 Now, no one here needs an introduction to Bob Schieffer and to Henry Kissinger. You know Bob, the quintessential media journalist in Washington. More than anything, he asks the simplest questions and the hardest questions simultaneously, which is really a mark of ultra-professionals. Bob, we'll turn it to you to run this whole program. Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Henry. It's really fun to be here and to have this association with CSIS, and it's always fun to interview Dr. Kissinger, which I've been doing since back in the... I didn't get to talk to him during the Nixon administration, but I talked to him a lot during the Ford administration, and sometimes he liked my questions and sometimes he didn't, but we've been friends all along the way. And I have... there's no one in American life today that I have more respect for than Dr. Kissinger, so that doesn't mean I'm going to ask you easy questions. Dr, I do. I kind of have known for asking the obvious questions, so everybody's been talking about you, we've been talking about U.S.-China relations today. I want to ask you the obvious question. How do you assess U.S.-Chinese relations right now? Today. Both of our countries are undergoing potential changes. We have to face the fact that our relative position in the world is going to diminish in the sense that we're not going to be the dominant nation, but we're still going to be an extremely powerful nation. Chinese have a change of leadership coming up, and they will have to face during that period how to bring their political arrangements in line with their economic achievements. So both sides will have a temptation to use nationalistic explanations for the difficulties associated with that process. We can blame our economic crises on the Chinese, but we have to distinguish those things that are caused by our own failures from those that may be caused by the actions of others. The Chinese have to adjust, as was said in previous panels, to an international environment in which, for the first time in their history, they have to deal with an international system composed of at least some states of equal magnitude. So I think the Chinese in the last year have gone through a process in which first feeling the impact of the economic crisis and feeling the confidence that had inspired in them relative to us of testing their power. And I think they're coming to the point of view that they need a substantial period of coexistence. We in this country, as far as the administration is concerned, I believe has also come to this view, but the internal debate about the ideological conflict with China is growing rather than diminishing. I don't know where we will be at the end of, say, 10, 15 years, but I believe that if we make a serious effort to deal with the unique aspect of the situation that we have two major powers, one of which is rising but two major powers who know the consequences of a conflict between them and at least prepared to take a look at what measures can be taken to alleviate these dangers that then, at the end of that period, cooperation of some kind may have become habit for me. That is my objective result. One of the goals in this book for you is to help Americans understand China's strategic thinking. What exactly do you mean by that and help us understand? In American history, in the American experience, every problem that we have recognized as a problem has proved soluble. So we tend to segment... Has proved what? Has proved soluble. Soluble, okay. So we could, or we could overfill it with resources and it has had a finite time limit that you could attach to it. In Chinese history, no problem has an ultimate solution, a Chinese perception. Every solution has an admission ticket for another set of problems. We tend to think that there is one interpretation of a situation. The Chinese tend to see the situation in a more complex way with various aspects. Let me give one example that struck me as I was actually writing in this book, which is the different notions of deterrence, as I understand it. The American approach to deterrence is that if you identify the danger, you amass resources, and if the danger becomes acute, you overwhelm it. So it is addressed to capabilities. The Chinese approach is also to identify the danger, but then to deal with the psychological capability of implementing it. So the Chinese are more apt to take a preemptive military action, but it would be of a much more limited nature. For example, the war with India in 62, the war with Vietnam in 79, both were designed to affect the calculations of the adversary, not to achieve a total victory. In fact, they achieved whatever military goal they set and then abandoned it because they were more concerned with the psychological impact. And before that, there has been some discussion of the difference between the game of chess and the game of gold. So this would be the difference in approach. You talk a lot about China's great goal is to avoid encircled. Is that sort of the basis of their foreign policy as you go back to history? Well, somebody when we were standing around said to me that my book is being reviewed widely by signophiles, by experts or by signologists, I don't consider myself a Chinese scholar. I consider myself somebody who has had a lot of experience with Chinese leaders and who has thought a lot about how they evolved their thinking. Now, the idea of encirclement arose in my mind when I wrote this book. I asked the question, why did the Chinese intervene in the Korean War? And I tried to trace what it was that made the Chinese take that decision. And like most American intellectuals, I used to think that it was the advance of the Yalu River that was the decisive element and that was an example of American rashness that triggered a Chinese reaction. But that isn't what happened when you studied them. What happened was that when the North Koreans invaded the South and Truman unexpectedly for the Chinese and Russians responded by sending troops to South Korea and then followed this up by what Truman thought was a conciliatory move, namely moving the 7th Fleet into the Taiwan Straits and saying he was keeping both sides from attacking. The Chinese, Taiwan and Taiwan, the mainland. In the Chinese mind, this meant that America had re-entered the Civil War and it also had put a marker down in the straits and it had put another marker down in Korea and it would, as they said in their internal discussions, put another marker into Vietnam and if they didn't give us a shocking response we would keep that process going and the planning for the invasion or whatever you call it of Korea started within a week of our fleet in the Straits, in about troops while we