly kept it a secret even from White Housechief of staff Sununu, who only learned of the trip when two of his aides stumbled across the paper
trail of the planning. The story about Scowcroft and Eagleburger, both veterans of Kissinger
Associates, spending the glorious Fourth toasting the butchers of Beijing was itself leaked in the
wake of a high-profile public mission to China involving the same Kissingerian duo that started
December 7, 1989. BusDeng on the results of the Bush-Gorbachov Malta summit, which had just concluded. The secondh's cover story for the second trip was that he wanted to get a briefing to (^)
trip was supposed to lead to the quick release of Chinese physicist and dissident Fang Lizhi, who
had taken refuge in the US Embassy in Beijing during the massacre; this did not occur until some
time later.
During a press conference primarily devoted to the ongoing Panama invasion, Bush provided an
unambiguous signal that the inspiration for his China policy, and indeed for his entire foreign
policy, was Kissinger:
There's a lot of going on that, in the conduct of the foreign policy or a debate within the US
government, has to be sorted out without the spotlight of the news. There has to be that way. Thewhole opening to China would never have happened...if Kissinger hadn't undertaken that mission. It (^)
would have fallen apart. So you have to use your own judgment. [fn 18]
The news of Bush's secret diplomacy in favor of Deng caused a widespread wave of sincere and
healthy public disgust with Bush, but this was shortly overwhelmed by the jingoist hysteria that