June 29, 1971
Page 22781
AMERICAN POLICY TOWARD CHINA
Mr. MUSKIE. Mr. President, on June 24, the Senator from Massachusetts (Mr. KENNEDY) testified before the Foreign Relations Committee on the first day of its widely publicized – and very successful – hearings on American policies toward China. The hearings have made an immense contribution to beginning a reasoned debate on the future of U.S. policy toward China.
Senator Kennedy's testimony is a thoughtful analysis of the problems that remain to be overcome in relations between ourselves and China. He suggests what we must do to end China's continued diplomatic isolation, urging, among other things, the admission of Peking into the United Nations at the earliest opportunity.
I share Senator KENNEDY'S concerns about the need to develop new policies toward mainland China, and I would like other Senators to have the benefit of his insightful testimony. I therefore ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the RECORD.
There being no objection, the testimony was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
TESTIMONY OF SENATOR EDWARD M. KENNEDY, SENATE FOREIGN RELATIONS COMMITTEE HEARINGS ON CHINA
Mr. Chairman and members of the Committee. I am honored to appear before you today and to have the opportunity to testify at these important hearings on American policy toward China.
Like an icebreaker plowing through a frozen sea, the visit of the American table tennis team to the People's Republic of China last April has opened up a new passage to improved relations between China and the United States, relations that have been frozen solid for almost a quarter of a century.
For millions of Americans, our overwhelming reaction to the trip by the team was a sigh of relief and a prayer of hope – relief that at last we are beginning to surmount the hostility and distrust that have dominated our relations for so long, and hope that leaders in both nations would have the wisdom and the will to translate the aura of April into deeper and more lasting progress on all the great issues that divide us.
For more than twenty years, the United States has maintained a policy of diplomatic and political isolation against a nation whose sheer size and population should have entitled it long ago to a major place in the world community. How can we countenance a policy that makes outcasts of a nation with 800 million citizens – one quarter of the world's population – a nation that is a nuclear power, a nation with an immense share of the world's wealth, a nation with enormous potential impact on virtually every aspect of world affairs.
By some cruel paradox, an entire generation of young Americans and young Chinese have grown to maturity with their governments in a state of suspended war toward one another. Tragically, the world's oldest civilization and the world's most modern civilization, the world's most populous nation and the world's richest and most powerful nation, glare at each other across the abyss of nuclear war.
Three times within our lifetime, American soldiers have been sent to fight in Asia. Forty-five thousand Americans are dead in Vietnam, in a war whose primary purpose, we have been told, was the containment of Peking. Time and again, we have seen the ancient bond of friendship and reconciliation between Americans and Chinese shattered by the unyielding consequences of a policy based on arms and fear and war.
Now, thanks in large part to the overtures of the Nixon Administration and the response of Peking, we have an unparalleled opportunity to change all that, to lift our policy out of the shadows of the past and into the sunlight of the world as it is today – to achieve, in a word, the true generation of peace that the President seeks, and that only a realistic policy toward China can ensure.
It is to this question that I wish primarily to address my testimony today. The path we choose now must be the right path, because it may well determine the course of our relations for years to come on every other issue we face.
My view on the issue of U.N. representation is clear, and it is shared, I believe, by many members of the Senate, the academic community, and the American people at large. As I urged in 1969, it can be stated in three simple propositions:
First, the People's Republic of China should be granted its legitimate seat in the United Nations as the sole government of China, not only in the General Assembly, but also in the Security Council and in all the other principal and subsidiary organs of the United Nations.
Second, the United States should make no effort to impose a formula for dual U.N. representation on the People's Republic of China and Taiwan, unless those two governments themselves agree to such a formula.
Third, the resolution of the issue of United Nations representation need not await the resolution of the other complex issues dividing the United States and the People's Republic of China, such as the question of the future of Taiwan, or the question of diplomatic relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China. The time has come for the People's Republic to take its seat in the United Nations as the Government of China, whether or not these other issues are settled.
These propositions are set out in Senate Resolution 139, which I introduced in the Senate last week. The Resolution is based on the brief but extremely significant policy statement issued earlier by a distinguished group of 110 of the nation's leading China scholars, coordinated by Professor Allen Whiting of the University of Michigan. The signers of the statement include scholars at fifty colleges and universities in nineteen states, representing a broad cross section of academic opinion in many different regions of the country.
