SUBJECT: #354 "TIlE REccx;NITION OF CHINA"

SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIA TlON

GUESTS: RAY CLINE, Director of Sttrlies atGeorgetown University Center forStrategic end International Sttrlies

JERCl1E COHEN, assistant dean at HarvardLaw School

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FIRinG Line

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SECA PRESENTS ®

FIRinG Lin

HOST: WIllIAM F. BUCKLEY, JR.

GUESTS: RAY CLINE, PROFESSOR JEROME COHEN

EXAMINER: MAlACHI MARTIN

SUBJECT: #354 "THE RECCGNITION OF CHINA';

FIRING LINE is produced and directed by WARREN STEIBEL.

This is a transcript of the FIRING LINE program tapedin New York City on January 18, 1979 and originallytelecast by PBS on January 28, 1979.

SOUTHERN EDUCATIONAL COMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION

land Stanford Jr. University.

© 1979 SOUTHERN EDUCATIONALCOMMUNICATIONS ASSOCIATION

MR. BUCKLEY: Not long ago, with Theodore White, we touched during this houron prospective changes in U.S. Qli.na policy. Days later· President Carterdid it-renounced our treaty with Taiwan, kicked out Taiwan's diplanats, pulleddown the U.S. flag fran our embassy in Taipei. We are now fully accredited inPeking. There are of course questions left unanswered·, among them: Was thisthe correct thing to do? Was it the right thing to do? Was it done well?and What will be its consequences?

Jerane Cohen, although a lawyer (he is assistant dean at the Harvard lawSchool) is a Qli.na expert by any standard, having among other things writtena half dozen books on that country and its legal system and a book calledTIlE DYNAMICS OF Q-1INA'S FCREIGN RElATIONS. He supports what we agree to callnonnalization. Professor Cohen is a graduate of Yale and of its law school,who did post graduate work in France and served as law secretary to Qli.efJustice Warren and to Justice Frankfurter before entering the practice of law.Subsequently he became a member of the faculty of the University of Californiaat Berkeley before going on to Harvard. He is on the executive ccmni.ttee ofthe East Asian Research Center.

Ray Cline has three degrees fran Harvard and stu:lied at Balliol beforeentering the O.S.S. where he began by concentrating on the mysteries of theJapanese code. He served 30 years with the goverrrnent in the C.I.A., with theDepartment of History, rpe Army, serving in Taiwan, in Gennany, in \.Jashington.He is currently the director of Studies at the Georgetown University Center forStrategic and International Studies. He is the author of four books, mostrecently Ial.D RMER ASSESSMEm', and he is also an adjunct professor at theForeign Service School in Georgetown.

CArr examiner, whan I shall introduce at greater length in due course, willbe the distinguished theologian and journalist, Dr. Malachi Martin.

I should like to begin by asking Mr Cline whether he continues to believewhat he said shortly before the abrupt recognition, namely that quotes, "Aftera decent interval, political and econ:rni.c instability in Taiwan is J.ikely tolead to capture by Peking in one way or another."

MR. CLINE: Absolutely. Unless the United States makes better arrangements forguaranteeing the security of our relationship with Taipei and the Republic ofQli.na than President Carter now contemplates, the erosion of security in thatcountry is bound to make it a very destabilizing part of East Asia.

MR. BUCKLEY: Would you give me a likely scenario? Or at least a plausible one.

MR. CLINE: There are a rumber, there are a runber. Let me give you a scenario.We have said that we acknowledge the Qli.nese view in Peking that Taiwan is partof Qli.na. If Taiwan is part of Qli.na and the government authorities in Taipeitherefore are in charge of a subordinate part of the People's Republic ofChina, I think it I s cJUi te plausible at sane point when it suits their own pur­poses for the Peking government to suggest that all coornercial transactions,particularly all arms supplies or heavy industrial supplies, be approved inPeking.

MR. BUCKLEY: Or even the paying of custans duties, say.

MR. CLINE: Or even the arrangements for air flights in and out, or the extreme­ly irrportant shipping industry that calls in at Taiwan's ports.

MR. BUCKLEY: This they would enforce how?

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MR. CLINE: If it came to a matter of enforcement, presumably they could declarea blockade with their rather fifth-rate navy. But as far as I can see, urrler thearrangements now suggested by the Carter administration, the United Statescertainly could rot interfere with that blockade because we would be coornit­ting an act of war against a piece of territory which we said belonged to asovereign goverrment-

MR. BUCKlEY: Well, I know that you have strong feelings on the subject.Let me ask you this: why wculdn' t their fifth-rate navy be sunk by Taiwan'sfirst-rate air force?

MR. CLINE: Well, it depends on whether Taiwan still at that point. presumablya few years hence, would still have a first-rate air force. If the procedureswhich have been announced by the State Department of holding up arms salesthis year and only letting the pipeline empty are not followed by provision ofa first-rate new fighter for Taiwan--which is many years overdue-then theywon't have a first-rate air force at such a time. These are scenarios for thefuture, and I hope they won't work out that way.

MR. BUCKlEY: NOI., let me if I may, quote to Professor Cohen three statements,taking them up one by one if I may, fran a short piece he wrote for the NEWYORK TIMES only six or seven months ago, where you said three misconceptionscloud analysis. One, normalization will mean American acceptance of Peking'ssovereignty over Taiwan. Now why is that a misconception?

PROF. C(}{EN: It's a misconception, as we've just seen demonstrated again,because the United States did not have to normalize relations at the same timeratifying, you might say, Peking's claim to Taiwan. And indeed we did not doso. Because what we did do was merely to maintain the same murky status forTaiwan that we did in the Shanghai Camunique of February '72. I acknowledgeyour poSition, Mr. Buckley, and I defend to the death your right to maintainit, even while disagreeing with you. What does it mean-

MR. BUCKlEY: Which position?

PROF. C(}{EN: -when we say, Washington says to Peking, ''We acknOlYledge yourposition." It's very vague what that means. We could have said in straight­forward English, ''We recognize that Taiwan is a part of the People's Republicof China," wt we qidn' t say that.

MR. BUCKlEY: Well, let me give you an example. If the Soviet Union says thatthey acknowledge our sovereignty over the state of Mississippi the probabilitythat they would arm Mississippi during an insurrectionary confrontation isslight, i.e. certain things follow fran that acknowledgement, right? But tobe sure-and let's make the worst case out of it--\oJhat we acknOlYledged in thePeking Communique was that both sides said it was a single country.

PROF. COHEN: In '72 we acknowledged the claim of both Chinas that Taiwan waspart of China. Then we did more than we did in '78. We then went on to say,''We do rot challenge that claim." In '78 however we merely said not that weacknowledge that Taiwan is part of China, that China should have sovereigntyover T.aiwan, we acknowledged the existence of their position.