were still in the Pusan perimeter. The implementation then was probably speeded up by moving up to the Yellow but even then I'm not 100% sure and the same was true in Vietnam in 1979. They had been allies of Vietnam until 1975 and then almost immediately they fell out with Vietnam because they interpreted Vietnamese moves in Cambodia and Laos as a prelude to taking over all of Southeast Asia and then when Vietnam made an alliance with the Soviet Union they decided to strike and this is a good example of the pre-emptive deterrence that I'm talking about. Most Western nations would say that when Vietnam made an alliance with the Soviet Union it had become impregnable. Here was the Soviet Union to the North but within a month the Chinese attacked Vietnam with as much of an eye on the Soviet Union as on Vietnam and one could argue, although it wasn't recognized as that the decline of the Soviet Union as a superpower began when they acquiesced in the attack on an ally that they had just recently made and permitted the Northern provinces to be totally devastated and then withdraw. The Chinese paid a horrendous price for it and in most of the western military literature this is described as a Chinese defeat but if you look at it in strategic terms it was from the point of view of what I call an offensive deterrence it was successful. Speaking of Vietnam and what you just said what does that mean to how we react to China's assertive actions in the South China Sea? I mean is there a danger that we might back China into a corner here? I must say during the Vietnam war it's not your question but I think one has to say this we did not as a country adequately analyze the impact, the relationship of China and Vietnam a succession of American administrations believed that Vietnam was an extension of Chinese policy and that it was all part of a grand strategy in which Moscow, Beijing and Hanoi were working together and nothing could have been further from the truth. So in the nature of things Vietnam and China are strategic opponents in the sense that Vietnam is assertive insisting on its autonomy we of course have an interest in the independence of countries of Southeast Asia but we should not treat Vietnam as if it were an ally against China and while I agreed with what was said about freedom of seas in Southeast, South China Sea I did not think Hanoi was the ideal place to make that declaration and we should avoid we should find political and economic means of cooperating with the countries of South Asia we should avoid the impression of a military containment policy and China should accept our having these relationships without trying to push us out of Asia those are the two limits no containment, no Chinese had jumped at Germany over all of Asia but are you saying that some of this, some of what we're seeing in that area today goes back to the Vietnam War? No, I don't think it goes back to the Vietnam War people say that the conventional wisdom is to say China is a rising power, we are an established power usually in conflict with established powers and therefore it's like Germany and Britain in a way that's true but in a way China does not think of itself as a rising power China thinks of itself as a country that was preeminent for 1800 of the last 2000 years and is returning to its traditional preeminence in its traditional preeminence and the states surrounding it were treated as a kind were treated as tributary states and indeed the notion of sovereign states did not exist Vietnam had actually been a part of the Chinese Empire so that relationship is particularly tense if I look back on the Vietnam War something I did not fully understand at the time the Chinese strategic interest in Vietnam was really the same as ours they would have liked to see an outcome of forced states from a strategic point of view but from a, but they didn't want an American strategic presence there having, but once we were withdrawn from Vietnam some of the traditional Chinese notions of how surrounding states would behave re-emerged but I read today that the Chinese defence minister in Singapore said that the issue of freedom of disease is not the issue and if that is true then we are dealing with a whole set of complicated, abstruse issues having to do with economic zones around some rocks in some cases there are some islands there that are islands only at low tide on one of them in fact the Chinese have built a platform so then it's over my point is the South China Sea issue we will defend freedom of disease we cannot abandon that I think this is one of those issues where the Chinese will come where we and the Chinese will come to an understanding in which I believe they have already modified their attitude of last year then there will be a whole set of issues about these various islands and that will involve the Philippines, Vietnam, China, Indonesia and that will be a very complicated diplomacy but I don't think it will set the peace of the world do you think that China's strategic approach will change as their stature in the world changes I mean you say they don't see themselves as a rising power they see themselves returning to the place where they once were but they recognize that there's change and will that change their approach to these things this is one of those questions which I meant in my early remarks that will have to evolve over the next 15 years I think the natural instinct of the Chinese with respect to surrounding countries it will take an effort to get to treat them as fully equal sovereign countries they know the language of doing it I think it will happen and I think it's probably happening now but the basic question is as their power grows my interpretation of their thinking is they will want to be treated with respect and respect will be related to their strengths so if we keep going down internally and they keep going up our negotiating position will be much more difficult for any observer of China the financial crisis of 2007 had more to do with our political difficulties than the actual issues that arose the Chinese had believed that the Americans knew how to run the global financial system and they had actually geared a lot of their policies to that belief so when it became apparent that we didn't know it not only did we lose faith one can use that word but also the people that had been associated with the policy of cooperating with the United States lost some of their prestige so we cannot ask the Chinese to solve our own domestic problems for us we have to distinguish those things they do that are immediately by decisive American or long-range American policy and those a foreign policy and those which we need to deal with by making ourselves truly competitive