Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (61 page)

On the Chinese side, Deng was kept informed but did not take part directly in the negotiations until the very end. Foreign Minister Huang Hua, who negotiated initially for the Chinese side, had unrivaled experience in
dealing with Americans. In 1936, he had guided Edgar Snow (author of
Red Star over China
) from Beiping (renamed “Beijing,” northern capital, in 1949) to meet with Mao in northern Shaanxi. Huang, a survivor who had served Mao, Zhou Enlai, and Deng, masters with very different styles, was for a time during the Cultural Revolution China's only ambassador stationed abroad. He was cautious in revealing anything beyond what he was authorized to say and he could express both Deng's anger as well as his charming goodwill. In 1971 Huang Hua went to New York as the first ambassador to the United Nations from the People's Republic of China.
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In negotiations over normalization, he was assisted by two of the ablest Chinese diplomats experienced in dealing with the United States, Zhang Wenjin and Han Nianlong.

Both sides brought their “A” team to the table. President Carter had chosen Leonard Woodcock, labor union leader and professional mediator, to head the Beijing Liaison Office with the rank of ambassador, because Carter valued his negotiating skills and because he had strong political connections in Washington that would make it easier to win Congressional support for any agreement he might reach. Woodcock could use his personal connections with political leaders in Washington to coordinate policies that could not be easily resolved by ordinary bureaucratic procedures. Woodcock had a reputation as a tough, trusted labor negotiator and was known for his integrity and decency. Secretary Vance called Woodcock an “instinctive and brilliant diplomat” with “a photographic memory, discretion, and a verbal precision critical in these negotiations.”
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Both the State Department and the White House had sufficient confidence in Woodcock that they saw no need for a high official to engage in “shuttle diplomacy” from Washington. By the time the negotiations began, Woodcock, who had already spent a year in the Beijing Liaison Office, was also trusted by Beijing officials and readily accepted as the negotiator.

Stapleton Roy, who arrived in Beijing in June 1978 to succeed David Dean as deputy chief of mission, had grown up in Nanjing where his father was a missionary educator. He spoke Chinese, had a deep knowledge of Chinese history, and was regarded as one of the ablest of the young professionals in the State Department. In the White House, President Carter, Vice President Walter Mondale, Brzezinski, and Michel Oksenberg communicated directly with Woodcock and Roy through highly secret channels. Oksenberg, Brzezinski's deputy for China matters, a bold and broad-scale strategist, was a politically savvy China scholar with unbounded curiosity and enthusiasm. In Washington, only a handful of officials outside the White House, including
Vance and Secretary of Defense Harold Brown, were kept informed. U.S. strategy was devised at the White House with inputs from Woodcock, and the White House kept in touch with Chai Zemin of China's Liaison Office in Washington and his deputy Han Xu, but the negotiations were conducted entirely in Beijing.

Deng Xiaoping followed Huang Hua's meetings with Woodcock on July 5, July 14, August 11, September 15, and November 2; and when Huang Hua became ill, Han Nianlong's meeting with Woodcock on December 4. He then personally conducted the final negotiations with Woodcock (at 10 a.m. on December 13, 4 p.m. and 9 p.m. on December 14, and 4 p.m. on December 15). During the negotiations, Deng continued to meet U.S. officials, explaining the Chinese position and pressing for the negotiations to move ahead. On July 9, for example, four days after the first session between Woodcock and Huang Hua, Deng told a U.S. Congressional delegation headed by Congressman Lester Wolff, head of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, that accepting the Japanese formula for maintaining a full range of private relations with Taiwan already represented a Chinese concession. Deng said that “we will do our best to create conditions to solve this question by peaceful means.” He explained that “it is in both of our great interest in dealing with the Soviet Union if we can normalize relations.” Deng gave the Wolff delegation absolutely no hint that negotiations had already begun.
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In their negotiations, the Chinese normally prefer to start with general principles, then move on to the details. At the second meeting with Woodcock on July 14, Huang Hua said that instead of dealing with one issue at a time, the Chinese side preferred that the United States first put all the major issues on the table so that the two sides could examine the whole package. In the days that followed, different views on the U.S. side in Washington were resolved by accepting Woodcock's recommendation that, in the interest of creating a good mood for further discussions, they should accept the Chinese suggestion. Both sides then prepared their positions and exchanged several papers on the key issues that needed to be resolved. At the third meeting, on August 11, the United States outlined the nature of its relations with Taiwan after normalization with the mainland: cultural, commercial, and other relations would continue, but without official U.S. government representation.