The choice we face is clear. We can abandon the fictions of the past and welcome U.N. representation for the People's Republic, thereby generating the most significant possible improvement in U.S.-Chinese relations at this time. Or, we can continue to nibble around the edge by easing travel and trade restrictions, thereby condemning ourselves to yet another round of the frustration and mutual hostility we have known for so long.
For twenty rigid years, the United States has opposed Peking on the issue of U.N. representation. Through a succession of strategic devices and parliamentary maneuvers in the U.N. – the "Moratorium" tactic in the Fifties and the "Important Question" device in the Sixties – we managed to prevent the People's Republic from occupying China's seat in the General Assembly. the Security Council, and all other organs of the U.N.
Surely, in the entire history of American foreign policy, there has never been a fiction more palpably absurd than the official American policy that the People's Republic of China does not exist, that the rulers of the fourteen million people on Taiwan are also the rulers of the hundreds of millions of Chinese on the millions of square miles of the mainland. It is as though the island of Cuba were to claim sovereignty over the whole continent of North America.
Given the history and consequences of our relentless opposition to Peking in the United Nations, it is fair to ask whether,the United States itself – and not Peking – is the real victim of a policy whose folly has been matched only by its futility. How much diplomatic good will have we squandered in our decades of effort to persuade other nations to vote against Peking? How badly have we distorted other vital international programs, like foreign aid, in order to curry favor with nations against Peking? How many opportunities have we lost for real progress on all the vital international issues of our time, while we bargained for advantage against Peking?
The doubts and questions are endless. and we may never know the answers. Perhaps, at some future time, a China Archive will bubble to the surface from the secrecy of our government, and the light of history will illuminate the real and terrible costs the American people have paid as prisoners of our policies of the past.
Still, we can see today, more clearly than ever before, the reasons why the People's Republic of China is entitled to be represented in the United Nations. No world organization that prides itself on the name and on the principle of universal membership can ignore the gaping void imposed by the absence of Peking. Last October. we witnessed perhaps the ultimate absurdity of our policy. The United Nations admitted the Fiji Islands to membership, three days after it achieved independence, and with a population no larger than the City of Indianapolis. Yet, a nation of 800 million Chinese has been kept out for twenty years.
We also now see our "Important Question" tactic for what it is, a procedural device that is being used to frustrate the will of the majority of the members of the U.N. Last November, for the first time, by the vote of 51-49, the nations of the General Assembly voted to seat Peking as the representative of China. Only the American version of the filibuster rule in the U.N., the "Important Question" procedure, which requires that the decision be made by a two-thirds vote, allowed the position of the United States to prevail, in spite of the narrow but clear cut vote of the majority.
The roll call itself was illuminating. Of all the member nations of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, only Greece and Turkey voted with the American delegation against representation for Peking. The roll of nations voting for Peking contained many of our closest friends – nations like Britain, Canada. Denmark, France, India, Italy. Norway, Pakistan, and Sweden, to name but some. And other countries, like Belgium, Ireland, Luxembourg, and the Netherlands, abstained on the vote, undoubtedly to spare the United States the embarrassment of voting for Peking.
Surely, a nation like ours, founded on the timeless principles of democracy, majority rule, and the responsiveness of government and all its institutions to the will of the people, should also apply those basic principles in our relations with the world community. The logic of our "Important Question" tactic has petrified, and the Administration should give it the burial it deserves. I urge the President, therefore, to remember the noble traditions on which our Republic stands, to forego the regressive "Important Question" tactic in the General Assembly session this fall, and to allow the will of the majority to prevail.
Even apart from the principle of majority rule at stake, however, there are important policy considerations that argue strongly in favor of U.N. representation for Peking.
Some aspects of the issue are obvious. We know that the Peking government may soon have the capacity to deploy intercontinental ballistic missiles, able to destroy America's largest population centers. We also know that we cannot expect Peking to cooperate in U.N. sponsored arms control discussions, unless we acknowledge her as China's legitimate representative in U.N. councils.