that second part we cannot ask for them to solve for us what does it do to the relationship that we borrow so much from the Chinese has that changed the relationship you seem to kind of suggest that perhaps it might have the way it was until about ten years ago I don't think it was it was even in a way helpful to the relationship but when a nation keeps borrowing in a profligate way and heads itself for a demonstrable financial crisis then it means you are tying yourself to a potential wreck it isn't that they can use the money we own them in a strategic way because we can then cut off their exports and it's sort of a mutual suicide fact but it does not enhance our capacity to convince them of the desirability of moving on a joint approach I agree with what Spick said in the previous session namely that the region between the Himalayas and however far west you want to go is emerging into such a state of chaos that it needs some reordering I'm not saying the United States alone can reorder it in fact this is an area where soon or later we are going to be driven and they are going to be driven and every other country in the region India is going to be driven but to come up with some concept will become more and more chaotic it's in this sense that the respect for American thinking in Beijing not in the sense I do not of a military attack on the international system I think that is nearly inconceivable to me anyway let me just ask you about North Korea and China's relationship with North Korea are they being helpful to us what should we be doing that we're not doing what would we like for them to do that they're not doing in order to understand their position on North Korea one has to recall what I said earlier about the Korean war which is in Chinese consciousness a big event no they are not helpful to us if we mean are they helpful to us in getting the nuclear weapons away from North Korea they are marginally helpful but they face its dilemma as in a way do we which is that the only successful thing the Korean regime has done in its long and unattractive history is to build nuclear weapons almost everything else domestically has been a catastrophe therefore the Chinese probably recognize that the pressure required to get nuclear weapons away from North Korea is almost identical with pressures needed to collapse the North Korean regime if one could create a North Korean regime that operates like the Tang reform system it gives up nuclear weapons and that develops its economy I think the Chinese would be delighted but such a regime wouldn't be the current North Korean regime and so I believe at some point there has to be an understanding between China and the United States and other countries on a Northeast Asia arrangement into which North Korea fits and of course South Korea has to be an integral part of this so that the nuclear question can be solved without chaos in North Korea but the Chinese fear is chaos in North Korea they have to know that the nuclear weapons in North Korea are infinitely more dangerous to them than to us and we have not yet found the right way to talk to the Chinese about this nor have they found the right way to talk to us about this because there are too many inhibitions on both sides but it seems to me and I think you hit the nail right on the head there and I think that's what causes a lot of Americans to just wonder about this answer they don't seem to be as worried about nuclear weapons in North Korea or in Iran for example as we are and are they or are they not? They don't have the cosmic view on proliferation that we have I agree with the administration that the proliferation of nuclear weapons is one of the greatest dangers that the world faces the Chinese look at it more from a local strategic point of view I have described the Korean issue on Iran they went along with us on the last sanctions if we can segment it into individual steps like many governments they do not want to give up the access to Iranian oil and their balancing it but in the long run they will face the question they'll have to face the question of a chaotic Middle Eastern region but it would be a big change in their historic approach Obviously they are playing a larger role in the Middle East but let me say one other thing they will not do it when I talk to people in Washington they would say they are not helpful to us they do not conceive foreign policy in terms of being helpful to us they conceive foreign policy in terms of their own strategy so what we have to learn to do is to merge our strategy and their strategy so that it leads to come in results when we said they should be stakeholders we decide the thing and they make a contribution in that concept they have to be made part of the design Just while we are in the Middle East Do you expect China to continue to play more of a role in the Middle East than they had in the past? Yes, I think China is going to be forced to play more of a role Because of the oil? Yes, when the crisis occurred in Egypt and the way the Saudis interpreted it I thought it was almost inevitable that a new relationship would begin with Saudi but they are doing it primarily to protect their energy resources but it is a vital area for them they prefer it if we took care of the security I thought one of the most interesting thoughts in your book you say that American exceptionalism is missionary Chinese exceptionalism is cultural Let's talk about that a little Of course, again I have to tell you I do not pretend to be a Chinese scholar and there are several former speech writers of mine sitting around here who are moving their lips Well, you probably know enough to pull a loss So with these qualifications let me make my Americans believe that our values are universally valid and can be applied by any society and moreover that we can teach any society to adopt these values and finally that the prospects of peace are in hand if we accomplish this task The Chinese believe in the superiority of their culture the uniqueness of their culture and they are delighted and proud if you respect it but there is no way you can become a Chinese it is not a if you are not part of the Chinese culture born into the Chinese culture you cannot become one so it is hard to imagine Chinese armies intervening somewhere to make Chinese culture the Chinese governing principles that is not a Chinese way of thinking the Chinese way of thinking is that the majesty of the Chinese conduct and the achievements of Chinese society will inspire respect which leads to a cooperative action but it is not one that they have historically attempted to bring about by military force they will use military force if they feel themselves threatened and brutal to say but it is hard