The single most difficult issue in negotiations was whether the United States would continue to sell weapons to Taiwan.
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The United States had made it clear that it intended to continue selling weapons, but each time the
issue was raised, the Chinese responded that they were bitterly opposed. Deng had hoped that if the United States agreed to stop selling arms to Taiwan, then Taiwan would feel it had no realistic choice but to reach an agreement on reunification with the mainland, and he hoped that this might happen quickly, while he was still at the helm.

In making their case, the Chinese held fast to their interpretation of the Shanghai Communiqué: that the United States supported a “one-China” (mainland only) policy. In fact, in signing the Shanghai Communiqué, Richard Nixon only acknowledged that the two sides of the Straits both maintain there is only one China, and that the United States did not challenge that view. On September 7, 1978 when Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke told Han Xu that any weapons sold to Taiwan would be defensive in nature, Han Xu responded that “the sale of weapons to Taiwan is not in conformity with the spirit of the Shanghai Communiqué.”
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On September 19, when Carter announced to Ambassador Chai Zemin, then head of the Chinese Liaison Office, that “we will continue to trade with Taiwan, including the restrained sale of some very carefully selected defensive arms,” Chai replied, “For the United States to continue to sell weapons to the Chiang Clique [Chiang Ching-kuo became the dominant leader after his father died in 1975] would not be in conformity with the spirit of the Shanghai Communiqué.”
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And on October 3, when Huang Hua met Vance at the United Nations, he reiterated in his prepared statement that the continued sale of arms to the “Chiang Clique” would contravene the principles of the Shanghai Communiqué.
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Still, when Deng visited Tokyo in early October, he publicly announced his willingness to normalize relations with the United States so long as the agreement followed the Japanese model. Without undermining China's opposition to U.S. weapon sales to Taiwan, he said he did not object to the continuation of economic and cultural relations between the United States and Taiwan.

By late October Carter and Brzezinski began to worry that, despite their care in limiting the number of people who knew about the negotiations, the danger of leaks would increase if the issues were not resolved quickly. Brzezinski informed Chai Zemin that if China did not seize this opportunity to normalize relations, political issues would prevent any serious discussion of the issues until late 1979. Shortly thereafter, the United States announced an agreement with Taiwan to continue selling it F-5E fighter planes, but not more advanced fighters.
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Meanwhile, the two sides had completed most of their negotiations, and on November 2 Woodcock presented the Chinese negotiators with a draft communiqué on normalization that was to be announced on January 1. The Chinese, however, busy at home with the dramatic changes occurring at the Central Party Work Conference that began on November 10, did not respond until December 4.
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Deng himself had been in Southeast Asia from November 5 and as soon as he returned on November 14, he plunged into the Central Party Work Conference, from which he would emerge as the paramount Chinese leader.

On November 27, two days after Hua Guofeng, at the Central Party Work Conference, had in effect acknowledged the consensus to elevate Deng to the preeminent position by accepting all the criticisms of his position, Deng welcomed one of Washington's leading newspaper columnists, Robert Novak, who had been traveling in Asia at the time. It was the first time a major Chinese leader had granted an interview to an American journalist since Zhou Enlai had met with James Reston in 1971, just before Nixon traveled to China. Deng told Novak that relations between the United States and China should be normalized quickly, not only for the sake of both countries but also for peace and stability around the world. Novak did indeed publicize the message from Deng to the American public. He concluded, “I believe Deng devoted two hours for me to send Washington the message that he wanted normalization quickly and did not have a high asking price.”
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Novak did not then know that Deng would soon be traveling to the United States and that the interview would help prepare the U.S. public for his arrival.