Similarly, so long as Peking is excluded from the U.N., we cannot expect China to cooperate in vital U.N. efforts on issues like international economic affairs and world development, the mushrooming world population explosion, the international crisis in refugees, the problems of pollution and ill health, poverty and disease that plague so many nations, or any of the host of other activities that can be of immense benefit to the world community.
The most hopeful sign I see is that the American people themselves are demonstrating a progressive attitude toward the role of China in world affairs. The national sigh of relief over the table tennis trip and the warm reception of the President's overtures on trade and travel demonstrate that the bitter passions inspired by the McCarthy Era and the China Lobby, the Chinese Revolution and the Korean War have subsided. Americans are prepared to accept reality today, and to view China in a much more objective manner than we could possibly have done a decade ago.
Public opinion in the United States has become increasingly aware of the value of the People's Republic in the U.N. The people of America are far ahead of Congress and the Administration on the issue. The people are ready for change, if only we will listen. On balance, we can now agree, U.N. representation for Peking will be good for the United States. good for the U.N., and good for China.
The U.N. itself will be strengthened by the fact that one of the world's major powers no longer lies beyond its membership. Of course, the entry of the People's Republic will also require adjustments within the world organization. On certain issues, such as the Middle East, Peking may be expected to complicate decision making. Nevertheless, by and large, and particularly in the long run. China's participation will increase, rather than diminish, the U.N.'s capacity to deal with the great international issues of our time.
Moreover, the U.N. may be expected to exert reciprocal pressures on Peking. Membership in the world organization has never been a one-way street. If Peking complicates the U.N.'s decision making, the U.N. will also complicate the decision-making in Peking. Once the People's Republic is part of the U.N., it will be subjected to pressures – from friend as well as foe – to engage in the processes of bargaining, compromise and accommodation that makes it possible for the organization to function. Inevitably, the fact of membership will induce a more flexible, moderate outlook on the part of Peking. Already for example Peking realizes how much it has forfeited in the past 20 years in its role as outcast, and how much it stands to gain from U.N. representation in many areas of interest.
The question, then, is whether the United States will take the high road, and accept the reality of Peking's existence in the world organization, or whether, once again, we will take the low road and draw upon the resources of diplomatic ingenuity in another last-ditch effort to prevent the People's Republic from assuming China's seat at the U.N. I believe that we would be profoundly unwise to make the latter effort.
The only real difficulty in taking the high road is the sensitive question of the status of Taiwan. The problem, of course, centers upon the future of the government of Chiang Kai-shek and the island he controls. Today, more than 20 years after he left the mainland, the Chiang Government still claims to be the government of Mainland China. The claim is patently a fiction, and the time is long overdue for the U.S. to accept the reality that Peking is here to stay, that it is a genuinely Chinese Government and not a Soviet satellite, and that it controls the overwhelming bulk of China's people and territory.
Because of old friendships and alliances, however, the United States and a number of other members of the United Nations are properly reluctant to abandon Taiwan in the U.N. They concede that the Chiang government should not represent China in the Security Council and the other U.N. bodies. But they argue that Chiang is in control of Taiwan, which has 14 million people, and that the people of Taiwan should not be denied a voice in the General Assembly. The nations who adhere to this view do not wish to see Peking in the U.N., until some provision has been made to avoid the departure of the delegation from Taiwan.
In recent months, the United States itself has begun to move toward the deceptive formula of some form of "Dual Representation," a formula that would give Peking the China seat on the Security Council, but which would also seat both competing governments in the General Assembly.
Obviously, if the People's Republic and Taiwan were prepared to accept such a formula, the problem of China's representation in the U.N. could be easily resolved. Unfortunately, the fact is that neither of the rival governments is willing to sit in the U.N. if the other is present. They still regard themselves as engaged in civil war.
However reasonable such a "Dual Representation" compromise might seem to non-Chinese, therefore, it is unacceptable to the Chinese. Both sides have unequivocally rejected either the "Two China" solution or the "One China-One Taiwan" solution. Regardless of the merits of the "dual representation" formula for other divided nations, like Germany, Korea, or even Vietnam. it will not work for China
The conclusion is inescapable. If the United States decides to work actively in behalf of "dual representation" as the basis for inviting the People's Republic into the U.N., we will be promoting a formula to keep Peking out of the U.N. Whatever our government's intention, that will be the inevitable result. The only valid policy is a "One China" policy, and that is the policy we should adopt.
