亨利﹒基辛格寫道，作為當今時代基礎的秩序概念處於危機之中。
亨利﹒基辛格
利
比亞正處在內戰之中，原教旨主義軍隊正在建立一個跨敘利亞和伊拉克的自封的伊斯蘭教王國，而阿富汗年輕的民主政權正瀕臨癱瘓。除這些麻煩外，美國還面臨與俄羅斯關系重現緊張的問題，同時還要處理與中國的關系，而中國既承諾與美國合作，又在公開指責美國。作為當今時代基礎的秩序概念處於危機之中。長期以來，對國際秩序的探索幾乎完全是由西方社會的概念來定義的。二戰後的幾十年來，經濟實力和民族自信心都增強的美國開始承擔起國際領導者的責任，並為國際秩序增添了一個新的維度。作為一個在自由和代議民主制的明確理念上建立起來的國家，美國將自身的崛起與自由民主的傳播等同起來，並認定這些因素能夠帶來公正和永久和平。歐洲實現秩序的傳統做法是認定民眾和國家有與生俱來的競爭性，為遏制彼此之間相互沖突的目標所帶來的影響，歐洲依靠力量均衡以及開明政治家協同努力。美國盛行的觀點認為，民眾具有內在理性，而且總是傾向於作出和平妥協，並尊重常識。因此，傳播民主就成為國際秩序的首要目標。自由市場會提升個體地位、使社會富足並用相互的經濟依存來取代傳統的國際競爭。
為建立國際秩序所做的這一努力已經在很多方面開花結果。世界多數地方都建立了大量的獨立主權國家。民主以及參與式治理的光芒雖然還沒有照耀到世界各個角落，但也已成為一個共同願望。
從1948年到世紀之交在人類的歷史長河中只是一個小小片段，人們在這一時期初步建立了以美國理想主義、傳統的歐洲國家理念和權力平衡為主的全球秩序。但世界上還有很多地區從未認同西方的秩序概念，只是勉強默認而已。這些持保留意見者如今不再選擇沉默，烏克蘭危機以及南中國海(South China Sea, 中國稱南海)問題便是証明。由西方建立並稱頌的秩序目前正處於一個十字路口。
首先，國家這個概念（即參與國際生活的基本正式單位）本身已經面臨著多種壓力。歐洲已經開始超越國家界限、並主要以軟實力規則為依據制訂對外政策。然而值得懷疑的是，對從戰略概念衍生出來的合法性的認可能否維持國際秩序？歐洲尚未對自身賦予國家屬性，所以導致歐洲內部出現權力真空，而在其邊界也出現了權力失衡。與此同時，中東部分地區也在相互鬥爭中陷入了宗派林立的局面，其背後的宗教武裝和勢力肆意突破邊界，侵犯主權，產生了一些自己的領土無法做主的失敗國家。
亞洲面臨的挑戰與歐洲恰恰相反：亞洲的力量均勢並非建立一致認可的合法性理念之上，這會將一些分歧推到對抗的邊緣。
國際經濟與表面上管理它的政治機構之間的沖突還會削弱維護國際秩序所必需的共同使命感。經濟體系已經變得全球化，而世界的政治結構仍以國家為基礎。經濟全球化本質上忽視國界。外交政策雖然力爭使各國就其在國際秩序上相互沖突的訴求或理想達成和解，但肯定了國界的存在。
這一發展催生了數十年的持續經濟增長，期間爆發強度似乎不斷升級的周期性金融危機：上世紀80年代在拉美，1997年在亞洲，1998年在俄羅斯，2001年和2007年在美國，2010年後在歐洲。贏家對這一體系沒有什麼反對意見。但輸家（比如歐盟南部成員國等陷入結構性設計失誤的國家）尋求通過一些否定或至少阻礙全球經濟體系運轉的方案來解決自己的問題。
國際秩序因此面臨一種自相矛盾的局面：它的繁榮取決於全球化的成功，但全球化過程引發的政治反應常常有悖於其初衷。
當前國際秩序再一次崩潰將意味著，大國間就最重要的問題進行協商並展開合作的有效機制並不復存在。眼下全球舉行多邊論壇的次數超過了歷史上任何一個時期，在這樣一種背景下，上述批評聽起來似乎有點不合時宜。然而，這類會議的性質和召開頻率妨礙了長期策略的細化。在這類會議中，最好的情況是，與會者圍繞懸而未決的技術問題開展討論，最壞情況是，會議變成一種類似“社交媒體”活動的新峰會形式。當代的國際規則和規范架構若要保証其影響力，那就不能僅僅通過聯合聲明來確認，而必須作為一種共同信守的東西來培育。
內部結構和治理方式的各異形成了不同的勢力范圍，國際秩序崩潰帶來的懲罰與其說是引發國家間的大戰（盡管在某些地區仍存在這一可能），不如說是這些勢力范圍的演化。在邊界區域，面對其他一些被認為不具備正當性的實體，每個勢力范圍掌控者都有可能忍不住去測試自己的實力。相比國家間的鬥爭，地區間的對抗可能更容易讓國家衰弱。
當前對國際秩序的追求需要我們有一個具有連貫性的策略，在不同地區內部建立一套秩序概念，並把這些區域性秩序關聯起來。這些目標不一定是自我調和的：一場激進運動的勝利可能會給一個地區帶來秩序，同時也可能為未來的動盪埋下伏筆。一國憑借武力在某個地區建立統治地位，即便從表面上看帶來了秩序，也可能讓全球其他地區爆發一場危機。
建立這樣一個世界秩序既可以作為我們的希望，也應當是我們的靈感來源：每個國家都能肯定個人的尊嚴和參與式治理，並根據已達成的規則展開國際合作。然而實現這一目標需要經歷一系列中間階段。
若要在21世紀的世界秩序演變中扮演一個負責任的角色，美國必須準備好回答如下一系列問題：我們尋求（若有必要則獨自）避免什麼事情的發生（無論它怎樣發生）？我們尋求實現什麼（即使得不到任何多邊支持）？在得到一方盟友支持的前提下，我們將尋求實現或避免什麼？我們不應當參與什麼（即使被一個多邊組織或一個盟友呼吁參與）？我們尋求發展的價值觀的本質是什麼？以及這些價值觀的實踐在多大程度上取決於具體形勢？
對美國而言，回答這些問題將需要在兩個看似矛盾的層面上進行思考。在頌揚普世價值的同時，也需要重視其他地區的歷史、文化以及安全理念的現實情況。盡管數十年的艱難歷史給我們帶來了教訓，但美國必須始終銘記自己的獨特本質。歷史不會眷顧那些為尋找捷徑而放棄了自我身份的國家。但如果沒有全面的地緣政治策略，歷史也不會確保最崇高的信念必將成功。
（基辛格博士曾在尼克森(Richard Nixon)和福特(Gerald Ford)政府期間擔任國家安全顧問。本文改編自他即將於9月9日發布的新書《World Order》，由企鵝出版社(Penguin Press)出版。）
2014年 09月 01日 16:09
基辛格談國際新秩序的建立
林博文專欄－季辛吉90歲 還在搞外交
2013-05-01 01:23
中國時報
【本報訊】
 季辛吉（美聯社） |
二十世紀七○年代前半段的國際外交，被兩個美國人所操控，這兩個人就是尼克森和季辛吉。尼克森於今年一月九日度過百歲冥誕（一九九四年辭世，享壽八十 一），他的兩個女兒和一些老部屬曾在華府五月花飯店舉行紀念會，老季亦與會。季辛吉則將於五月二十七日歡度九十大壽，近代美國有三個長壽的外交與國防專 才，他們是活了一○一歲的圍堵政策創發人喬治.肯楠、享年九十四歲的前駐蘇聯大使哈里曼、終年九十三歲的越戰時代國防部長麥納瑪拉。中共老外交家黃華亦活 了九十七歲。外交戰場壓力大，不亞於真槍實彈的沙場，辦外交而又能克享高壽，則是兼具家族長壽基因和堅強抗壓本質的明證。
季辛吉是個愛熱鬧、熱中名利的老政客，早在四月中旬即開始慶祝他的九十歲生日。耶魯大學邀他談論外交問題並祝賀他的巨著《外交》出版二十 周年；老季的崇拜者羅伯特.卡普蘭則在五月號的《大西洋》雜誌（以前是月刊，現已改成雙月刊）上撰文對老季歌功頌德一番。卡普蘭是有點名氣的右翼外交兼戰 略記者，前年曾被《外交政策》雜誌選為全球一百名戰略思想家之一。卡氏在《大西洋》的題目是：〈政治家：為季辛吉辯護〉，右翼記者為右翼老外交家隱惡揚 善，當然無足為奇。
當年和季辛吉一道在國際外交舞台上呼風喚雨的人，幾乎都已不在人世，唯獨剩下老季一個人獨享尊榮。事實上，老季健康不佳，從兩眼到雙腳都有毛病，亦動過心臟搭橋手術。今年年初曾在康乃狄克州寓所跌跤，送到紐約哥大附設醫院掛急診，所幸無大礙，很快就出院。出院後又很快地應一家跨國大企業之請坐專機飛往北京「關說」，北京領導人照例接機。
這已是老季自一九七一年夏天裝肚子痛，祕密從巴基斯坦首次飛赴北京以來，將近六十次的「朝貢」之行。老季離開政壇後即在曼哈頓開設「季辛 吉顧問公司」，專門為跨國企業安排商機和排難解紛，要老季打幾通電話，收數萬美元；請他出國一趟，除了提供專機，要另付十幾萬美元酬金，中國是他的最大主 顧。