Woodcock's December 4 negotiating session with Han Nianlong, now acting foreign minister (replacing Huang Hua who was ill), was the first meeting since November 2. What the Chinese side knew, but the United States side did not yet know, was that on November 25, Hua Guofeng had yielded to Deng as the preeminent leader and to Deng's approach to policy. On December 4, the Chinese side was suddenly very forthcoming. Han presented Woodcock with the Chinese draft of the announcement to be issued on normalization, with only slight revisions from the American draft, and called for a January 1 deadline for its release. Han explicitly said that if the U.S. side made a statement expressing hope for a peaceful solution of the Taiwan issue, the Chinese side would not contradict it. After the discussions concluded, as Woodcock was getting ready to depart, Han said, “Finally, I would like to tell you that Vice Premier Deng would like to meet you at an early date. We will let you know the definite time.”
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In his analysis sent to Washington, Woodcock
said that Han objected to arms sales to Taiwan, but concluded that this issue was unlikely to be an insurmountable obstacle to normalization. Because the U.S. side did not know precisely when the meeting with Deng would take place, Woodcock asked Stapleton Roy to cancel a planned trip and to be available on short notice to participate in the meeting with Deng.
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Meanwhile, in Washington on the afternoon of December 11 (already December 12 in Beijing), the day before Deng would meet with Woodcock, Brzezinski met Chai Zemin to present a revised draft of the announcement on normalization, to convey to Chai that the U.S. side wanted to meet the target date of January 1 for normalization, and to invite a Chinese leader to the United States as soon as the agreement was completed. At the time, Hua Guofeng was still officially of higher rank than Deng, and the United States assumed that China would choose to send either Hua or Deng. Brzezinski also gave Chai advance notice that there might be a U.S. summit with Brezhnev in January.
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Deng met Woodcock on Wednesday, December 13, in the Jiangsu Room of the Great Hall of the People. After an exchange of pleasantries, Woodcock presented Deng with four copies of a one-page draft of the proposed communiqué in English. Deng asked his interpreter to translate it orally and instead of waiting for an official translation, he took up the issues on the spot without a Chinese text. He clearly wanted to move ahead without delay. Deng asked why, since the defense treaty with Taiwan was to terminate, it would take a year to remove the U.S. military presence from Taiwan. Woodcock explained that the United States was proposing to break off diplomatic relations with Taiwan as of January 1, and the existing treaty required a one-year notice before termination—although the United States was in fact planning to withdraw its forces within four months. Deng replied that the plan was acceptable but he also hoped that the United States would be willing simply to omit all reference to Article 10 (which called attention to the one-year period before termination of military relations). He also expressed his wish that the United States not sell arms to Taiwan during this time, because if the United States did sell arms, “Chiang Ching-kuo would strut his tail feathers and this would increase the chances of conflict over the Taiwan Straits.”
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Deng noted that the Chinese draft of the communiqué mentioned the anti-hegemony clause and the U.S. draft did not. He said that the U.S. draft was satisfactory, but he hoped that the United States would add an anti-hegemony
clause for their joint declaration; otherwise it might appear to the world as if the two sides disagreed. Woodcock said he would convey Deng's views to Washington and await an answer. Deng agreed that January 1 was a good date for making the announcement.

In response to the U.S. invitation for a high-level Chinese leader to come for a visit, Deng told Woodcock, “We accept the invitation of the U.S. government to visit Washington. To be specific, I will go there.”
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That same afternoon, on December 13, knowing that the issue of normalization with the United States had been basically resolved, Deng had an important new feather in his cap as he presented his epoch-making speech to the Central Party Work Conference on reform and opening.