MR. CLINE: No, wt Jerry you knOlY that's casuistry. You knOlY enough Chineseto knOl. that the word 'acknowlE'.rige' translates exactly into 'recop;ni.ze'in Chine_se, or 'accepts as a fact.' If that was creative ambiguity, it isworthy of my good friend Dr. Henry Kissinger.

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PROF. C(}{EN: Well, he started it off.

MR. CLINE: If it does not mean we recognize as a fact the situation whichPeking is describing about Taiwan, then it was not even ambiguity, it wasduplicity. Are you suggesting that· Carter did rot mean to accept the Pekingposition on this point?

PROF. C(}{EN: Yes, what I'm saying is when you look at the Chinese version ofthe communique, you will see they use the word 'chengren ' which means'acknowledge' or 'recognize.' It's variously transrat~ in two ways. Thefirst way they say very straightforward, ''We recognize Peking is the goverrmentof China and the only lawful goverrment." NOIY they could have equallystraightforwardly said, ''We recognize that Peking has sovereignty over Taiwan."But they didn't say that. There they introduced a formula of rather indirectphraseology, ''We acknowledge your position." And that has always been the kirdof ambiguity, as you krow Ray, that many goverrments have tried to invokewhile normalizing relations with Peking. It leaves the status of Tail.an murky.NOIY to make sure that this is rot an aCCident, we can look to the fact that wemaintain the right to sell arms, selected defensive equipment, to Taiwan, anaction that Hua kuo-feng himself pointed out is inconsistent with Peking's viewof normalization and Peking's view that it has sovereignty over Taiwan. Wehave no basis for doing that.

MR. BUCKlEY: And it was agreed simply not to transact that difficulty, right?

PROF. COHEN: They say they don't accept our position. We say we don't accepttheir position.

MR. CLINE: Actuplly what Hua kuo-feng said was that that po:;! tion of the UnitedStates is unacceptable now and in the future.

PROF. C(}{EN: That is right.

MR. CLINE: NOIY, if that is an agreement to disagree I find it hard to knOI.what a real disagreement would be.

PROF. C(}{EN: No, wt that's right. You see, Hua's statement and our declaredintention to continue selling arms to Taiwan shOlYs that there is inconsistencybetween the two positions of the re!?pective goverrments on precisel.y this keypoint. If we acknowledged Peking's sovereignty over Taiwan, we would have nobasis-as I pointed out in an article in FOREIGN AFFAIRS, October '76--we wouldthen have no basis for continuing to sell arms to Taiwan, if we say Pekinghas sovereignty over Taiwan. We would have no basis, by the way, for the Presi­dent maintaining in his statement, a very solam declaration by the UnitedStates PreSident, that we continue to have an interest in a peaceful settle­ment of the Taiwan problem by the Chinese themselves.

MR. BUCKlEY: That's pretty platonic. We have-

MR. CLINE: Yes, we have an interest in almost everything in the peaceful­

PROF. C(}{EN: I don't think anyone's in any doubt as to what we mean by that.

MR. CLINE: <l1 Jerry, we are in doubt. Why did the President then say in hisfirst announcement we will continue to supply arms to Taiwan, and then urrlerintense questioning, permit the State Department to say we have agreed not tosell arms-any nel. arms-to Taiwan during this year?

3© Board of Trustees of the L land Stanford Jr. University.

PROF. CXl-IEN: furing the year 1979 only.

MR. CLINE: Right, but what was the right that Peking had to ask us not to sellarms except on the basis of their contention of sovereignty?

PROF. CXl-IEN: It is not a question of rights. They maintain their legal posi­tion. It's a question of striking a political bargain without either sideyielding on its furdamental legal position.

MR. CLINE: Yes, but if our legal position is that we have the right to sellarms, why did we agree not to do it this year?

PROF. CXl-IEN: But it's only for a year. Why did we agree to contirue doing itafter this year?

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, we certainly have the right to sell arms to Sau::li Arabia,but there were huge national debates over whether we should do so.

PROF. CXl-IEN: Of course.

MR. BUCKLEY: But actually what- One of the reasons that I paused, and I alwaysdo, over the normalization is that what we have really engaged in is the world'spremiere venture in abnormalization. That is to say, there is nothing normal.We are having to contrive sanething ex nihilo to account for our relations withTaiwan, are we not? As you point out, we reserve the right to sell arms to itwithout consulting Peking, we have maintained that we have an interest-and wemean by that sanething more than a U.N. ccmnencement speech-and then you havea situation in which the prime minister of mainland China has aTll1OJOCed thatas far as he's concerned Taiwan can maintain its own army, write its own laws.So the whole thing is abnormal.

MR. CLINE: But he also said it becanes an interal matter how the Taiwanproblem is settled and we did not dispute that.

PROF. CXl-IEN: That is their position of course. Just as they have not disputedour contention, we have not disputed their contention because we are trying tomanage what Mr. Buckley rightly points out is an extraordinary situation­where you have two contending governnents, each claiming to be the governnentof all China. Now the situation is even more urusual legally with the claimof the United States that our treaties with the Republic of China on Taiwancontinue to be in force after we no longer recognize the authorities on Taiwanas the governnent of China. Now that's very sound politically because it enablesus to get over this awkward interim transitional perio:! without creating greatdisruption. I disagree with Mr. Cline that we have this necessary scenariofor a downward spiral turning prosperity into panic in Taiwan. And one of thereasons I disagree is the great care the administration has taken to make surethat existing treaties and agreements with Taiwan will not lapse at this time.Now Peking had never before accepted any such arrangement with any othergovernnent that switched recognition fran Taipei to Peking. It, under pres­sure, yielded on this and hasn't challenged out contention. Now our contentionmayor may not be legally sourd and we may find fran the courts that it isn'tbut by that time we're going to be over this awkward transition perio:!. Andwe already see that Taiwan has greeted a difficult situation with dignity,with calm, and that investment is going on fran abroad and life is going onin Taiwan. And I do not think that we're confronting a desperate scenarioin Taiwan. I'm quite confident that Taiwan is going to surmount this hurdleas it has surmounted very ably many other hurdles.

MR. BUCKl..EY: But let's look at the graph. As recently as eight months ago,you were writing such things as the following. I read you one. Second was,"Normalization need not terminate our' 54 Treaty to defend Taiwan-" Answer:it has.

PROF. CXl-IEN: That 's a misconception, I said. I said it would have to termi­nate the treaty.

MR. BUCKl..EY: Well, yes, bl.!t then you went on to say "the demise of the defensetreaty, however, would not prevent the U. S. fran unilaterally guaranteeingTaiwan's defense, II which hasn't happened.

PROF. COHEN: No! That in effect is what the President has done. If you lookat my FOREIGN AFFAIRS article, you'll see that the President has made a uni­lateral declaration of the continuing American interest in Taiwan's peacefulsettlement, that there be no violent change in the status-

MR. BUCKLEY: We celebrate Captive Nations week once a year (laughter) but­

PROF. CXl-IEN: Yes, but as you point out, this is more than that kind of rhetoric.You know, we don't have a defense treaty with Israel.