老季是個有名的貪婪之徒，對權力和名利的爭奪從不後人，亦從不手軟。因此，不少評論家痛批他的外交思想和政策，只有強權的權力分配而無人 權或法治的道德底線；而他下台後利用其聲望所從事的國際關說活動，更展露其長袖善舞和貪得無厭的特質。老季說過一句至今仍常被引用的名言：「權力是種終極春藥」；他對《國家地理》雜誌的記者說，世人不要只記得他這句話，而忘了他做過和說過很多別的事。
沒有疑問的，季辛吉是美國近代外交史上的一棵長青樹，也是唯一一個能夠活學活用其豐碩的學養、絕頂聰明的頭腦、一流的外交技巧和個人魅力 的務實外交家。他在四月十二日對一群耶魯學生演講時表示，從事外交工作，沒有所謂現實主義或理想主義之分，他強調辦外交不能存有這種抽象觀念。發明圍堵政 策的肯楠，前半生只做過駐蘇聯和南斯拉夫大使，以及國務院政策規畫局局長，晚年則在普林斯頓潛心著述。他的圍堵觀念，左右美國二戰後外交政策達數十年之久，那天在耶魯訪談老季的就是當今美國學界數一數二的耶魯冷戰史專家、《肯楠傳》（去年獲普立茲傳記獎）作者約翰.陸易士.蓋迪斯。
前年撰寫蘋果電腦創辦人賈伯斯傳的前《時代》周刊總編輯華特.艾薩克生，二十一年前曾寫了一本不錯的《季辛吉傳》，對「名滿天下，謗亦隨 之」的老季褒貶有加，老季很不高興，後來授權牛津出身的右翼史家奈爾.佛格森為他立傳。季辛吉的外交政策最具永恆成就的首推打開北京的竹幕，但這也是尼克 森的創意，老季只是漂亮地執行談判。到後來尼克森為水門事件所困時，竟也開始嫉妒老季的成就。
季辛吉對越戰和智利政變的處理，過大於功，因促成越戰暫時停火而獲諾貝爾和平獎，乃荒天下之大唐。利用中情局以暴力推翻智利左翼總統阿葉德，而使智利陷入長期右翼獨裁恐怖統治，更是老季和老尼的大汙點。
季辛吉十五歲時隨同父母離開德國、移民美國，從哈佛博士到哈佛教授，從白宮國安助理再到國務卿，而成為全球最知名的元老外交家。季辛吉真正是一個把自己的長處發揮到極點的人間稀品！
季辛吉是個愛熱鬧、熱中名利的老政客，早在四月中旬即開始慶祝他的九十歲生日。耶魯大學邀他談論外交問題並祝賀他的巨著《外交》出版二十 周年；老季的崇拜者羅伯特.卡普蘭則在五月號的《大西洋》雜誌（以前是月刊，現已改成雙月刊）上撰文對老季歌功頌德一番。卡普蘭是有點名氣的右翼外交兼戰 略記者，前年曾被《外交政策》雜誌選為全球一百名戰略思想家之一。卡氏在《大西洋》的題目是：〈政治家：為季辛吉辯護〉，右翼記者為右翼老外交家隱惡揚 善，當然無足為奇。
當年和季辛吉一道在國際外交舞台上呼風喚雨的人，幾乎都已不在人世，唯獨剩下老季一個人獨享尊榮。事實上，老季健康不佳，從兩眼到雙腳都有毛病，亦動過心臟搭橋手術。今年年初曾在康乃狄克州寓所跌跤，送到紐約哥大附設醫院掛急診，所幸無大礙，很快就出院。出院後又很快地應一家跨國大企業之請坐專機飛往北京「關說」，北京領導人照例接機。
這已是老季自一九七一年夏天裝肚子痛，祕密從巴基斯坦首次飛赴北京以來，將近六十次的「朝貢」之行。老季離開政壇後即在曼哈頓開設「季辛 吉顧問公司」，專門為跨國企業安排商機和排難解紛，要老季打幾通電話，收數萬美元；請他出國一趟，除了提供專機，要另付十幾萬美元酬金，中國是他的最大主 顧。
老季是個有名的貪婪之徒，對權力和名利的爭奪從不後人，亦從不手軟。因此，不少評論家痛批他的外交思想和政策，只有強權的權力分配而無人 權或法治的道德底線；而他下台後利用其聲望所從事的國際關說活動，更展露其長袖善舞和貪得無厭的特質。老季說過一句至今仍常被引用的名言：「權力是種終極春藥」；他對《國家地理》雜誌的記者說，世人不要只記得他這句話，而忘了他做過和說過很多別的事。
沒有疑問的，季辛吉是美國近代外交史上的一棵長青樹，也是唯一一個能夠活學活用其豐碩的學養、絕頂聰明的頭腦、一流的外交技巧和個人魅力 的務實外交家。他在四月十二日對一群耶魯學生演講時表示，從事外交工作，沒有所謂現實主義或理想主義之分，他強調辦外交不能存有這種抽象觀念。發明圍堵政 策的肯楠，前半生只做過駐蘇聯和南斯拉夫大使，以及國務院政策規畫局局長，晚年則在普林斯頓潛心著述。他的圍堵觀念，左右美國二戰後外交政策達數十年之久，那天在耶魯訪談老季的就是當今美國學界數一數二的耶魯冷戰史專家、《肯楠傳》（去年獲普立茲傳記獎）作者約翰.陸易士.蓋迪斯。
前年撰寫蘋果電腦創辦人賈伯斯傳的前《時代》周刊總編輯華特.艾薩克生，二十一年前曾寫了一本不錯的《季辛吉傳》，對「名滿天下，謗亦隨 之」的老季褒貶有加，老季很不高興，後來授權牛津出身的右翼史家奈爾.佛格森為他立傳。季辛吉的外交政策最具永恆成就的首推打開北京的竹幕，但這也是尼克 森的創意，老季只是漂亮地執行談判。到後來尼克森為水門事件所困時，竟也開始嫉妒老季的成就。
季辛吉對越戰和智利政變的處理，過大於功，因促成越戰暫時停火而獲諾貝爾和平獎，乃荒天下之大唐。利用中情局以暴力推翻智利左翼總統阿葉德，而使智利陷入長期右翼獨裁恐怖統治，更是老季和老尼的大汙點。
季辛吉十五歲時隨同父母離開德國、移民美國，從哈佛博士到哈佛教授，從白宮國安助理再到國務卿，而成為全球最知名的元老外交家。季辛吉真正是一個把自己的長處發揮到極點的人間稀品！
Henry Kissinger
此君的顧問公司一直是中共偏愛對象
基辛格論中國
2012年12月05日
John Dominis/Time & Life Pictures — Getty Images
1971-1972年的尼克松-基辛格中國之行其實很順利：基辛格、尼克松、國家安全委員會的約翰·H·霍爾德里奇與周恩來總理，1972年。
亨利·基辛格(Henry Kissinger)不但是前往共產中國的第一位官方美國特使，而且40年來，先後50餘次往返其間，覆蓋雙邊各達7任元首。外交上，他享有特權；而在88歲高齡之際，他在《論中國》(On China)一書中，回顧反思自己精彩的歷程。
以華盛頓與北京現在相互理解的程度看，可謂不錯了，因為基辛格一直在儘力為雙方調停，察言觀色，從隱晦的笑話到發脾氣，無所不包。在每一個危急關 頭，他都力求提出一些“戰略觀念”，以此度過充滿衝突、雙方不滿與恐懼的歷史階段。無論是作為尼克松總統的國家安全顧問，還是尼克松與傑拉德·福特的國務 卿，抑或自1977年起，作為私人特別居間人，基辛格一直毫不動搖，致力於消除中國因美國干涉其內政而產生的那種在他看來尚屬正當的憤慨，以及美國因中國 對民族、宗教與政治異見者殘酷鎮壓而生的反感。
在他對中美關係磕磕絆絆的回顧中，令人意外的是，受到大事宣揚的1971-1972年的尼克松-基辛格中國之行，其實挺順利的。“考慮到時代的需 要，中國與美國找到途徑走到一起勢所必然。”他寫道，“這遲早會發生的，不管雙方兩國的領導人是誰。”兩國都已疲於戰爭（越戰、中蘇邊境衝突）與國內的矛 盾衝突（尼克松治下的反戰抗議，毛澤東治下的文化大革命）。兩國都決意對抗蘇聯的挑釁，因此得以很快成為同道。面對莫斯科的威脅，兩國領導人放下在越南與 台灣上的衝突，停止各自例行的譴責——不管是譴責國際帝國主義還是共產主義。雙方認定敵人的敵人就是朋友， 而十多年裡，這一條頗有成效。
可時代不同了。中國終於脫離了毛澤東將革命進行到底的瘋狂教條，擺脫了中央計劃經濟這一無用的靈丹妙藥；中國成為了一個工業強國。蘇聯及其帝國倒塌 了。而美國，雖覺得自己高高在上，但也開始帶着傳教士一般的熱情推銷民主，儘管美國對外國石油、商品與信貸的依賴已經到了危險的地步。權力平衡發生根本變 替，使中國與美國成為兩個相互依賴的經濟巨頭，但卻並未使兩國建立包羅萬象的戰略夥伴關係規劃。
正是為了展示有這種規劃的需要，基辛格檢視了中美關係的風風雨雨，甚至走進中國古代歷史以明確這個民族的性格（他發現這個例子很合適：中國人喜歡下 圍棋，一種耗時的包圍遊戲，而我們下國際象棋，尋求對中心的掌控與完勝）。基辛格參考了大量新近的學術研究成果以及自己北京之行的筆記，以此讚美毛澤東的 幾位繼任者的務實。他說，他們樂於待在已經恢復的歷史邊界內，願意等待時機與台灣和平統一，最為堅定地繼續他們的高經濟增長並消除中國依然普遍的貧困現 象。他對美國是否有能力繼續保持穩定的外交政策則不太有信心，指出“民主過渡這一漫無休止的心理表演”其實是在不斷邀請其他國家在我們身上“兩面下注”。
正如基辛格的研究者所熟知的，他長期以來認為，民主對國家治理而言是一個負擔 ——無論是美國國內民主的喧鬧，還是我們對其他國家民主化的鼓動，莫不如此。
