Historical narrative on Nixon, Kissinger, and Mao’s strategic thinking during 1970s China‑US rapprochement

17 Nixon’s official visit (the Shanghai Communiqué). The result was, as he puts it, “a quasi alliance,” which, though initially intended to contain the Soviet Union, ended up outliving the Cold War. In this telling, however, Kissinger is able to take advantage of recent research that illuminates the Chinese side of the story. The American opening to China was also a Chinese opening to America, actuated above all by Mao Zedong’s fear of encirclement. “Think about this,” Mao told his doctor in 1969. “We have the Soviet Union to the north and the west, India to the south, and Japan to the east. If all our enemies were to unite, attacking us from the north, south, east, and west, what do you think we should do?” The medic had no idea. “Think again,” said Mao. “Beyond Japan is the United States. Didn’t our ancestors counsel negotiating with faraway countries while fighting with those that are near?” It was to explore the American option that Mao recalled four Army marshals from exile. Skirmishes were already underway between Soviet and Chinese forces on the Ussuri River. In October 1970 Mao ordered China’s top leadership to evacuate Beijing and put the People’s Liberation Army on “‘first- degree combat readiness.” The stakes for China were high indeed— higher than for the United States. As Kissinger shows, it was far from unusual for Mao to refer to “our ancestors’ counsel.” Despite his lifelong commitment to Marxism-Leninism, Mao was also steeped in the classics of Chinese civilization, as were his close advisers. “We can consult the example of Zhuge Liang’s strategic guiding principle,” Marshal Ye Jian-ying suggested, “when the three states of Wei, Shu, and Wu confronted each other: ‘Ally with Wu in the east to oppose Wei in the north.’ ” The allusion, Kissinger explains, is to Romance of the Three Kingdoms, a 14th-century epic novel set in the so-called Warring States period (475-221 B.C.). Nor was this the only occasion when China’s communist leaders looked to the distant past for inspiration. Of equal importance to HOUSE_OVERSIGHT_031850