MR. BUCKLEY: It depends on the White House.

PROF. COHEN: Well, of course it depends upon also who is in the Congress.

MR. BUCKLEY: The fact of the matter is that Kissinger and Nixon both said thatwe would not yield on this point unless mainland China abjured any claims toforcible repatriation and they refused to do so. And we yielded.

PROF. CXl-IEN: I don't think that's correct.

MR. BUCKLEY: Now, what happens with the next Democratic President or withr..;y. Carter when he's re-reborn on the subject of China?

PROF. cafEN: But look, this was true even under the defense treaty. What wasthe defense treaty after all? It was a conmitment of ITUSh. All it said wasthe United States would respond according to its constitutional processes insome undefined way if a threat arose to Taiwan's security. According to itsconstitutional processes-what does that mean?

MR. BUCKLEY: It was a strategic reality and interpreted as such, wasn't it?

MR. CLINE: Yes. And it's the same kind of mushy arrangement which IV(' have withthe NATO nations, with Korea, with Japan, with the Philippines, with Australiaand New Zealand. If they're all mush, then in fact we have no foreign policy.

MR. BUCKLEY: I thought under NATO we were bound to defend. An attack-

MR. CLINE: The Constitution cannot be yielded. It said they would consideran attack on one of the nations-

MR. BUCKLEY: A treaty is-

MR. CLINE: It's not self--enforcing. Jerry is the constitutional lawyer, butI don't believe that-

MR. BUCKLEY: It is the supreme law of the land.

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PROF. COHEN: Yes, but the question is, what does the treaty commit us to?

MR. BUOOEY: An attack on Holland is as an attack on Maine, but this wouldnot commit us necessarily to atom bomb the attacker on Maine--

PROF. COHEN: No, nor tc send forces. We could decide what to do.

MR. BUOOEY: You mil?J1t decide on a ten year e.s.t. conference with theattackers though.

PROF. COHEN: It's within our discretion. The key thing isn't the existence ornot of the formal treaty. The key thing, as you both kn:>w, is--

MR. BUCKLEY: Executive determination.

PROF. COHEN: --is today this commitment, wbethcr formally expressed in treatyfonn or through unilateral declaration by the executive or the executive andthe Congress, the question is: is this commitment a live commitment?

MR. BUOOEY: And what do you think it is?

MR. CLINE: That's right. And that is the issue. The way that this tennina­tion of the treaty was handled, the way increasingly details creep out sug­gesting that we've made secret promises with Peking about not doing certainthings which were not initially anra.Jnced makes me bel~ev?--and I 'm ~e. thatthe Asians believe--that the United States goverrment ~s w fact quahfy~ng

its commitment to the security of Taiwan in such a way that it will not honorit in any circumstance.

PROF. COHEN: No, essentially most observers have made the opposite inference.They have--

MR. BUCKLEY: But he's brighter than most observers.

MR. CLINE: That's absolutely right. I'm glad you recognized that. (laupJ1ter)

PROF. COHEN: That remains to be seen. You know, many specialists on QUnaclaimed that there would never be a formula on which the t~ sides could agree,because Washington had its conditions, Peking had its conditions. And I know,and Mr. Cline knows, many respectable, very brir,ht political scientists who"specialize in this field, who said, '''!here is no fo~a. It ca~'t ~ ~one. .But they were wrong. It has been done. And each s~de has had ~ts mU11.lTUT1 cond~­

tions met here.

MR. CLINE: (h Jerry, nonsense! It was done because we accepted their formula.

PROF. COHEN: But they've accepted--

MR. CLINE: They have not accepted any.

MR. BUOOEY: It was also done because the QUnese wanted to do it, havingawakened to the fact that Mao had led the whole of the country to the brink ofbankruptcy, impoverisl-ment--

MR. CLINE: (h thpv w.<lnt to borrow rroney from us and get our technology. Butthey kept their three conditions, very carefully stated--for 20 years we havebeen arguing substantially those three conditions about the use of force and

our treaty commitments to Taiwan, and all three were accepted by us. So that'stheir formula.

MR. BUCKLEY: Wouldn't you agree with Mr. Cohen that--

MR. CLINE: I'd like to agree with Mr. CohlOn on something, (laughter) but Ifind it hard, so please help me.

MR. BUCKLEY: lhey made the kind of revolutionary concession that one saw in theHolstein Doctrine which began by saying, ''West Germany will not recognize anycountry that recognizes East Germany," and then there were little provisos,and over a period of 2S years the program collapsed. Now wouldn't you guessthat if, let us say, under the age of the Cultural Revolution, sanebody hadattenpted to live with this kind of ambiguity, he'd have been lynched in QUna.So there has been change, hasn't there?

MR. CLINE: No, not in my opinion. There's a change in what the rhetoricalposition of Teng Hsiao-I" ing is, but the basic policy position of the People'sRepublic of QUna, which is headed by Hua Kuo-feng--who is rather rrore con­servative than Teng Hsiao-p'ing--is: Taiwan is an internal affair to be settledas we wish, at our discretion. Now that leaves them the juridical and politi­cal--

MR. BUCKLEY: That's formalistic, isn't it, in a way?

MR. CLINE: Well, of course, but international affairs are formalistic. Now thefact is, and what the.administration is bragging about, is that mainland QUnahas not this year the power to take Taiwan. Therefore they say they're secure.Of course they are. But after a decent interval, their position of a rightto take it has been maintained.

MR. BUCKLEY: But the cost of taking Taiwan is not purely military, is it?The cost ts theoretically--

MR. CLINE: Sancthing about ~rld opinion?

MR. BUCKLEY: Exactly. Certainly the dissipation of American political support-­

MR. CLINE: How ~rried are you about the irrpact of ~rld opinion in the weeks ofof a very deliberately planned Soviet supported North Vietnamese attack onCambodia? Just like Hitler took Belgi~ This has happened in SoutheastAsia. World opinion has pshaw-pshawed about it.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, American opinion was divided. I, for instance, rejoicedin the conquest--

MR. CLINE: Over Pol Pot's fall, but not over twelve divisions entering thecountry from outside.

MR. BUOOEY: No, but that's a formalistic objection. And anybody who over­ran Pol Pot was at least for awhile somebody with whom I was sympathetic. Ihate to say that about the North Vietnamese but I can't believe that thingsaren' t ~tter now than they were t~ weeks ago.

MR. CLINE: I thought we were talking about matters of principle.

MR. BUOOEY: We are talking about matters of principle.

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MR. CLINE: Isn't the right of small countries to have their defense guaran­teed in an international environnent really what we're talking about, anddidn't we abrogate a 25 year obligation to do that for Taiwan? That's theissue.