他再次想起20世紀70年代在任時的痛苦，當時他認為，越戰期間美國的抗議活動可能會誤導毛澤東相信，一場“真正的世界革命”就在眼前。他認為，尼 克松在水門事件中的“毀滅”、國會不再支持越戰、對總統戰時權力的新約束與情報機密的“大量外流”，所有這一切累加起來有損於與中國的准聯盟，使美國在對 付蘇聯問題上顯得軟弱無力。他高興的是，吉米·卡特並未讓人權問題影響與中國的關係，而羅納德·里根開朗的性格克服了他在與北京打交道時“幾乎難以理喻的 矛盾”，即便是在他提倡台灣獨立這一設想的時候。
當然，對這種 准聯盟最為嚴厲的考驗是1989年天安門事件中對民運的殘酷鎮壓。那場暴力鎮壓也考驗了基辛格對於在外交關係中主張美國價值觀的容忍度。
回想起來，他認為一切取決於局勢：“有些對人權的侵犯行為實在令人震驚，”他寫道，“根本無法想像繼續保持關係會有何益處；譬如，柬埔寨的紅色高 棉，盧旺達的種族滅絕。因為公開施壓要麼演變為改朝換代，要麼就是退位，這種做法很難用於那些與之繼續保持關係對美國安全頗為重要的國家。在與中國的關係 上，尤其如此，對於西方社會對中國令人屈辱的干預，這個國家有着太多記憶 。”
因此，基辛格很是讚賞喬治·H·W·布殊總統的做法，他“熟練而又優雅”地行走在“鋼絲”上，一方面在天安門事件後通過制裁懲罰中國，同時又通過私 人信函向特使表達歉意。基辛格注意到，比爾·克林頓總統一度想施壓，但他明智地變得溫和時，卻並不受人感激；中國人“並不將撤銷單邊威脅視為讓步，而且他 們對任何有關干涉他們內政的口風，都極為敏感。”而喬治·W·布殊，儘管也有他的“自由議程”，卻獲得了基辛格的讚揚，因其通過“合理平衡戰略重點”，克 服了“美國傳教與務實兩種路徑之間的歷史矛盾” 。
如果美國將其對民主管治的偏好作為在其它中國問題上取得進展的主要條件，基辛格的結論是，“勢必陷入僵局”。那些為傳播美國價值觀念而戰鬥的人值得 尊敬。“但外交政策必須明確目標與手段的界限，而如果所採用的手段逾越了國際框架或對國家安全至關重要的關係的容忍度，就必須做出選擇。”這一選擇，他堅 持認為，“不容迴避”，儘管他自己也試圖打迴避的擦邊球 ：“美國辯論最好的結局是將兩種路徑結合起來：讓理想主義者認識到，執行原則需要時間，因此有時需要根據時勢做出調整；讓‘現實主義者’接受，價值觀念有 其自身的現實且必須融入到可行的政策中去。”
不過，在最後，基辛格還是為國家安全至上投了贊成票。這本著作中不時有對美國價值觀的稱讚，以及對人類尊嚴的承諾與義務，這可能有時真的會使我們的 政策超越對國家利益的考量。事實上，在《論中國》出版後，這樣的事真的發生了，奧巴馬總統冒險插手利比亞。基辛格或許感到驚訝的是，這一人道主義干預以及 在利比亞改朝換代的企圖，並未促使中國在聯合國行使否決權。然而，如今是在亞洲而不是歐洲，他認為，“主權至高無上，”而一切“來自外部”的改變中國國內 結構的企圖“勢必引發巨大的始料不及的後果” 。此外，正如他在華盛頓實施現實主義政治時所堅持的，和平事業也是一個道德追求。
基辛格的經驗與忠告這一中心主題必須從他在《論中國》中有時不着邊際、大多熟悉的故事講述中提煉出來。只是在書末他才討論了未來中美關係這一基本問題：沒有了共同的敵手來約束他們，世界上的兩個大國靠什麼來保持和平，促進雙方的合作與信任？
基辛格回答這一問題的方式是回顧歷史，那是英國外交部一位高級官員艾爾·克勞(Eyre Crowe)1907年寫的一份備忘錄。克勞認為，“（德國）盡己所能建立一支強大的海軍”，是符合德國的利益的，而這本身就會導致與英帝國的“客觀”衝 突，不管德國的外交官說或做了什麼。如今在美國，基辛格注意到，有一個“克勞思想流派”(Crowe school of thought)，該派視中國的崛起“與美國在太平洋的地位不相容”，因此最好採取先發制人的敵對政策。他感受到兩國社會的焦慮在增大，他也擔心那些聲稱 中國的民主是信任關係前提的美國人會加劇這種焦慮。他警告說，隱含的下一次冷戰會阻止兩國的進步，並使兩國“分解為本身自會成為事實的預言中”，而在現實 中，雙方主要的競爭更有可能是經濟而非軍事上的。
沉湎於自己對外交體系建構的習慣性偏好，基辛格堅持認為，兩個大國的共同利益應該有可能“共同進化”到“一個更為全面的框架”。他展望，英明的領導 人建立一個“太平洋共同體”(Pacific community)，類似於美國與歐洲建立的大西洋共同體。所有亞洲國家就可加入這一體系，這一體系當被視為聯合的事業而非中美兩大敵對集團的競爭。而 太平洋兩岸的領導人有責任去“建立磋商與相互尊重的傳統”，從而使共同的世界秩序“體現各國的抱負”。
這確是基辛格首次北京之行的使命所在。他雖然沒有這麼說，卻是將這個希望寄托在了那些與他分享相似觀點的國家身上。
以華盛頓與北京現在相互理解的程度看，可謂不錯了，因為基辛格一直在儘力為雙方調停，察言觀色，從隱晦的笑話到發脾氣，無所不包。在每一個危急關 頭，他都力求提出一些“戰略觀念”，以此度過充滿衝突、雙方不滿與恐懼的歷史階段。無論是作為尼克松總統的國家安全顧問，還是尼克松與傑拉德·福特的國務 卿，抑或自1977年起，作為私人特別居間人，基辛格一直毫不動搖，致力於消除中國因美國干涉其內政而產生的那種在他看來尚屬正當的憤慨，以及美國因中國 對民族、宗教與政治異見者殘酷鎮壓而生的反感。
可時代不同了。中國終於脫離了毛澤東將革命進行到底的瘋狂教條，擺脫了中央計劃經濟這一無用的靈丹妙藥；中國成為了一個工業強國。蘇聯及其帝國倒塌 了。而美國，雖覺得自己高高在上，但也開始帶着傳教士一般的熱情推銷民主，儘管美國對外國石油、商品與信貸的依賴已經到了危險的地步。權力平衡發生根本變 替，使中國與美國成為兩個相互依賴的經濟巨頭，但卻並未使兩國建立包羅萬象的戰略夥伴關係規劃。
正是為了展示有這種規劃的需要，基辛格檢視了中美關係的風風雨雨，甚至走進中國古代歷史以明確這個民族的性格（他發現這個例子很合適：中國人喜歡下 圍棋，一種耗時的包圍遊戲，而我們下國際象棋，尋求對中心的掌控與完勝）。基辛格參考了大量新近的學術研究成果以及自己北京之行的筆記，以此讚美毛澤東的 幾位繼任者的務實。他說，他們樂於待在已經恢復的歷史邊界內，願意等待時機與台灣和平統一，最為堅定地繼續他們的高經濟增長並消除中國依然普遍的貧困現 象。他對美國是否有能力繼續保持穩定的外交政策則不太有信心，指出“民主過渡這一漫無休止的心理表演”其實是在不斷邀請其他國家在我們身上“兩面下注”。
正如基辛格的研究者所熟知的，他長期以來認為，民主對國家治理而言是一個負擔 ——無論是美國國內民主的喧鬧，還是我們對其他國家民主化的鼓動，莫不如此。
他再次想起20世紀70年代在任時的痛苦，當時他認為，越戰期間美國的抗議活動可能會誤導毛澤東相信，一場“真正的世界革命”就在眼前。他認為，尼 克松在水門事件中的“毀滅”、國會不再支持越戰、對總統戰時權力的新約束與情報機密的“大量外流”，所有這一切累加起來有損於與中國的准聯盟，使美國在對 付蘇聯問題上顯得軟弱無力。他高興的是，吉米·卡特並未讓人權問題影響與中國的關係，而羅納德·里根開朗的性格克服了他在與北京打交道時“幾乎難以理喻的 矛盾”，即便是在他提倡台灣獨立這一設想的時候。
當然，對這種 准聯盟最為嚴厲的考驗是1989年天安門事件中對民運的殘酷鎮壓。那場暴力鎮壓也考驗了基辛格對於在外交關係中主張美國價值觀的容忍度。
回想起來，他認為一切取決於局勢：“有些對人權的侵犯行為實在令人震驚，”他寫道，“根本無法想像繼續保持關係會有何益處；譬如，柬埔寨的紅色高 棉，盧旺達的種族滅絕。因為公開施壓要麼演變為改朝換代，要麼就是退位，這種做法很難用於那些與之繼續保持關係對美國安全頗為重要的國家。在與中國的關係 上，尤其如此，對於西方社會對中國令人屈辱的干預，這個國家有着太多記憶 。”
因此，基辛格很是讚賞喬治·H·W·布殊總統的做法，他“熟練而又優雅”地行走在“鋼絲”上，一方面在天安門事件後通過制裁懲罰中國，同時又通過私 人信函向特使表達歉意。基辛格注意到，比爾·克林頓總統一度想施壓，但他明智地變得溫和時，卻並不受人感激；中國人“並不將撤銷單邊威脅視為讓步，而且他 們對任何有關干涉他們內政的口風，都極為敏感。”而喬治·W·布殊，儘管也有他的“自由議程”，卻獲得了基辛格的讚揚，因其通過“合理平衡戰略重點”，克 服了“美國傳教與務實兩種路徑之間的歷史矛盾” 。
