Rapprochement with the United States } 299
Soviet Union was the enemy of both. In fifteen hours of talks, Zhou Enlai
and Nixon explored the degree of convergence in world views and strategic
perceptions. The two agreed at the outset that their discussions would be pre-
mised on the interests of their respective countries and not on ideologies,
which, of course, differed radically. Mao and Zhou both urged the Americans
to ignore the militant propaganda they saw displayed around them, and look
instead at China’s actions. The militant propaganda, Kissinger concluded,
was for purposes of domestic control.
When it came time to draft the communiqué capping the Mao-Nixon
summit, Mao proposed an innovative departure from diplomatic norms.
Such communiqués usually featured platitudes about peace, cooperation,
mutual trust, and so on. Kissinger had himself prepared such a draft com-
muniqué, which he submitted to Zhou Enlai during a second visit to China
in October 1971. Mao vetoed this “bullshit communiqué” and directed Zhou
to propose that the two sides state their radically different views, leaving only
a final concluding section to lay out their areas of agreement. Although ini-
tially surprised and skeptical, Kissinger quickly came to appreciate this un-
orthodox format. Blunt statement of US views would reassure audiences back
home and skeptical allies in Asia that the United States had not abandoned
its principles. It would also underline the importance of the final section, in
which the two sides declared their areas of agreement in opposing hegemony,
a code word for the Soviet Union.
Negotiating an Accommodation over Taiwan
Negotiating an accommodation of interests regarding Taiwan was the most
difficult aspect of the new beginning in PRC-US relations. As discussed in
an earlier chapter, PRC leaders believed that Taiwan’s status as a province of
China had been settled definitively by the Cairo Declaration of 1943. Beijing
insisted during the 1971–1972 negotiations that the United States endorse
that principle. Mao and Zhou entered the negotiations prepared to see the
failure of the Nixon initiative if the United States did not adequately attest to
Taiwan’s status as part of China. Mao also recognized that Nixon’s hopes for
reelection in November 1972 put pressure on him to reach an accommoda-
tion with China. But Mao and Zhou also appreciated that Nixon was dealing
personally with them and in a respectful tone as an equal.^22 Fortunately for
Beijing, Nixon and Kissinger entered the negotiations with an understanding
of this basic Chinese requirement for a new Sino-American relation, and had
given considerable thought to how to satisfy that requirement without sac-
rificing US interests or destroying the political base in the United States for
a new relation with Communist China. One repeated and apparently effec-
tive American argument at this juncture was that a perceived Nixon betrayal