MR. BUCKlEY: Let me ask you a schematic question. If Taiwan were to declareits independence tanorrow, YXJuld it follow that we YXJuld then recognize itand other nations in the YXJrld YXJuld? If it said, "Okay, we were traditionallya part of QUna, but under a free election supervised by the United Nations,we now declare our independence." The same kind of thing that sane people areurging Puerto Rico to do. What YXJu1d then follow?

MR. CLINE: "[ want to t.ear Professor Cohen's answer. Then I want to tell youmine.

PROF. OOHEN: Of course that YXJuld present a great challenge to the QUna poli­cies of all the major nations of the YXJrld just as when Bangladesh separateditself from Pakistan, they were presented with very difficult questions.

MR. BUCKlEY: Solved by force majeure.

PROF. a:HEN: The legal doctrine, of ccurse, generally accepted, is that what­ever authority claims to control the bulk of the territory and populace ofa given state and does in fact do so, then deserves recognition as the govern­ment of that area. But of course the Kuomintang that controls Taiwan does soas the governnent of all QUna. And i.t YXJUld have to surrender its wholegovernnental structure and claim to authority over Taiwan--

MR. BUCKlEY: l'm assuning that they achieved a mandate.

PROF. OOHEN: A mandate from their own people.

MR. BUCKlEY: From the Taiwanese.

PROF. a:HEN: Well, then they IroUld have to hold a free, in effect nation­wide election.

MR. BUCKlEY: I said that. Province-l.n.de, province--loli.de.

PROF. a:HEN: Well, but if they claim to be something other than a province­

MR. BUCKlEY: I said if they claim not to be. Suppose they simply said theywere an independent country of Taiwan.

PROF. OOHEN: Well, then they YKJuld not be a province any longer. They YXJUldbe separating themselves-

MR. BUCKlEY: I'm saying would we recognize them?

PROF. OOHEN: Well, that YXJuld be very difficult at this point.

MR. CLINE: (laughing) There you are.

MR. BUCKlEY: For yaJ? It YXJuldn't be difficult for me.

PROF. a:HEN: Well, but you see, it IroUld not be difficult as a legal question,but it wo..l1d be a question whether we caJld-consistent in the immediate ,at least~

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with Peking's claim to Taiwan, and consistent with the larger purposes forwhich we normalize relations---on the one hand, recognize Taiwan's claim toindependence and still Jilaintain the kind of close contact among the UnitedStates, Japan, and the People's Republic that we li~e. I wouldn I t say thatwe wo..l1d oppose it in any way. It might take a penod of a year or tYXJ ormore-

MR. BUCKlEY: We had no problem with Algeria, did we?

PROF. OOHEN: No, but of course this is a lIUch more delicate situation.

MR. BUCKlEY: M..1ch, IIUch less delicate situation when you consider that Algeriawas considered a department of France.

PROF. 'OOHEN: Well, I understand that, but Algeria was the classic colonialsituation and the Taiwan situation, given aJr relations with Peking, IroUldbe sanething distinct.

MR. CLINE: Let's stay with Taiwan, instead of Algeria for a minute, ~cause Tthought your explanation was very revealing because what yaJ ~eally s-;ud wasof course Taiwan--the people and the governnent of the ReP;Jbhc of QUna :mTaiwan--have a right to take this legal posture, but that 1t wo..l1d be poh­tically awkward for us in cur new relationship with Peking. I think that forthat deal to have been made by this country 'With Peking on the basis of thatsentiment which you just expressed is what is the mor~lly shabby aspect of. thiswhole arrangement. And I sutmit that is the real pohcy o~ the Carter admin­istration. Now as far as independ<!nce goes, I want to rem1nd you that thepresident of the Republic of QUna-the people on Taiwan, as ~he Stat~ Depart­ment insists on calling them; they call themselves the Repubhc of QUna­President QUang QUng-kuo announced when Warren Otristopher was there, '''!hisis an irdeperdent sovereigp state. ,. And I see no rea70n why ~y respectablegovernnent shoold not recognize them as such, recogmzing the1r control ofabout 18 million people a duly constituted governnent with a formal consti­tution. They've had a iot of elections .. They cancelled one because of theircrisis that they felt they were in as the result of our action, but- l4,0CXlsquare miles of territory--It has all the attributes of sovereignty. They saythey're an irdeperdent-

MR. BUCKlEY: I think it's misleading-

MR. CLINE: It's about the fortieth largest population that calls itself anation.

MR. BUCKLEY: I think it's misleading to quote C.C.K. as having said, "We arean irdeperdent nation" because a year ago on this program I asked him whetherhe wo..l1d consider this alternative and he simply considered it profane on thegraJrds that it's like asking a biological member of your body to live separate­ly.

MR. CLINE: Well, let me say, with great respect for your interrogation skills,you asked the wrong question. The quest~on? whi~h is ill-urderstood because ofthe scholastic nature of the scholarship 1n this field, is '~s the legiti­mate governnent in Taipei-"

MR. BUCKLEY: The defective governnent?

MR. CLINE: I think it's a legitimate governnent because it inherited-

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MR. BUCKLEY: I didn't know what kiOO of stress on legitimate you wanted- Didyou want to invoke its Chinese antecedents or not?

MR. CLINE: I want to invoke its Chinese antecedents as the successor ofgovernnent to SlID Yat-sen's Republic of China in 1912. They operate underthe 1946 constitution, which had formal elections and so on. They havebeen since by force expelled fran a large part of their territory. The ques­tion is I>tlether they have by right as well as de facto control of the terri­tory of Taiwan and the Pescadores. Now all of cur treaties-and I think thisshows the hypocrisy of ~ political view on this question--all of our treatieshave been amended with the Republic of China to say they apply not to mainlandChina, which the people in Taipei know they don't control, wt only to Taiwanand the adjacent islands. So we already have a legal relationship under thedefense treaty, under the Treaty of Friendship, Ccmnerce, and Navigation andso forth·, with a legitimate governnent in control of this territory. That iswhat we shculd recognize. And I>tlen I've asked officials in our governnent I>tlywe don't simply recognize it, the answer is really the one ycu gave: Pekingwouldn't like it. o..rr policy is made in Peking on this issue and I think it'sdisgraceful.

PROF. CClIEN: No, ycu see, first of all it's misleading to tell the Americanpeople, as you say, you rightly recognize that Chiang Ching-kuo is now askingfor recognition of the authorities on Taiwan as a new state separate fran Chinathat would in effect be a govehment of Formosa. He is not asking that. Hemay yet come to that. There may be that option. Perhaps if they ever have areally free election there that would allocate power for the I>tlole provinceor state, if you will, we would come to that under a different label-notChiang Ching-kuo' s label, wt the label of most of the people on Taiwan. Butwe haven't come to that. And frankly ma~y people, and I'm among them, I>tlo areconcerned abcut the evolution of U.S./East Asia policy, hope that we are notgoing to face any precipitate change in the status of Taiwan, wt rather agradual evolution I>tlere Taiwan will be increasingly folded into the U.S./China/Japanese/East Asian prosperity sphere--not co-prosperity sphere, wt prosperitysphere-as a bulwark against expanding power. Now let me say, there-

MR. BUCKLEY: You mean following on the de-Maoization of China?