如果美國將其對民主管治的偏好作為在其它中國問題上取得進展的主要條件，基辛格的結論是，“勢必陷入僵局”。那些為傳播美國價值觀念而戰鬥的人值得 尊敬。“但外交政策必須明確目標與手段的界限，而如果所採用的手段逾越了國際框架或對國家安全至關重要的關係的容忍度，就必須做出選擇。”這一選擇，他堅 持認為，“不容迴避”，儘管他自己也試圖打迴避的擦邊球 ：“美國辯論最好的結局是將兩種路徑結合起來：讓理想主義者認識到，執行原則需要時間，因此有時需要根據時勢做出調整；讓‘現實主義者’接受，價值觀念有 其自身的現實且必須融入到可行的政策中去。”
不過，在最後，基辛格還是為國家安全至上投了贊成票。這本著作中不時有對美國價值觀的稱讚，以及對人類尊嚴的承諾與義務，這可能有時真的會使我們的 政策超越對國家利益的考量。事實上，在《論中國》出版後，這樣的事真的發生了，奧巴馬總統冒險插手利比亞。基辛格或許感到驚訝的是，這一人道主義干預以及 在利比亞改朝換代的企圖，並未促使中國在聯合國行使否決權。然而，如今是在亞洲而不是歐洲，他認為，“主權至高無上，”而一切“來自外部”的改變中國國內 結構的企圖“勢必引發巨大的始料不及的後果” 。此外，正如他在華盛頓實施現實主義政治時所堅持的，和平事業也是一個道德追求。
基辛格的經驗與忠告這一中心主題必須從他在《論中國》中有時不着邊際、大多熟悉的故事講述中提煉出來。只是在書末他才討論了未來中美關係這一基本問題：沒有了共同的敵手來約束他們，世界上的兩個大國靠什麼來保持和平，促進雙方的合作與信任？
基辛格回答這一問題的方式是回顧歷史，那是英國外交部一位高級官員艾爾·克勞(Eyre Crowe)1907年寫的一份備忘錄。克勞認為，“（德國）盡己所能建立一支強大的海軍”，是符合德國的利益的，而這本身就會導致與英帝國的“客觀”衝 突，不管德國的外交官說或做了什麼。如今在美國，基辛格注意到，有一個“克勞思想流派”(Crowe school of thought)，該派視中國的崛起“與美國在太平洋的地位不相容”，因此最好採取先發制人的敵對政策。他感受到兩國社會的焦慮在增大，他也擔心那些聲稱 中國的民主是信任關係前提的美國人會加劇這種焦慮。他警告說，隱含的下一次冷戰會阻止兩國的進步，並使兩國“分解為本身自會成為事實的預言中”，而在現實 中，雙方主要的競爭更有可能是經濟而非軍事上的。
沉湎於自己對外交體系建構的習慣性偏好，基辛格堅持認為，兩個大國的共同利益應該有可能“共同進化”到“一個更為全面的框架”。他展望，英明的領導 人建立一個“太平洋共同體”(Pacific community)，類似於美國與歐洲建立的大西洋共同體。所有亞洲國家就可加入這一體系，這一體系當被視為聯合的事業而非中美兩大敵對集團的競爭。而 太平洋兩岸的領導人有責任去“建立磋商與相互尊重的傳統”，從而使共同的世界秩序“體現各國的抱負”。
這確是基辛格首次北京之行的使命所在。他雖然沒有這麼說，卻是將這個希望寄托在了那些與他分享相似觀點的國家身上。
Henry Kissinger was not only the first official American emissary to Communist China, he persisted in his brokerage with more than 50 trips over four decades, spanning the careers of seven leaders on each side. Diplomatically speaking, he owns the franchise; and with “On China,” as he approaches 88, he reflects on his remarkable run.
To the degree that Washington and Beijing now understand each other, it is in good measure because Kissinger has been assiduously translating for both sides, discerning meaning in everything from elliptical jokes to temper tantrums. At every juncture, he has been striving to find “strategic concepts” that could be made to prevail over a history of conflict, mutual grievance and fear. As President Nixon’s national security adviser, then secretary of state for Nixon and Gerald Ford, and since 1977 as a private interlocutor extraordinaire, Kissinger has been unwaveringly committed to surmounting what he considers the legitimate Chinese resentment of American interference in their internal affairs and Americans’ distaste for China’s brutal suppression of ethnic, religious and political dissent.
The surprise buried in his lumbering review of Sino-American relations is that the much ballyhooed Nixon-Kissinger journeys to China in 1971-72 turned out to have been the easy part. “That China and the United States would find a way to come together was inevitable given the necessities of the time,” he writes. “It would have happened sooner or later whatever the leadership in either country.” Both nations were exhausted from war (Vietnam, clashes on the Soviet border) and domestic strife (antiwar protests in Nixon’s case, the Cultural Revolution in Mao’s). Both were determined to resist Soviet advances and so could quickly agree to make common cause. The menace of Moscow took the leaders’ minds off confrontations in Vietnam and Taiwan and quelled their ritual denunciations, whether of international imperialism or Communism. They decided that the adversary of my adversary was my pal, and for more than a decade that was fruitfully that.
