Chapter 21: Kissinger – Embracing the “Giant Panda” (Part I)

Henry Kissinger’s long-standing relationship with the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) traces back to 1969. That year, Mao Zedong initiated the Zhenbao Island conflict, and the Soviet Union threatened a “surgical” nuclear strike against China. Kissinger deliberately leaked the Soviet plan for a nuclear strike to China. When Mao learned of it, he was terrified, fearing Soviet missiles would annihilate the CCP leadership. The National Day military parade in Tiananmen Square was canceled, and top CCP leaders were evacuated to locations outside Beijing. Mao ordered a nationwide “three, scatter, tunnel” relocation, moving key industries to third-tier cities to evade a potential Soviet attack. Air raid shelters were dug across the country, and nationwide drills were conducted, creating chaos everywhere.

Mao Zedong thanked Nixon for deliberately leaking the secret, crediting him with saving the CCP. During the 1970 National Day celebrations, Mao invited his old friend Edgar Snow to Tiananmen Square, placing him beside Mao to show gratitude toward Americans. Mao was already intending to invite Nixon to Beijing. In 1971, Nixon finally established back-channel communications with Zhou Enlai through Pakistan, initiating the so-called “triangular diplomacy” to counter the Soviet Union. In 1972, Kissinger finally flew to Beijing with Nixon, entering Mao’s study and delivering a monumental gift: China was granted unconditional entry to the United Nations Security Council, the Republic of China (Taiwan) lost its seat, and the U.S. abandoned its ally Chiang Kai-shek to recognize the CCP’s “One China” principle, including Taiwan.

Niall Ferguson, a senior fellow at Stanford University’s Hoover Institution, compared the U.S.-China relationship to the ancient Greek poet Archilochus’s line, cited by philosopher Isaiah Berlin: “The fox knows many things, the hedgehog knows one big thing.” Ferguson used this metaphor to describe great power politics between the two nations: the United States is the fox, pursuing multiple objectives and strategies; China is the hedgehog, adhering consistently to a single core vision.

In 1971, Kissinger, then U.S. National Security Advisor, secretly visited China. Like a fox, he pursued many objectives: facilitating Nixon’s visit, seeking China’s assistance in extricating the U.S. from Vietnam, and leveraging Sino-Soviet tensions to pressure the Soviet Union and slow the nuclear arms race. Zhou Enlai, the hedgehog, remained steadfast on the Taiwan issue, insisting that the relationship could not progress without resolving this core matter. After weighing costs and benefits, Kissinger made concessions, stating he did not support two Chinas, a “one China, one Taiwan” approach, or Taiwanese independence.

In 1971, the Republic of China was forced to leave the United Nations. Nixon visited the People’s Republic of China in 1972, U.S.-China diplomatic relations were formally established in 1979, and the U.S.-ROC Mutual Defense Treaty was terminated. Subsequent U.S.-Taiwan relations were redefined under the Taiwan Relations Act.

Since then, Kissinger has remained a close friend of the CCP, reportedly visiting Beijing more than 80 times. Chinese leaders treated his visits as personal, friendly encounters rather than formal diplomacy. He was welcomed warmly, allowed to speak freely, joke, and discuss matters openly, while even his private affairs were handled discreetly.

During the 1989 Tiananmen Square incident, Kissinger wrote in Japan’s Yomiuri Shimbun that the events were China’s internal affairs and expressed support for the CCP’s handling of the situation. He argued that what occurred in Beijing could not be judged solely by notions of good and evil. He did not support the democratic aspirations of millions of Beijing citizens; rather, he backed the CCP’s suppression, fully siding with them. In October 1989, he visited Beijing and met Deng Xiaoping, who greeted him happily, saying, “Hello, Doctor!”

In 2010, Kissinger published his over 1,000-page work On China, which the CCP treasured and had translated into Chinese by 2012. Portraying himself as a historian, Kissinger traced Chinese political thought from Confucius through modern China. He described Mao Zedong as a “modern embodiment of a Confucian scholar-official,” deliberately glossing over Mao’s dark history. Domestically and abroad, it is widely known that Mao’s first wife, Yang Kaihui, in the 1920s, angrily denounced her husband as a “double scoundrel”—abandoning his wife and children, committing adultery, becoming an outlaw, and engaging in murder and arson. The U.S., with its large consulate in Hong Kong and extensive intelligence operations, could not have been unaware of Mao’s record. Yet Kissinger recast Mao as a Confucian-style scholar-official.

In On China, Kissinger praised CCP politics while completely ignoring major disasters under Mao. The book omits the 1957 suppression of a million rightist intellectuals, the 1958 Great Leap Forward causing a famine that killed tens of millions, and the Cultural Revolution that destroyed Chinese civilization, resulting in 20 million deaths. To survive, hundreds of thousands fled to Hong Kong; from May 5 to May 25, 1962, roughly 300,000 crossed; between 1950 and 1970, about 1.25 million escaped. Thousands perished along the Shenzhen River or under barbed wire. All these catastrophes were completely sanitized in Kissinger’s narrative. With such a “China expert” guiding the U.S., missteps were inevitable.

In 2014, Kissinger published World Order, defending great powers’ self-centered behavior and defending China’s authoritarianism. Shockingly, he did not condemn the historical expansion of communism, but criticized President Wilson’s firm opposition to communism as “naive.” On January 3, 2015, in Japan, Kissinger told Yomiuri Shimbun journalists that he opposed a U.S. containment strategy against China. He opposed Japan and the U.S. jointly countering China, clearly speaking in favor of the CCP. In 2018, at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing, he emphasized again: China’s rise is inevitable due to policy and history; maintaining a power balance between the U.S. and China is necessary; preventing direct confrontation at any cost is the bottom line. Confrontation between the two powers only leads to mutual loss.