PROF. CXlIEN: De-Maoization is a process taking-

MR. BUCKLEY: Do your ambitions include freedom for the mainland Chinese?

PROF. CClIEN: My hope is that hLlllan rights-which are increasingly being~ecognized on both sides of the Taiwan Strait, I'm glad to say-will inevitably~nexorably be enhanced, in large part as a ftmction you might say, of thevery normalization process that's taking place. The millions of people inChina I>tlo are welcoming normalization with the United States really do so inpart because they think it's not only going to add to their rice bowl, becausethey think it's going to enhance their freedom. And I think on both sides of theTaiwan Strait this normalization is going to enhance prospects for hLlllan rights.

MR. CLINE: Have you any evidence tha t tha t 's likelv on the mainland, exceptfor the wall posters?

PROF. CXl-IEN: 011, I think wall posters-

MR. CLINE: I mean, people can write wall posters and put them on the wall,wt what legal rights have been expressed and have been accepted by the Camu-

10

nist Party of China?

PROF. CClIEN: Well, if you read the recent comrntmique of December 22, you willsee that the central committee of the Comrntmist Party of China is even talkingabcut the need to recognize ju:licial independence of political authority I>tlenappropriate. .

MR. CLINE: (laughing) Do ycu believe that for a minute?

PROF. CClIEN: I can tell you that that is mind-boggling.

MR. CLINE: (laughing) It is miOO-boggling, wt it is mostly mind-boggling thatycu believe it will have any effect on the hLman rights of that kiOO of agovernnent.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, you've written a lot of books on that subject, and you aresaying one of two things. Ycu are either saying that the mission of-I stillproncunce it 'teng' because I get confused with-

MR. CLINE: Ycu've got to call it 'deng' if ycu want to be correct. Unfortunate­ly, it sounds like that.

MR. BUCKlEY: The mission of Teng is to repeal that ..trich 500 million Chinesehave~ exclusivel~, I>tlich is really to reverse the legitimacy or to denytJ:e leg~tma~y of Mao~sm. Or you are saying that this is a tactic-the samekind of tact~c that Mao himself used in 1958, that Lenin used in 1921 thatKhruschev used in 195&1 Which of the two- '

~OF. CXl-IEN:. I think it's between Scylla and Charybdis. Ycu see, his mission~s to modermze and strengthen China, trying to maintain the legitimacy thattJ:ey feel d~rives fr~ the revolution of the last 30 years, and at the samet=e reconc~le that =th the needs of building a strong and vital econcrny andth7worl~ contacts that will underpin that. And that's a very difficult road~e s t~ng to follow. And Teng himself is' quoted as saying recently in Japan:m 15 or 20.years, I>tlo knows what kind of a system we might have? And it's cureffort I think here to become a part of China's future by helping China tobecome a strong ccuntry, a more prospercus ccuntry-

MR: BUCKLEY: I woul~ like to say that I am 100 percent enthusiastic abcutthis, as I. was, for. ~nsta~e, abcut the Czechoslavakian Spring. But to beenthusiast~c a~t ~t ~e=nds me that people like you were advancing identi­cal argunents ~~ the mddle of the Cultural Revolution, I>tlen there wereabsolutely no s~gns whatever of any i~ipien~ liberalization. On the contrary,most of our poets and professors and Jcumahsts were going over to Chinaand coming back and telling us abcut the splendors of life under Mao Tse-tung.

PROF. GaiEN: In the Cultural Revolution nobody was going there.

MR. B~CKLEY: Well, right after the Cultural Revolution, and as a matter offac~ ~nto,1973 you saw.a replay of the Cultural Revolution during a briefpenod-I m sorry, dunng 1971----\otlen everybody was killing everybody else andso on.

PROF. CClIEN: Yes, wt the reasons for normalization do not restalone on thepromotion of.luJman rights. They rest on very hard political factors. Firstof all, real~ty. A governnent that controls almost one billion people is agovernnent that we shculd not have any artificial obstacles-

11© Board of Trustees of the L land Stanford Jr. University.

MR. BUCKLEY: A governnent that controls one billion people with the kird oftotalitarian sweep exercised by Mao Tse-tung is presunably <. country ¥bosecontrol ¥bo could deftly gE:t in the way of.

PROF. aJHEN: Well, ¥bat we're talking about here is not the ability internal­ly to affect the affairs in any countl)', but rather getting on with that coun­try, getting on with the world's most populous country-

MR. BUCKLEY: What does that mean, "getting on"?

MR. CLINE: Yes, ¥bat about- Why weren't we getting on last November­

PROF. aJHEN: Because for 30 years that country has waited for the UnitedStates to recognize the legitimacy of its authority over the Chinese people

MR. CLINE: Inclu:ling Taiwan.

PROF. aJHEN: For 30 years-

MR. CLINE: Inclu:ling Taiwan, because we've recognized all the rest of it foralmost 20 years.

PROF. aJHEN: We haven't fonnally done so, ard you know there have been greatobstacles-

MR. CLINE: Didn't we have a liason office in Peking ard didn't they have anambassador right here in Washington?

MR. BUCKLEY: Well, we certainly agree that Englard ard France did, ard Ireally don't know ¥bat they accanplished on that account that was denied tous.

PROF. aJHEN: Well, I think if you just look at the trade that Englard, France,Japan particularly were carrying on with China-trade that we were only goingto get a small part of until we normalized, you'll see a difference there.

MR. CLINE: It was negligible.

MR. BUCKLEY: In the first place it was negligible. Their principal tradewas with Australia ard Canada because they were starving people to death as theresult of their experiments with socialism.

PROF. aJHEN: Do you think the trade that has been developing between China ardJapan is negligible? You can't convince the Japanese of that.

MR. BUCKLEY: Not in the last year, but it was certainly negligible ten yearsago.

PROF. aJHEN: Yes, but of course Japan only normalized in 1972 ard since thenthey have been developing the infrastructure of relationships that we werebarred fran developing ard are now going to develop.

MR. BUCKLEY: Well Jerry, a lot of things have cha~ed sit;ce 1?72 ard I jo~nwith you in hoping that they will recognize hunan nghts w Chl.na. I am sunplysaying that a foreign policy based on that assLlllption is ranantic.

PROF. aJHEN: But ¥bat I'm saying is that this is based on hard-

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MR. BUCKLEY: An:! I'm also· saying that the people ¥bo are advocating the samething were advocating it at a time ¥ben there were no prospects of this hap­pening.