But that was a different time. China finally escaped from Mao Zedong’s mad doctrine of perpetual revolution and from the enfeebling nostrums of central planning; it became an industrial powerhouse. The Soviet Union and its empire collapsed. And the United States, feeling supreme, began promoting democracy with missionary zeal even as it grew dangerously addicted to foreign oil, goods and credit. The radical shift in the balance of power turned China and the United States into mutually dependent economic giants, but it left them without an overarching strategic design of partnership.
It is to demonstrate the need for such a design that Kissinger reviews the ups and downs of Sino-American relations, reaching even into ancient Chinese history to define national characteristics. (He finds it apt that the Chinese like to play “wei qi,” or “go,” a protracted game of encirclement while we play chess, looking for control of the center and total victory.) Kissinger draws heavily on much recent scholarship and on notes of his trips to Beijing to celebrate the pragmatism of Mao’s successors. He says they are content to remain within their restored historic frontiers, willing to await a peaceful reunion with Taiwan, and most determined to continue their remarkable economic growth and to eradicate China’s still widespread poverty. He is less confident about America’s capacity to sustain a steady foreign policy, noting that “the perpetual psychodrama of democratic transitions” is a constant invitation to other nations to “hedge their bets” on us.
As students of Kissinger well know, he has long considered democracy to be a burden on statecraft — both the clamor of democracy within the United States and our agitations for democracy in other lands.
He recalls yet again his agonies in office in the 1970s, when he thought that American demonstrations during the Vietnam War could have misled Mao into believing that a “genuine world revolution” was at hand. He argues that the “destruction” of Nixon in the Watergate crisis, the withdrawal of Congressional support for Vietnam, new curbs on presidential war powers and the “hemorrhaging” of intelligence secrets all combined to undermine the quasi alliance with China, making America appear ineffectual against the Soviets. He is glad that Jimmy Carter did not let his human rights concerns upset relations with China and that Ronald Reagan’s cheerful personality overcame the “almost incomprehensible contradictions” of his dealings with Beijing even as he promoted the idea of an independent Taiwan.
The severest test of the quasi alliance, of course, was the brutal suppression of democratic strivings in Tiananmen Square in 1989. That violent crackdown also tested Kissinger’s tolerance for the assertion of American values in foreign relations.
Looking back, he believes everything depends on circumstances: “There are instances of violations of human rights so egregious,” he writes, “that it is impossible to conceive of benefit in a continuing relationship; for example, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and the genocide in Rwanda. Since public pressure shades either into regime change or a kind of abdication, it is difficult to apply to countries with which a continuous relationship is important for American security. This is especially the case with China, so imbued with the memory of humiliating intervention by Western societies.”
And so Kissinger admires the way President George H. W. Bush, “with skill and elegance,” walked the “tightrope” of punishing China with sanctions after Tiananmen while simultaneously apologizing with private letters and special emissaries. President Bill Clinton tried applying pressure for a time, Kissinger notes, but was shown no gratitude when he wisely relented; the Chinese “did not view the removal of a unilateral threat as a concession, and they were extraordinarily touchy regarding any hint of intervention in their domestic affairs.” And President George W. Bush, despite his “freedom agenda,” earns Kissinger’s praise for overcoming “the historic ambivalence between America’s missionary and pragmatic approaches,” by means of “a sensible balance of strategic priorities.”
If America’s preference for democratic governance is made the main condition for progress on other issues with China, Kissinger concludes, “deadlock is inevitable.” Those who battle to spread American values deserve respect. “But foreign policy must define means as well as objectives, and if the means employed grow beyond the tolerance of the international framework or of a relationship considered essential for national security, a choice must be made.” That choice “cannot be fudged,” he insists, even as he attempts to protect his flanks with a fudge of his own: “The best outcome in the American debate would be to combine the two approaches: for the idealists to recognize that principles need to be implemented over time and hence must be occasionally adjusted to circumstance; and for the ‘realists’ to accept that values have their own reality and must be built into operational policies.”
Still, in the end, Kissinger votes for national security über alles. Scattered through his history are tributes to American values and commitments to human dignity, which may indeed sometimes drive our policies beyond calculations of the national interest. Exactly that happened, in fact, after “On China” went to press, when President Obama ventured into Libya. Kissinger was perhaps surprised when that humanitarian intervention and bid for regime change failed to evoke a Chinese veto at the United Nations. But in Asia now more than Europe, he argues, “sovereignty is considered paramount,” and any attempt “from the outside” to alter China’s domestic structure “is likely to involve vast unintended consequences.” Besides, as he used to insist while practicing realpolitik in Washington, the cause of peace is also a moral pursuit.
This central theme of Kissinger’s experience and counsel must be distilled from the sometimes meandering and largely familiar history he tells in “On China.” Only in its last pages does he discuss the essential question of future Sino-American relations: With no common enemy to bind them, what will keep the peace and promote collaboration and trust between the world’s major powers?
Kissinger addresses this question by looking to the past, a memorandum written by a senior official of the British Foreign Office, Eyre Crowe, in 1907. Crowe argued that it was in Germany’s interest to “build as powerful a navy as she can afford” and that this would itself lead to “objective” conflict with the British Empire, no matter what German diplomats said or did. There is today a “Crowe school of thought” in the United States, Kissinger observes, which sees China’s rise “as incompatible with America’s position in the Pacific” and therefore best met with pre-emptively hostile policies. He perceives growing anxieties in both societies and fears they are exacerbated by Americans who claim that democracy in China is a prerequisite for a trusting relationship. He warns that the implied next cold war would arrest progress in both nations and cause them to “analyze themselves into self-fulfilling prophecies” when in reality their main competition is more likely to be economic than military.
Indulging his habitual preference for diplomatic architecture, Kissinger insists that the common interests the two powers share should make possible a “co-evolution” to “a more comprehensive framework.” He envisions wise leaders creating a “Pacific community” comparable to the Atlantic community that America has achieved with Europe. All Asian nations would then participate in a system perceived as a joint endeavor rather than a contest of rival Chinese and American blocs. And leaders on both Pacific coasts would be obliged to “establish a tradition of consultation and mutual respect,” making a shared world order “an expression of parallel national aspirations.”
That was indeed the mission of the very first Kissinger journey to Beijing. And while he does not quite say so, he invests his hopes in a concert of nations represented, of course, by multiple Kissingers.
----To the degree that Washington and Beijing now understand each other, it is in good measure because Kissinger has been assiduously translating for both sides, discerning meaning in everything from elliptical jokes to temper tantrums. At every juncture, he has been striving to find “strategic concepts” that could be made to prevail over a history of conflict, mutual grievance and fear. As President Nixon’s national security adviser, then secretary of state for Nixon and Gerald Ford, and since 1977 as a private interlocutor extraordinaire, Kissinger has been unwaveringly committed to surmounting what he considers the legitimate Chinese resentment of American interference in their internal affairs and Americans’ distaste for China’s brutal suppression of ethnic, religious and political dissent.
The surprise buried in his lumbering review of Sino-American relations is that the much ballyhooed Nixon-Kissinger journeys to China in 1971-72 turned out to have been the easy part. “That China and the United States would find a way to come together was inevitable given the necessities of the time,” he writes. “It would have happened sooner or later whatever the leadership in either country.” Both nations were exhausted from war (Vietnam, clashes on the Soviet border) and domestic strife (antiwar protests in Nixon’s case, the Cultural Revolution in Mao’s). Both were determined to resist Soviet advances and so could quickly agree to make common cause. The menace of Moscow took the leaders’ minds off confrontations in Vietnam and Taiwan and quelled their ritual denunciations, whether of international imperialism or Communism. They decided that the adversary of my adversary was my pal, and for more than a decade that was fruitfully that.
But that was a different time. China finally escaped from Mao Zedong’s mad doctrine of perpetual revolution and from the enfeebling nostrums of central planning; it became an industrial powerhouse. The Soviet Union and its empire collapsed. And the United States, feeling supreme, began promoting democracy with missionary zeal even as it grew dangerously addicted to foreign oil, goods and credit. The radical shift in the balance of power turned China and the United States into mutually dependent economic giants, but it left them without an overarching strategic design of partnership.
It is to demonstrate the need for such a design that Kissinger reviews the ups and downs of Sino-American relations, reaching even into ancient Chinese history to define national characteristics. (He finds it apt that the Chinese like to play “wei qi,” or “go,” a protracted game of encirclement while we play chess, looking for control of the center and total victory.) Kissinger draws heavily on much recent scholarship and on notes of his trips to Beijing to celebrate the pragmatism of Mao’s successors. He says they are content to remain within their restored historic frontiers, willing to await a peaceful reunion with Taiwan, and most determined to continue their remarkable economic growth and to eradicate China’s still widespread poverty. He is less confident about America’s capacity to sustain a steady foreign policy, noting that “the perpetual psychodrama of democratic transitions” is a constant invitation to other nations to “hedge their bets” on us.