for me to visualize a Chinese military strategy designed to back up a Chinese world government even in the name of universal peace so you talked in the beginning about how we have to look for things that we can agree on and all of that do you think the two sides recognize how dangerous a rivalry between China and the United States could become or do you think that could be posted? I think the best thing that was done at the beginning of the relationship was not just the discovery of the importance of the relationship because that was sort of going to happen even though we may have done it but the best thing was that we sort of put aside all the technical issues that had impeded previous discussions and said let's talk about fundamentals what are we really trying to do and luckily since there had been no diplomatic relations there was no agenda to impede it but if you read the transcripts of the first years of conversations they were almost like college professors discussing but it had the advantage that it concept formed now to talk about the current situation from my knowledge of both governments and have you talked to both leaders in our world the importance of what I've said is recognized I don't think there is anyone who says it is not important in the government there will be confrontational people outside but what tends to happen now as each government faces more and more problems is that they make a communique and then not much happens until the next communique what is not happening yet fully it's the kind of dialogue that enables us to deal with this question of North Korea in its ultimate sense and of the Middle East in its ultimate sense that's where the big gap is it's not that people don't want an understanding it's that they have not yet found a message or even the people to do it United States, I mean this is one of the questions that some of the folks at CSIS sent along one of them was and I thought this was interesting United States was historically isolationist until forced out on the world stage by a series of great wars do you see a similar impulse toward the world stage in China now you've talked a little about this it isn't that China didn't have wars in its history it had many wars in its history but it never had to deal with sovereign state the notion of sovereignty was unknown in China it didn't have a foreign ministry until the end of the 19th century and then the foreign ministry was supposed to deal only with the invading Europeans all other things that we consider foreign affairs were assigned to different departments so this notion of a sovereign will it require wars to force China into that I don't think that because the Chinese are really careful students of foreign policy and of strategy but they undoubtedly have different interpretations now of their opportunities and of their necessities and I would expect that the new administration that is coming into power next year in China will have to face this the current administration after going through a the Hu Jintao administration after going through a period that could be compared with the elbowing of the Germans before World War I however made a turn which the Germans never made and I think the State Council in charge of foreign policy has made a very thoughtful speech and the theme now that the Chinese also at the Singapore countries have is that of peaceful rights and of a cooperative relationship and even of Pacific community and undoubtedly there are country reviews in China and in my view it should be the objective of American policy to enhance the plausibility of the view that one's cooperation but they have to do the same thing it's needed on both sides it would be a unique experience in history it's not huge, it's not happened before but it also hasn't been necessary before and I keep saying in this not keep saying I say in my last chapter in my book what would have happened if the European leaders who drifted into war in 1910 from the period say 1910 to 14 had known what the world would look like in 1919 what they have done it in that case Germany was the principally responsible country it was not here we are I think on an equal basis in having to make adjustments I just want to ask one more question you've been to China what 50 times now since you made that first trip I just wonder as you were on that airplane going to China that first time what was going through your mind you knew this was on the cusp of something grand but did you have any idea it would come out the way it did we would be here today talking about what's happened just to keep Winston Lord from rushing up on this stage grabbing the microphone he was my principal associate at the time and the quality of our thought was shown by the fact that he went up to the pilot seat while I was resting in the rear of the plane so that he could say he was the first to be in China which will show you the I'll tell you I think that we knew it was a momentous event we did not know its magnitude we looked at it primarily in terms of three things balancing the Soviet Union isolating North Vietnam and giving the American people a demonstration that even in the middle of a divisive war its government could come up with a comprehensive notion of peace none of us certainly not I expected a China of the magnitude that had since and even after we saw it but it was we were all lucky in the sense how often in life do you get a chance to do something unique and something that you know is going to make a huge difference if our mission had failed it also would have made a huge difference but the odds were that it that it would succeed and just to show the Chinese they had sent a team of people that had to escort us from Pakistan into China which we didn't know until we got to to Pakistan so we knew from them on the plane that this was not going to be a confrontational meeting if it was avoidable no it was from that point of view a great experience but we had others I would say one great moment was when we knew the Vietnam War would end and that didn't end so we thought it was a great achievement and that failed and that blew up but we knew it would do make a historic change but a number of things we couldn't imagine it predict for example we thought that there was a possibility and all our experts had told us that if we move towards China relations with the Soviet Union would deteriorate and we thought we would get into a period of increased tension with the Soviet Union the exact opposite happened the opening to China greatly improved our relations with the Soviet Union and in fact made it possible to have a global policy of what was then called invituitly dethroned we thought represented some significant progress Dr. Henry Kissinger