PROF. aJHEN: Look, you are trying to tranS!lUtc an argurent into being oneexclusively that it's good to normalize because it pranotes hunan rights. WhatI'm saying is it I S good to normalize for hard-headed realpolitik reasons. Inaddition, lYe should not assume, as sane have tried to convince us, that this isnegative for human rights. I see it as being positive. But that isn't theprincipal motivation for our action--

MR. BUCKLEY: I knaY. But hunan rights are good not only for hunanitarian rea­sons, but for practical reasons. For instance-

PROF: COHEN: That's ¥bat the Chinese are caning to recognize.

MR. BUCKLEY: -if we had a free press in the Soviet Union we wouldn't have toworry probably about a world war. An:! I don't invite too tight a correlationhere, but human rights have a utilitarian as well as a liberal function.

PROF. aJHEN: I agree with you. An:! you see, the strange thing, ard thefascinating, positive thing that has been occuring in China in the last twoyears is that the leaders of the Chinese Canrrunist Party currently in thevan have cane to recognize precisely this point, not because they are hunani­tarians ¥bo have a liberal, John Stuart Mill love of hunan rights. They'reout of our tradition. But they have had to recognize that the people ofChina-the intellectuals, the scientists, the teachers, the high-level bureau­crats, the skilled workers-they demard minirrum protections at least for them­selves if they're going to participate in China's modernization. China'sleaders have to-

MR. BUCKlEY: Internal pressures.

PROF. COHEN: -recognize these hunan rights if only to succeed in modernizingChina ard maintaining themselves and their right to paver.

MR. CLINE: Then Ivhy do you think that once the sCl.eotists have been broughtoff the pig farms where they were sent ard the universi-.ties have ~en re-openedafter a ten or 12 year hiatus, that the governnent proposes to loo~en controlsover those people except to motivate them to work for ¥bat i!Kone of the world'smost oppressive governments? Why do you think that is a hunan?i-ghts moverather than an expediency move? You just described it in expediency terms.

PROF. aJHEN: Look, I am telling you that it would be very difficult to expectthe Chinese, coming from a very different history, tradition, culture, poli­tical system, economic system, to have exactly the same motivations as we, butI'm also telling you-

MR. CLINE: But they could cane a hell of a lot closer.

PROF. aJHEN: -that there is enough common hunanity ard common need to modernizethat we see they !lUst respord to some of the same demards that most humanbeings have had that we have seen in our own civilization. NaY if you say,"But they're doing it for the wrong reasons," I'm going to say, "I'm verypleased to see ¥bat they're doing."

MR. CLINE: I'm saying that they haven't done anything. They're talking about

13© Board of Trustees of the L land Stanford Jr. University.

it. But there is a point of order here I'd like to establish. You triedto justify the present position on \\tlat you said is a hard-headed issue oftrade. I do thirk it's unfair for the administration, as it has, to tnnpup this enormous cupidity am:mg our businessmen for trade with China. Thetruth is that even last year under the circunstances \\here you were sayingthere's great pranise, the world's trade with Taiwan was considerably largerthan with all those billion people on the mainlaro, aro our trade with Taiwanwas seven times larger than with all those people on the mainlaro. So theidea that this is a bonanza for our businessmen, other than the dubious valueof moderniziI~ anna with Coca-eola, it just is not true. It is a fake aroI really think it will turn out to be one of those big Mississippi Bubbles"*ti.ch will backfire on the Carter administration eventually. The only wayit will Irork is if we loan than enough rroney to pay the first installmentof invesbnent aro then ..nen those loans cane due, sanebody else pays thansane more loans- Ard you have the Mississippi Bubble ..nen it all goes pop.

PROF. CXJiEN: Well, first of all, we can't take anything that happened priorto normalization as a test of \\tlat we're now going to see develop. Secoroly,the attempt to discredit the Chinese-

MR. CLINE: You just finished saying we ought to give than a long time tochange.

PROF. CXJiEN: Well, let me just say, the attempt to discredit the Chinesedevelopnental effort by saying they're going to be depen:ient on our loansis rather odd ..nen you, Mr. Cline, have been a great admirer of the develop-ment of other countries that have been depending on foreign loans for invest­ments, etc, such as South Korea, Taiwan, etc. This is the way nations modernize.China is caning to this wisdan, rather belatedly, but I thirk it's a very wcl­cane develOIxnent. Ard I don't think we should sneer at it and I don't thinkwe should knock it, because I thirk it is going to prove that-even though China'ssystan is not an international trading system the way it would be if it werean islaro like Taiwan, but a continental trading systan of the socialist type_I don't think we should assune that there. isn't a very significant trade arothat it isn't in our long-run interest to see that China succeed in moderniza­tion. You know, we often overlook the fact that if the governnent~tever

government it be that controls China-were not to succeed in feeding, housing,organizing, clothing its people, you can imagine-

MR. BUCKlEY: You'd have a Malthusian revolt.

PROF. CXJiEN: Can you imagine the hundreds of millions of people starving inAsia? We see the plight, the tragic plight, of the boat people fran lroochina.Can you imagine if the governnent in control of the billion people on theChinese mainland were not to succeed, \\tlat the irrplications would be-

MR. BUCKLEY: \-lell, one of the irrplications might be that they'd take the rulersof China aro put than on the boat-

PROF. OOHEN: \-lell, that's happened before.

~1R. BUCKLEY: -aro then accanplish in China sanething that was accanplishedwith relative ease in Taiwan, let alone Hong Kong, an:i Turkey.

PROF. CXJiEN: Ard Singapore.

MR. BUCKLEY: The n.mber of people there canpared to the acres of arable laro

14

is a nothing problem, we know fran anpirical evidence of other countries thathave permitted things like free agriculture.

PROF. CXJiEN: Well, the thing that the Chinese are now studying, is ..ny haveother areas of Asia, those in precisely the camunities you've mentioned, ..nyhave they been so successful? Why has the United States been so successful?Ard right now they are really re-examining things-

MR. BUCKlEY: Because we are free to disagree with each other.

PROF. COHEN: Well, that too is being learned in China. Ard I think the normal­ization removes an obstacle to the ever-eloser relations that we can nCM developwith than. I might say also, the cost of this is not great because I believethe cost of this is not going to lead to a deterioration of conditions on Tai­wan for this reason: We keep aTphasizing, ..ny didn't Peking pledge itself notto use force against Taiwan? But if it did, the next day Mr. Cline Irould go ontelevision aro say, ''We can't believe their Irord. Teng Hsiao-p'ing is heretoday, gone tanorrow. You know these camunists. You can't trust than." He'dbe saying that-you knCM that. The only thing we can trust is ourselves.

MR. CLINE: Would that be wrong? \-lould that be wrong?

PROF. CXJiEN: That is \J1y-

MR. CLINE: (laughing) In other IrordS, you wouldn't accept any of these argu­ments under any circumstances.

PROF. mIEN: No, no, the only argunent 1-

MR. BUCKlEY: It's official policy not to accept them. That's ..ny we havesurveillance systans.