As students of Kissinger well know, he has long considered democracy to be a burden on statecraft — both the clamor of democracy within the United States and our agitations for democracy in other lands.
He recalls yet again his agonies in office in the 1970s, when he thought that American demonstrations during the Vietnam War could have misled Mao into believing that a “genuine world revolution” was at hand. He argues that the “destruction” of Nixon in the Watergate crisis, the withdrawal of Congressional support for Vietnam, new curbs on presidential war powers and the “hemorrhaging” of intelligence secrets all combined to undermine the quasi alliance with China, making America appear ineffectual against the Soviets. He is glad that Jimmy Carter did not let his human rights concerns upset relations with China and that Ronald Reagan’s cheerful personality overcame the “almost incomprehensible contradictions” of his dealings with Beijing even as he promoted the idea of an independent Taiwan.
The severest test of the quasi alliance, of course, was the brutal suppression of democratic strivings in Tiananmen Square in 1989. That violent crackdown also tested Kissinger’s tolerance for the assertion of American values in foreign relations.
Looking back, he believes everything depends on circumstances: “There are instances of violations of human rights so egregious,” he writes, “that it is impossible to conceive of benefit in a continuing relationship; for example, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and the genocide in Rwanda. Since public pressure shades either into regime change or a kind of abdication, it is difficult to apply to countries with which a continuous relationship is important for American security. This is especially the case with China, so imbued with the memory of humiliating intervention by Western societies.”
And so Kissinger admires the way President George H. W. Bush, “with skill and elegance,” walked the “tightrope” of punishing China with sanctions after Tiananmen while simultaneously apologizing with private letters and special emissaries. President Bill Clinton tried applying pressure for a time, Kissinger notes, but was shown no gratitude when he wisely relented; the Chinese “did not view the removal of a unilateral threat as a concession, and they were extraordinarily touchy regarding any hint of intervention in their domestic affairs.” And President George W. Bush, despite his “freedom agenda,” earns Kissinger’s praise for overcoming “the historic ambivalence between America’s missionary and pragmatic approaches,” by means of “a sensible balance of strategic priorities.”
If America’s preference for democratic governance is made the main condition for progress on other issues with China, Kissinger concludes, “deadlock is inevitable.” Those who battle to spread American values deserve respect. “But foreign policy must define means as well as objectives, and if the means employed grow beyond the tolerance of the international framework or of a relationship considered essential for national security, a choice must be made.” That choice “cannot be fudged,” he insists, even as he attempts to protect his flanks with a fudge of his own: “The best outcome in the American debate would be to combine the two approaches: for the idealists to recognize that principles need to be implemented over time and hence must be occasionally adjusted to circumstance; and for the ‘realists’ to accept that values have their own reality and must be built into operational policies.”
Still, in the end, Kissinger votes for national security über alles. Scattered through his history are tributes to American values and commitments to human dignity, which may indeed sometimes drive our policies beyond calculations of the national interest. Exactly that happened, in fact, after “On China” went to press, when President Obama ventured into Libya. Kissinger was perhaps surprised when that humanitarian intervention and bid for regime change failed to evoke a Chinese veto at the United Nations. But in Asia now more than Europe, he argues, “sovereignty is considered paramount,” and any attempt “from the outside” to alter China’s domestic structure “is likely to involve vast unintended consequences.” Besides, as he used to insist while practicing realpolitik in Washington, the cause of peace is also a moral pursuit.
This central theme of Kissinger’s experience and counsel must be distilled from the sometimes meandering and largely familiar history he tells in “On China.” Only in its last pages does he discuss the essential question of future Sino-American relations: With no common enemy to bind them, what will keep the peace and promote collaboration and trust between the world’s major powers?
Kissinger addresses this question by looking to the past, a memorandum written by a senior official of the British Foreign Office, Eyre Crowe, in 1907. Crowe argued that it was in Germany’s interest to “build as powerful a navy as she can afford” and that this would itself lead to “objective” conflict with the British Empire, no matter what German diplomats said or did. There is today a “Crowe school of thought” in the United States, Kissinger observes, which sees China’s rise “as incompatible with America’s position in the Pacific” and therefore best met with pre-emptively hostile policies. He perceives growing anxieties in both societies and fears they are exacerbated by Americans who claim that democracy in China is a prerequisite for a trusting relationship. He warns that the implied next cold war would arrest progress in both nations and cause them to “analyze themselves into self-fulfilling prophecies” when in reality their main competition is more likely to be economic than military.
Indulging his habitual preference for diplomatic architecture, Kissinger insists that the common interests the two powers share should make possible a “co-evolution” to “a more comprehensive framework.” He envisions wise leaders creating a “Pacific community” comparable to the Atlantic community that America has achieved with Europe. All Asian nations would then participate in a system perceived as a joint endeavor rather than a contest of rival Chinese and American blocs. And leaders on both Pacific coasts would be obliged to “establish a tradition of consultation and mutual respect,” making a shared world order “an expression of parallel national aspirations.”
That was indeed the mission of the very first Kissinger journey to Beijing. And while he does not quite say so, he invests his hopes in a concert of nations represented, of course, by multiple Kissingers.
2004/10
周日回台北了，傍晚去「舊香居 龍泉店」書店
Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger/Song of Solomon by Toni Morrison/The Gardens of William Morris
之所以要買大外交（Diplomacy by Henry Kissinger），因為中文本沒索引，無法查核翻譯或刪編（據云）。
讀BBC：「據俄通社報道，
兩三則感想。一是：曾考慮過oil giants是否要像大陸翻譯成「石油巨子」。二：
昨天讀高莽先生的《枯立木》（北京：東方出版社，2003），
大外交Diplomacy
- 作者：季辛吉/著
- 原文作者：Henry Kissinger
- 譯者：林添貴，顧淑馨譯
- 出版社：智庫
- 出版日期：1998年
大外交 這是季辛吉最受爭議、可能也是一生最重要的一部著作，他以自己的闡述方式，縱觀外交歷史以及他曾協商過的國際領袖，揭露外交藝術之道，告訴讀 者，均勢是如何造就我們的世界。季辛吉直言不諱，認定美國人由於國大勢強，國土獨霸一方，在理想主義和誤解世局的情況下，執行特異的外交政策，要世界按照 美國人的意思運轉。季辛吉宏觀三百年來的外交史實，從利希留主教締造的第一個國際體系開始，一直談到我們目前所處的新世局，詳細闡述了現代外交局面是如何 從戰爭與和平的力量均衡中，經過嘗試與經驗而造就，他也解釋了美國何以幾經大禍，卻作者簡介季辛吉出生於德國，1938年移居美國，1943歸化為美國 籍，隨後進入美國陸軍服役，46年退役。1950年以最優等成績畢業於哈佛大學，54至69年間，一直擔任該校教授，52至69年間，同時出任哈佛國際事 務研究會的董事。1973年9月22日就任美國第56任國務卿，1977年卸任；1973年獲得諾貝爾和平獎，1977年獲得象徵美國國民最高榮譽的總統 自由勳章，1986年獲得自由勳章。
Henry Kissinger on China
John Dominis/Time & Life Pictures — Getty Images
The easy part: Kissinger, Nixon, Secretary of State William P. Rogers and Prime Minister Zhou Enlai in 1972.
By MAX FRANKEL
Published: May 13, 2011
Henry Kissinger was not only the first official American emissary to Communist China, he persisted in his brokerage with more than 50 trips over four decades, spanning the careers of seven leaders on each side. Diplomatically speaking, he owns the franchise; and with “On China,” as he approaches 88, he reflects on his remarkable run.
ON CHINA
By Henry Kissinger
Illustrated. 586 pp. The Penguin Press. $36.
Related
Times Topic: Henry A. Kissinger
Books of The Times: ‘On China’ by Henry Kissinger (May 10, 2011)
The surprise buried in his lumbering review of Sino-American relations is that the much ballyhooed Nixon-Kissinger journeys to China in 1971-72 turned out to have been the easy part. “That China and the United States would find a way to come together was inevitable given the necessities of the time,” he writes. “It would have happened sooner or later whatever the leadership in either country.” Both nations were exhausted from war (Vietnam, clashes on the Soviet border) and domestic strife (antiwar protests in Nixon’s case, the Cultural Revolution in Mao’s). Both were determined to resist Soviet advances and so could quickly agree to make common cause. The menace of Moscow took the leaders’ minds off confrontations in Vietnam and Taiwan and quelled their ritual denunciations, whether of international imperialism or Communism. They decided that the adversary of my adversary was my pal, and for more than a decade that was fruitfully that.