To the People's Republic, "dual representation" looks suspiciously like another tactic in the long line of techniques devised by American diplomats to keep Peking from taking its legitimate place in the U.N. as the sole representative of China.
Of course, unlike the "Moratorium" technique of the Fifties and the "Important Question" technique of the Sixties, "Dual Representation" purports to welcome Peking – but only on terms that neither China can accept. Thus, dual representation is simply a sophisticated new device to accomplish the same old goal – excluding the People's Republic of China from the world community.
I wish the facts were otherwise. In our optimism, we always hope that a reasonable solution can be found for every problem, an accommodation for every antagonism. It would be a happy occasion if, by hard work and good will, we could persuade the parties to a civil war that has been raging in one form or other for half a century to harmonize their differences.
Yet, our policy cannot be based on wishes and hopes. It must cope with reality. We cannot be naive enough to expect that the complex problems arising from the Chinese Civil War, World War II, and the Korean War can all be solved at once. Questions such as the duration of the Chiang and Mao regimes, the status of Taiwan, and the establishment of diplomatic relations between Peking and Washington will take years to clarify. We simply cannot predict what the future holds in store.
It seems extremely unlikely to me that any answers at all will be found to the problem of Taiwan, even in as "brief" a period as the next five years. It might easily take a decade to clarify the relationship of Taiwan to the Mainland. But it may also take twenty-five years, or even longer.
The problem before us is, what are we to do at the U.N. now, while we wait for these harder answers to come?
To me, there is only one valid answer, difficult as it may seem for Taiwan. We must recognize that it is vital to the peace and progress of the world that Peking be brought into the international community, and we must accept the reality that the People's Republic is the sole legitimate representative of China in the U.N.
If we take this route, we must also recognize that now, and for the foreseeable future – until the Taiwan problem is settled – there will be no U.N. representation for Taiwan, because a delegation from Peking would replace the delegation from Taiwan.
Eventually, when the Taiwan question is resolved, Taiwan will be represented in the U.N. in accordance with whatever status develops for the island. In the meantime, Taiwan will join those other nations, including the divided nation of Germany, that operate effectively outside the U.N.
And nothing we do would in any way impair our continuing commitment to the defense of Taiwan under our existing treaty obligations. The only change would be in the U.N.
The choice is difficult, but to me the answer is clear. We have to choose the path of certainty, the path that assures the entry of Peking into the U.N. We must reject the Two China formula and other arrangements that will serve only to bring us more years of hostility and division, as we condemn ourselves to repeat the mistakes of the past. Too much is at stake, too much is to be gained from real Chinese representation in the U.N., for us to ignore Peking again.
The United States can ensure Peking's entry by voting in a number of ways. If we cannot bring ourselves to abandon the "Important Question" resolution or to support a moderate resolution that calls for Peking to take China's seat, we can at least abstain from voting on the questions and accept the will of the majority. Even a blind continuation of our past support for the Republic of China would be likely to assure Peking's entry in the near future, since the United States would simply go down with the ship. Even that seems better to me than advocating a "Dual Representation" policy – a policy that would prevent Peking's participation in the U.N. for the foreseeable future and that would add to the already heavy legacy of Chinese-American hostility we bear today.
The Two China policy so prominently urged in some quarters today is not without irony. Since 1950, the United States has rigidly pursued a One China policy – but always it was the Wrong China. Now, at last, when we are within reach of our goal of embracing a One China policy that has the Right China, we cannot allow ourselves to be lured astray by the illusory appeal of a Two China policy.
This is why I have introduced Senate Resolution 139. In spite of the doubts that cloud so many other aspects of our China policy, the opportunity is at hand to take a clear step forward on the issue of U.N. representation. We know the other issues of our China policy will require difficult negotiation and accommodation, a process that may go on for years. Peking's entry into the U.N. is the step we can take today to ensure that this process will begin. It is time to take that step.