MR. CLINE: I'm sorry, but we do have a right to dissent. There's no wall fora wall poster, but we get to go on your program aro explain different pointsof view.

PROF. (X)l1EN: Could I just finish my sentence?

MR. CLINE: No, you've been filibustering a long time. Just let me put one factin.

MR. BUCKlEY: I pranise I won't let you be neglected, but just finish your-

1·1R. CLINE: There is a reason ..ny loaning money to Taiwan aro similar c.0untrieswas successful. They have a free enterprise systan Imch looks toward inter­national trade with us. It built up a social aro econanic system "*ti.ch sus­tained grCMth. We doo't. We give purely canmercial loans to Taiwan. We givethan no aid. What mainlaro China is really asking for is an aid program for anunderdeveloped country Imch is a billion people-

MR. BUCI<LEY: To pursue socialism.

MR. CLINE: Just one large Bangladesh I-d.th a socialist-eamunist canmand econany.It won't work.

MR. BUCKLEY: Go ahead, Mr. Cohen, because then we must go to ourexaminer.

15© Board of Trustees of the L and Stanford Jr. University.

PROF. COOEN: Thank you very rr:uch. I was going to say the key thing in nor­malization is cootinuing Taiwan's security and prosperity. The United Stateshas done it in-

loR. CLIl\E: There INe agree.

PROF. COOEN: The United States has done it in the only responsible way, by con­tinuing to rely on itself-not to rely on what China says or what China may do­but continuing to say, ''We have an interest in Taiwan's peaceful set~lerrent."

Arx:I that is crucial. We have maintained that. That's the urrlerpinmng ofall these other actions, and that will maintain what 1 see to be an increasinglyoptimistic relationship that may lead to contacts between Taiwan and the main­land, and anong Taiwan, the mainland, and other areas of East Asia. So Ithink as long as the United States, Peking, and Tokyo get along INell, not ~rldopinion is going to keep the Chinese in line, but the very Chinese need fcrPeking getting help fran Tokyo, getting help fran Washington, and eventuallyeven learning sanething about what's going on in Taiwan and why they have beensuccessful. The Chinese know that socialism hasn't ~rked as INell as it should,not only in China lAIt in other CO\IDtries. Arx:I they are now re-examining options.We ought teo be part of that scene trying to lNeigh in in international polit~cs

and in international cooperation as rru::h as INe can. I think the real quest~on

INe ought to address now is not to keep looking backward, not to fight a rearguard action against what the President has done ~rking: I think INe ~ht totry to facilitate what's going on, help the Conirress achl.eve a respons~ble

policy towards Taiwan and mainland China at this time. The real qJestion forthe future is: what sh::luld U.S. policy be tOloiard China fran now on? I-b.> stronga China do INe want?

loR. BU<l<LEY: Well, let me take the opportunity to introduce our distinguishedexaminer, Dr. Malachi Martin~ ~ is a INell-known journalist, ~uthor, a trainedtheologian, the religious editor of NATIONAL REVIEW. Dr. Martrn.

m. MARTIN: Dr. Cohen, I'd like to address myself to you first, if I may. Arx:I~rds don't turt, as the Huguenots used to say onCE upon a tiJre. Frankly, forthe non-Qri.nese expert to hear you talk, especially if he has or. she has any ofthat old, good old American instinct for the shiv, as they call ~t in the street,one Ioiould be inclined-but the time has been lirrited-one wo.Jld be inclined tocharacterize you as a Lincoln Steffans of '79, and as having been affected bywhat I (personally, by the way, but it's a personal bias) ccx:s~der to be adisease in academia-namely the value of trade, good old D_Ij)1d~ty. Arx:I nunber~, or nunber three, I think you wo.Jld admit to: there'.s a great self-interest.We can't beat Russia at the present I1XJl1lent militarily. We are in trouble ateconomically at 00rre and abroad, and- Let's go over to that big dirty guy onthe Asian mainland. There's an idea floating arCll.lOO there. I'm putting thisin a very hard, adversary fashion. As regards to rananticism, you know if youcall what they've done already nti.nd-boggling-well, as for us, really, it'sjust like as if a Nazi jailer threw a crust at a starving Jew, and the Jew said,"ell, what a ~er!" They've done nothing, as Dr. Cline said, yet. But theLincoln Steffans thing canes out. "It will be okay. They are on the way." Iremember-I was young at the time-but I remeniJer reading HARPER'S magazine inthe 30's and the marvelous picture of Joe Stalin on a lNeekend with his wife-I don't know Iottich one it Ioias-srrcld.ng a pipe, earning four pourrls a loOeek.Arx:I tl-.ey INere on their way to creating the future, Iottich was there already ac­cording to Lincoln Steffans. It has never gone that way in a ~~t. stateas far as INe know histOrically. Arx:I so by what sort of ranantic ~ntuit~on orliberal wisdom you now say, "'These fellows are thinking hard and they know thatsocialism doesn't ~rk."? My goodness-I think they've always known it didn't

16

,

.tJ

work in Russia, Czechoslavakia, Bulgaria, Runania, East Germany, Yugoslavia,Albania, you name it. But they keep at it. Arx:I unless you really have informa­tion Iottich will prove that Teng Hsiao-p'ing and the others, ~se names reallyboggle the larynx, unless you have infonnation that they really aren't convincedMarxists- Because how can you urrlerstand a man like Brezhnev or Khrushchevunless you say they're convinced Marxists? Because they are as ideologicalas Arcbbishop LeFebvre is about his Catholicism. Because INe Americans are sochangeable, INe say, "It doesn't ~rk-throw it out. We'll make a new one."They keep on on that good old machine with a bit of capitalist paste. Soyou see what I'm doing-it's a very hard attack actually, because you have avery difficult thing to propose. I think you portray, to me anyway, a con­sciousness that in reality INe have said to the Chinese in Peking, ''Look, theday will cane when you can have your will on Taiwan, lAIt for the rroment, no."

MR. BU<l<LEY: That's a long-

PROF. COHEN: . Is it a question or is it just a pseudo-analysis of a charlatan?

m. MARTIN: Do you mean- Vbich is the charlatan?

PROF. <XJHEN: Well, you're accusing me, lAIt I think I have a good basis for­

m. MARTIN: ell now, Dr. Cohen, I wo.Jldn't accuse you of anything-

PROF. CGIEN: ell of course not.

m. MARTIN: --except of being noble and-

PROF. (X)HEN: I thought it was ~ to one on this program. I see it's three toone.

DR. MARTIN: I haven't got to Dr. Cline yet.

foR. CLINE: He hasn't attacked me yet.

foR. BUCKLEY: Irrpartial adversary-

PROF. CGIEN: I'm just waiting for the qJestion.

DR. MARrIN: Well, the qJestion is this. Are you, with a marvelc:;us legal brainwith an irrmense knowledge of China, Iottich boggles my mind-that's a genuinebogglement-are you re<illy colored by a liberal political outlook and by in­nate American optimism Iottich has led us so often into the m..rl-

foR. BUCKLEY: We'd better make that a question, because otherwise we're notgoing to p,et going here.