But that was a different time. China finally escaped from Mao Zedong’s mad doctrine of perpetual revolution and from the enfeebling nostrums of central planning; it became an industrial powerhouse. The Soviet Union and its empire collapsed. And the United States, feeling supreme, began promoting democracy with missionary zeal even as it grew dangerously addicted to foreign oil, goods and credit. The radical shift in the balance of power turned China and the United States into mutually dependent economic giants, but it left them without an overarching strategic design of partnership.
It is to demonstrate the need for such a design that Kissinger reviews the ups and downs of Sino-American relations, reaching even into ancient Chinese history to define national characteristics. (He finds it apt that the Chinese like to play “wei qi,” or “go,” a protracted game of encirclement while we play chess, looking for control of the center and total victory.) Kissinger draws heavily on much recent scholarship and on notes of his trips to Beijing to celebrate the pragmatism of Mao’s successors. He says they are content to remain within their restored historic frontiers, willing to await a peaceful reunion with Taiwan, and most determined to continue their remarkable economic growth and to eradicate China’s still widespread poverty. He is less confident about America’s capacity to sustain a steady foreign policy, noting that “the perpetual psychodrama of democratic transitions” is a constant invitation to other nations to “hedge their bets” on us.
As students of Kissinger well know, he has long considered democracy to be a burden on statecraft — both the clamor of democracy within the United States and our agitations for democracy in other lands.
He recalls yet again his agonies in office in the 1970s, when he thought that American demonstrations during the Vietnam War could have misled Mao into believing that a “genuine world revolution” was at hand. He argues that the “destruction” of Nixon in the Watergate crisis, the withdrawal of Congressional support for Vietnam, new curbs on presidential war powers and the “hemorrhaging” of intelligence secrets all combined to undermine the quasi alliance with China, making America appear ineffectual against the Soviets. He is glad that Jimmy Carter did not let his human rights concerns upset relations with China and that Ronald Reagan’s cheerful personality overcame the “almost incomprehensible contradictions” of his dealings with Beijing even as he promoted the idea of an independent Taiwan.
The severest test of the quasi alliance, of course, was the brutal suppression of democratic strivings in Tiananmen Square in 1989. That violent crackdown also tested Kissinger’s tolerance for the assertion of American values in foreign relations.
Looking back, he believes everything depends on circumstances: “There are instances of violations of human rights so egregious,” he writes, “that it is impossible to conceive of benefit in a continuing relationship; for example, the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia, and the genocide in Rwanda. Since public pressure shades either into regime change or a kind of abdication, it is difficult to apply to countries with which a continuous relationship is important for American security. This is especially the case with China, so imbued with the memory of humiliating intervention by Western societies.”
And so Kissinger admires the way President George H. W. Bush, “with skill and elegance,” walked the “tightrope” of punishing China with sanctions after Tiananmen while simultaneously apologizing with private letters and special emissaries. President Bill Clinton tried applying pressure for a time, Kissinger notes, but was shown no gratitude when he wisely relented; the Chinese “did not view the removal of a unilateral threat as a concession, and they were extraordinarily touchy regarding any hint of intervention in their domestic affairs.” And President George W. Bush, despite his “freedom agenda,” earns Kissinger’s praise for overcoming “the historic ambivalence between America’s missionary and pragmatic approaches,” by means of “a sensible balance of strategic priorities.”
If America’s preference for democratic governance is made the main condition for progress on other issues with China, Kissinger concludes, “deadlock is inevitable.” Those who battle to spread American values deserve respect. “But foreign policy must define means as well as objectives, and if the means employed grow beyond the tolerance of the international framework or of a relationship considered essential for national security, a choice must be made.” That choice “cannot be fudged,” he insists, even as he attempts to protect his flanks with a fudge of his own: “The best outcome in the American debate would be to combine the two approaches: for the idealists to recognize that principles need to be implemented over time and hence must be occasionally adjusted to circumstance; and for the ‘realists’ to accept that values have their own reality and must be built into operational policies.”
Still, in the end, Kissinger votes for national security über alles. Scattered through his history are tributes to American values and commitments to human dignity, which may indeed sometimes drive our policies beyond calculations of the national interest. Exactly that happened, in fact, after “On China” went to press, when President Obama ventured into Libya. Kissinger was perhaps surprised when that humanitarian intervention and bid for regime change failed to evoke a Chinese veto at the United Nations. But in Asia now more than Europe, he argues, “sovereignty is considered paramount,” and any attempt “from the outside” to alter China’s domestic structure “is likely to involve vast unintended consequences.” Besides, as he used to insist while practicing realpolitik in Washington, the cause of peace is also a moral pursuit.
This central theme of Kissinger’s experience and counsel must be distilled from the sometimes meandering and largely familiar history he tells in “On China.” Only in its last pages does he discuss the essential question of future Sino-American relations: With no common enemy to bind them, what will keep the peace and promote collaboration and trust between the world’s major powers?
Kissinger addresses this question by looking to the past, a memorandum written by a senior official of the British Foreign Office, Eyre Crowe, in 1907. Crowe argued that it was in Germany’s interest to “build as powerful a navy as she can afford” and that this would itself lead to “objective” conflict with the British Empire, no matter what German diplomats said or did. There is today a “Crowe school of thought” in the United States, Kissinger observes, which sees China’s rise “as incompatible with America’s position in the Pacific” and therefore best met with pre-emptively hostile policies. He perceives growing anxieties in both societies and fears they are exacerbated by Americans who claim that democracy in China is a prerequisite for a trusting relationship. He warns that the implied next cold war would arrest progress in both nations and cause them to “analyze themselves into self-fulfilling prophecies” when in reality their main competition is more likely to be economic than military.
Indulging his habitual preference for diplomatic architecture, Kissinger insists that the common interests the two powers share should make possible a “co-evolution” to “a more comprehensive framework.” He envisions wise leaders creating a “Pacific community” comparable to the Atlantic community that America has achieved with Europe. All Asian nations would then participate in a system perceived as a joint endeavor rather than a contest of rival Chinese and American blocs. And leaders on both Pacific coasts would be obliged to “establish a tradition of consultation and mutual respect,” making a shared world order “an expression of parallel national aspirations.”
That was indeed the mission of the very first Kissinger journey to Beijing. And while he does not quite say so, he invests his hopes in a concert of nations represented, of course, by multiple Kissingers.
Max Frankel, a former executive editor of The Times, covered the Nixon-Kissinger journey to China in 1972.
****
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On China. By Henry Kissinger. Penguin Press; 586 pages; $36. Allen Lane; £30. Buy from Amazon.com, Amazon.co.uk
CHINESE and American leaders have been sniping at each other in public again. This month Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, discussing political reform, told the Atlantic magazine that China’s leaders were “trying to stop history, which is a fool’s errand”. This may have been what provoked Wang Qishan, a Chinese deputy prime minister, to tell a television interviewer that Americans were “simple” (perhaps “innocent” conveys the Chinese word better), and have trouble understanding China, “because it is an ancient civilisation, and we are of the Oriental culture.”
Mr Wang will applaud Henry Kissinger’s latest work, a distillation of more than 40 years of involvement with China and its leaders, and an unabashedly Orientalist affirmation of the otherness of the country. The most riveting chapters deal with Mr Kissinger’s leading roles in the Nixon administration as it established links with Mao Zedong’s China. The well-known story bears retelling by a central protagonist who made his first, secret trip in July 1971, pleading illness to take a few days out of his official schedule while on a visit to Pakistan. President Richard Nixon’s own trip in 1972, which had been initiated by Mr Kissinger, was indeed a “week that changed the world”, as China and America ganged up to deter Soviet expansionism.
Mr Kissinger’s encounters with the urbane, conciliatory prime minister, Zhou Enlai, and the elliptical, moody Mao—and indeed with every senior Chinese leader since—make gripping reading. Some of Mao’s allusively poetic dialogue, in particular, is beyond parody: “At the approach of the rain and the wind the swallows are busy.” The panoramic authority with which the Chinese leaders (and their interlocutor) dissect the world is breathtaking.
But Mr Kissinger is not telling all. He recounts how, in the years beforehand, more than 100 exploratory meetings in Warsaw had made no progress because of Taiwan, which America still recognised as “the Republic of China”. It is not clear when or why America abandoned its notion that China should commit itself to peaceful reunification as a precondition for a presidential visit. China has never renounced the threat of invasion.
Nor does Mr Kissinger explain the thinking behind the communiqué signed after Nixon’s first visit, in which America acknowledged “that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China.” Large numbers of people in Taiwan have never maintained any such thing. But for China’s leaders, and, it seems Mr Kissinger himself, public opinion anywhere outside the United States is not really a factor when the geopolitical stakes are so high.
Before Mr Kissinger himself enters the narrative, the reader is offered 200 pages of history of modern China and its foreign relations. Most of this is uncontentious and well told. But it is marred by three related flaws. The first is Mr Kissinger’s insight that Chinese strategists think like players of wei qi or Go, which means that, in the long term, they wish to avoid encirclement. Westerners are chess-players, tacticians aiming to get rid of their opponents’ pieces “in a series of head-on clashes”, he writes. “Chess produces single-mindedness; wei qi generates strategic flexibility.”
This conceit has been used by other authors. It appears every few pages here like a nervous tic. Even before Mr Kissinger joins the game, the metaphor is pulled into service to analyse, among other things, Chinese policy in the Korean war, the Taiwan Strait crises of the 1950s (where, of course, “both sides were playing by wei qi rules”), the 1962 war with India (“wei qi in the Himalayas”). Later he describes events in Indochina as “a quadripartite game of wei qi”, just at the time when genocide was under way in Cambodia.
Second, the picture of Chinese foreign policy, as formulated by cool, calculating, master strategists playing wei qi, makes it appear more coherent, consistent and effective than it has been. China’s involvement in the Korean war, for example, led, in Mr Kissinger’s phrase, to “two years of war and 20 years of isolation”, hardly a goal for China—or a wei qi triumph.
Third, Mr Kissinger gives little weight to the fact that Mao, Zhou and the others were in fact communists. In power they soon replicated some of the forms of an imperial court, and China’s history always mattered more to them than “Das Kapital”. But one cannot ignore the influence of Mao’s adaptation of Marxist ideology on his foreign policy, let alone the importance to domestic politics of the Leninist structures imposed on the Chinese Communist Party in the 1920s, which still wears well.
In a rare admission of a blunder, Mr Kissinger recounts the only time he saw Zhou lose his serenity—at a banquet in Beijing in November 1973 when Mr Kissinger said that China had remained “essentially Confucian in its belief in a single, universal, generally applicable truth”. Communism, he suggested, had established Marxism as the content of that truth.
This was an extraordinary gaffe. Zhou was under indirect attack by Mao’s cronies through a campaign criticising Confucius. But his reaction also illustrates the prickliness of Chinese leaders when foreigners presume to pronounce on the eternal verities of Chinese culture.
If even the venerable Mr Kissinger can be caught out, what hope for American statesmen far less familiar with China? The problems that have beset relations since he left the stage are not surprising. His book describes the important role he played as an intermediary in trying to resolve the worst crisis—after the Beijing massacre of 1989. Shortly afterwards, the collapse of the Soviet Union deprived the relationship of its “defining shared purpose”.
Since then, America’s relations with China have been marked by a startling increase in economic interdependence, but not by any onset of mutual trust. Mr Kissinger notes that in the post-1989 era, China’s foreign-policy posture has been “closer to Bismarck’s than Mao’s”. It has, you could say, taken up chess.
In his closing chapter Mr Kissinger finally turns to the big question: does China’s astonishingly rapid rise condemn it to inevitable conflict with America? He notes the similarities with the rise of Germany a century ago and the inevitable threat it posed to the British empire. America and China, too, could easily fall into a cycle of escalating tension that would be hard to break. Optimistically, Mr Kissinger insists that “were history confined to the mechanical repetition of the past, no transformation would ever have occurred.” But on how to avoid such repetition, he is disappointingly vague.
****
America and China
No go
The Western politician who understands China best tries to explain it—but doesn’t quite succeed
May 19th 2011 | from the print edition
CHINESE and American leaders have been sniping at each other in public again. This month Hillary Clinton, America’s secretary of state, discussing political reform, told the Atlantic magazine that China’s leaders were “trying to stop history, which is a fool’s errand”. This may have been what provoked Wang Qishan, a Chinese deputy prime minister, to tell a television interviewer that Americans were “simple” (perhaps “innocent” conveys the Chinese word better), and have trouble understanding China, “because it is an ancient civilisation, and we are of the Oriental culture.”
Mr Wang will applaud Henry Kissinger’s latest work, a distillation of more than 40 years of involvement with China and its leaders, and an unabashedly Orientalist affirmation of the otherness of the country. The most riveting chapters deal with Mr Kissinger’s leading roles in the Nixon administration as it established links with Mao Zedong’s China. The well-known story bears retelling by a central protagonist who made his first, secret trip in July 1971, pleading illness to take a few days out of his official schedule while on a visit to Pakistan. President Richard Nixon’s own trip in 1972, which had been initiated by Mr Kissinger, was indeed a “week that changed the world”, as China and America ganged up to deter Soviet expansionism.
Mr Kissinger’s encounters with the urbane, conciliatory prime minister, Zhou Enlai, and the elliptical, moody Mao—and indeed with every senior Chinese leader since—make gripping reading. Some of Mao’s allusively poetic dialogue, in particular, is beyond parody: “At the approach of the rain and the wind the swallows are busy.” The panoramic authority with which the Chinese leaders (and their interlocutor) dissect the world is breathtaking.
But Mr Kissinger is not telling all. He recounts how, in the years beforehand, more than 100 exploratory meetings in Warsaw had made no progress because of Taiwan, which America still recognised as “the Republic of China”. It is not clear when or why America abandoned its notion that China should commit itself to peaceful reunification as a precondition for a presidential visit. China has never renounced the threat of invasion.
Nor does Mr Kissinger explain the thinking behind the communiqué signed after Nixon’s first visit, in which America acknowledged “that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China and that Taiwan is a part of China.” Large numbers of people in Taiwan have never maintained any such thing. But for China’s leaders, and, it seems Mr Kissinger himself, public opinion anywhere outside the United States is not really a factor when the geopolitical stakes are so high.
Before Mr Kissinger himself enters the narrative, the reader is offered 200 pages of history of modern China and its foreign relations. Most of this is uncontentious and well told. But it is marred by three related flaws. The first is Mr Kissinger’s insight that Chinese strategists think like players of wei qi or Go, which means that, in the long term, they wish to avoid encirclement. Westerners are chess-players, tacticians aiming to get rid of their opponents’ pieces “in a series of head-on clashes”, he writes. “Chess produces single-mindedness; wei qi generates strategic flexibility.”
This conceit has been used by other authors. It appears every few pages here like a nervous tic. Even before Mr Kissinger joins the game, the metaphor is pulled into service to analyse, among other things, Chinese policy in the Korean war, the Taiwan Strait crises of the 1950s (where, of course, “both sides were playing by wei qi rules”), the 1962 war with India (“wei qi in the Himalayas”). Later he describes events in Indochina as “a quadripartite game of wei qi”, just at the time when genocide was under way in Cambodia.
Second, the picture of Chinese foreign policy, as formulated by cool, calculating, master strategists playing wei qi, makes it appear more coherent, consistent and effective than it has been. China’s involvement in the Korean war, for example, led, in Mr Kissinger’s phrase, to “two years of war and 20 years of isolation”, hardly a goal for China—or a wei qi triumph.
Third, Mr Kissinger gives little weight to the fact that Mao, Zhou and the others were in fact communists. In power they soon replicated some of the forms of an imperial court, and China’s history always mattered more to them than “Das Kapital”. But one cannot ignore the influence of Mao’s adaptation of Marxist ideology on his foreign policy, let alone the importance to domestic politics of the Leninist structures imposed on the Chinese Communist Party in the 1920s, which still wears well.
In a rare admission of a blunder, Mr Kissinger recounts the only time he saw Zhou lose his serenity—at a banquet in Beijing in November 1973 when Mr Kissinger said that China had remained “essentially Confucian in its belief in a single, universal, generally applicable truth”. Communism, he suggested, had established Marxism as the content of that truth.
This was an extraordinary gaffe. Zhou was under indirect attack by Mao’s cronies through a campaign criticising Confucius. But his reaction also illustrates the prickliness of Chinese leaders when foreigners presume to pronounce on the eternal verities of Chinese culture.
If even the venerable Mr Kissinger can be caught out, what hope for American statesmen far less familiar with China? The problems that have beset relations since he left the stage are not surprising. His book describes the important role he played as an intermediary in trying to resolve the worst crisis—after the Beijing massacre of 1989. Shortly afterwards, the collapse of the Soviet Union deprived the relationship of its “defining shared purpose”.
Since then, America’s relations with China have been marked by a startling increase in economic interdependence, but not by any onset of mutual trust. Mr Kissinger notes that in the post-1989 era, China’s foreign-policy posture has been “closer to Bismarck’s than Mao’s”. It has, you could say, taken up chess.
In his closing chapter Mr Kissinger finally turns to the big question: does China’s astonishingly rapid rise condemn it to inevitable conflict with America? He notes the similarities with the rise of Germany a century ago and the inevitable threat it posed to the British empire. America and China, too, could easily fall into a cycle of escalating tension that would be hard to break. Optimistically, Mr Kissinger insists that “were history confined to the mechanical repetition of the past, no transformation would ever have occurred.” But on how to avoid such repetition, he is disappointingly vague.
from the print edition | Books and Arts