DR. MARrIN: Yes, well, really, how finally do you justify this optimism abouta system Iottich ideologically wants us six feet urrler the ground when you haveno historical reason for thinking they're going to change and becane at leastlike Swedish socialists?

PROF. COHEN: Ore of the key questions of course in looking at China today isIohat is the role of ideology? Teng Hsiao-p' ing has been trying to do a very .difficult thing. He has been re-interpreting Mao's principles, just as earherChinese rrodernizers at the end of the 19th century and early 20th cent\.D:Y .sought to re-interpret Confucius' doctrines in order to make them consonant with

17

© Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University.

the needs of m:xiernization. So vtlen you say rather naively, "Are these peopleMaoists or are they not?" of course they are Maoists. The-

DR. MARTIN: I didn't say that. I said Marxists.

PROF. COHEN: Well, Marxists, Leninists, Maoists-

DR. MARTIN: Oh 00, no, no. I nnke a distinction. I nnke a distinction.

PROF. COHEN: I IIJOUld have to say that he is a Maoist to the extent that he isre-interpreting Mao to suit China's new needs, errphaE izing those elements ofMao that feature the rational, that feature the modernizing, and de-empha­sizing the others that were prominent in the Cultural Revolution-

DR. MARTIN: Ile-errphasizing Marxism?

PROF. COHEN: He is de-emphasizing the body of doctrine-·those aspects of thedoctrine that led to nnny of the excesses in China that no one in China is pre­pared to tolerate any m::·re. You ask vtlere I get my infornnbion. 1h€re' s alot of infonnation. I suggest that you try to partake of sane of it, because-

DR. MARTIN: I ~uld like to. I really ~uld love to.

PROF. COHEN: -you apparently feel that whatever I believe canes simply fromcerta in liberal biases. But I ~uld infer from what you've said tha t you haven'teven been reading the NElo1 YORK TIMES and other rredia that are amply reporting-

MR. BUCKLEY: All those conservative- (laughter)

DR. MARTIN: Well, you see, I find the KEW YORK TIMES hard to read becausethere's really- It writes the news arourxl the editorials. But the other onesI do read.

PROF. COHEN: I think there's a lot of factual infornntion available even in the1olAll.. STREET JOURNAL.

DR. MARTIN: Of course there is. Of course there is. But do you think they'reconvinced Marxists?

PROF. COHEN: By they now, whom do you rrean?

DR. MARTIN: The present people in power.

PROF. COHEN: Convinced Marxists can be people of nnny points of view.

DR. MARTIN: I find them strangely unified on certain points of view-you knowabout totalitarian control of all rreans of production, energy, transportation,conmunication, domination of education, the anned forces-

PROF. COHEN: If you're asking Ire do I endorse this governnent that exists thereas the optil11Ll11 government in China's future, I ~uld say no. I thought we werediscussing nonnalization of relations. If you're asking me that given therealities of life, that you have this governrrent in control of the Chinese peo­ple, was nonnalization a desirable thing as it was nnnaged by the admi.nistrationI'd have to say it is a very desirable thing. Beca~e we will have great bene­fits that will flow from it at a relatively minimal cost and it has been indeedperhaps the best thing the Carter administration has done in its foreign policy.

DR. MARTIN: Well, that's sanething in this desert of non-achievem:nt. (laughter)But I was asking for the reasons for that desirability. But I have a ~stion

for Dr. Cline, if I could turn my attention to him.

/oR. CLINE: CoJId I help just a mitD..Ite with the facts?

PROF. COHEN: You want to get the anslYer before the q.Jestion because the questionnever ends. (laughter)

DR. MARTIN: (laughing) That's unfair.

/oR. CLINE: No, I think it ~uld be helpful if Professor Cohen, lJ1.o is a greatlegal scholar, IIJOUld tell Ire wh€ther he expects the People's Republic of Chinaconstitution of 1977, ~ years ago, to change the provision that says that theobject of the Camunist Party of China is to unite with the proletariat, theoppressed people in nations of the 1J1.o1e ~rld and fight shoulder to shoulder withthem to oppose the hegem:mi.sm of the ~ :;uperpowers, the Soviet Union and the

. United States to overthrow irrperialism, IJ1.ich is us, modern revisionism, IJ1.ich isthe Soviet Union, and all reaction. Now, how are we going to get a real cozyfriendly arrangement of the kind you have in mind if they keep that in the consti­tution?

PROF. COHEN: If you're talking about the constitution of the People's Republicof China, I take it you rrean 1978-

/oR. CLINE: I'm talking about the party constitution. 'There's only one thatreally CCU'lts.

PROF. COHEN: 'There you're talking about the maximal vision of the ideology.When you talk to the camunist leaders, they say, ''Look, we're in the processof nnking a transition. When we continue to criticize the United States-"and this was prior to not:1ualization "~tre firing blanks." And whatthey're telling yeu is a rather shocking admission.

/oR. BUOOEY: Fnpty cannons.

PROF. COHEN: Exactly. What they're telling you is that they can't move Q-..i.nesennsses overnight. 'They can't just disnnntle the ideology. 'They have to nOI,egradually to adc:pt the ideology to existing circunstances and they're alsoconfessing that there's a good deal of eyewash and hypocrisy in their own en­dorsement of that ideology. And I say if that's the case, I welcane it. Weshould try to foster it. We should try to get them. to get a fimer grip on therealities of modernization.

DR. MARTIN: I take it that you take that discourse from the cr..i.nese as not adiplomatic chewing of the cui but a frank opening of their hearts. And I aEkyou, why does a nnn of your experience think that seasoned veterans su::h asthat are sharing their hearts with the IJ1.ite hyenas that we are in their eyes.

PROF. COHEN: I can cnly tell you that they're desperate to have the Chineseproduction exceed their population growth to nnintain their authority, theirown legitinncy in the eyes of a people that is increasingly apathetic, that hasbecane rather cynical as the result of the last 20 years of difficulty after aninitially brilliant period fran '49 to '57. 'They have to restore the faith oftheir people. Otherwise their right to rule is going to be increasingly shaky.

DR. MARTIN: Why should we help them tc restore it by nomalizing?

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© Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University.19

PROF. CXJHEN: We have two choices in international affairs. You-

MR. BCa<LEY: Ani 15 seccros. (laughter)

PROF. COHEN: Yes. You could adopt the Dulles strategy of saying, "Wesirrply want to destroy them-contain them, umennine them." Ani I thinkthat ..tlat we have to do is take the otr.er policy of trying to cooperate withthe governments that are in power am lean to gradual change.

toR. BUCKLEY: 'Thank you Professor Cohen, thank you Professor Cline, thank youDr. Martin, thank you ladies am gentlemen.

20© Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Jr. University.