Henry Kissinger was a beloved man in China. He was seen as a strategist for the restoration of relations between Beijing and Washington in 1972 and thus as an interlocutor with an outstretched hand and a “friend of China”. The death of the former US Secretary of State did not go unnoticed. The state press, including the hardliners, took up this with a friendly tone, the heads of state and government expressed their condolences and citizens left warm words on social networks.
Chinese President Xi Jinping’s message was sent to his American counterpart Joe Biden this Thursday. It was an emotional text in which he highlighted his role as a “world-renowned strategist” as well as an “old friend” and “good friend of the Chinese people,” according to the official Xinhua agency. “Half a century ago, with his outstanding strategic vision, he made historic contributions to the normalization of China-U.S. relations that not only benefited both countries but changed the world,” Xi wrote. “The Chinese people will always look to Dr. Remembering Kissinger and missing him.”
The former foreign minister visited the country more than a hundred times over the course of his 100 years. On his last trip to Beijing last July, probably his final move on the geopolitical chessboard, he was welcomed by Xi. It wasn’t just any gesture. Relations between the two superpowers experienced their worst moment in decades. Kissinger tried to row to get her back afloat. “We will never forget our old friend and his historic contribution to promoting the development of China-US relations,” Xi told him when he received him.
This final meeting took place in the same room of the Diaoyutai residence (where official visitors usually stay) where Kissinger secretly met with communist leaders during his first visit to China in 1971. He was national security advisor at the time. by President Richard Nixon and was given the task of articulating a rapprochement with the Asian country in the middle of the Cold War, whose rise could act in the eyes of Washington as a counterweight to the Soviet Union.
During a trip to Pakistan, Kissinger pretended to be ill and disappeared for 48 hours. During this time, he flew to Beijing to negotiate arrangements for Nixon’s official visit to China with then Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai, Mao Zedong’s right-hand man. The first passage by an American president since the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949. The passage is one of the most passionate in his monumental work On China (On China, 2011). “The confrontation made no sense to either party; That’s why we were in Beijing,” Kissinger wrote.
Henry Kissinger, US Secretary of State, at the King David Hotel in Jerusalem on September 1, 1975. David Hume Kennerly (Getty Images)
Henry A. Kissinger, then national security adviser to then US President Richard Nixon, at the door of Air Force One before a trip to Walla Walla, Washington state, in 1971. ASSOCIATED PRESS
Henry Alfred Kissinger with his brother Walter, when they were 11 and 10 years old respectively, in Germany. Henry’s birth name was Heinz Alfred Kissinger. His family emigrated from Germany to London and from there to New York in 1938 to escape Nazi terror. Bettman (Getty Images)
Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger in the Oval Office, February 10, 1971. NIXON LIBRARY (via Portal)
Henry and Nancy Kissinger, his wife, in Jerusalem in 1970. David RUBINGER (Getty Images)
Nixon and Kissinger leave the Kremlin after signing the Agreement on the Basic Principles of Relations between the United States and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics in Moscow on May 29, 1972. NIXON LIBRARY (via Portal)
Henry Kissinger and his son David during the Republican National Convention in Miami, Florida, August 1972. ASSOCIATED PRESS
West German Chancellor Willy Brandt receives Kissinger, who was on his way to Moscow to speak with Soviet officials. Bettman (Getty Images)
Henry Kissinger at the premiere of “The Godfather” at the St. Regis Hotel in New York on March 14, 1972.WWD (Getty Images)
Henry Kissinger accompanies President Gerald Ford at the Vatican during an official visit to Paul VI. on June 3, 1975. Charles-Andre HABIB (Getty Images)
The then leader of the British Conservative Party, Margaret Thatcher, and Foreign Secretary Herny Kissinger met at Claridge’s in February 1975. Keystone France (Gamma Keystone via Getty Images)
Kissinger visits the Summer Palace in Beijing, China in an undated photo. Bettman (Getty Image)
Henry Kissinger, a soccer fan and goalkeeper in his native Germany, was the main architect of Pelé’s signing for the New York Cosmos. Here he hugs him in the locker room after a game against Fort Lauderdale in 1977.
Then-Egyptian President Anwar Sadat and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger at a meeting in 1975 in Alexandria, Egypt, as part of the “Sinai II” negotiations to return these territories to the African country (invaded by). that then from Israel). David Hume Kennerly (Getty Images)
Protesters with a banner reading “Kissinger war criminal” interrupt a speech by the former secretary of state in the U.S. Senate in June 2015. J. Scott Applewhite (AP)
Donald Trump greets Kissinger in October 2017. Kevin Lamarque (Portal)
Henry Kissinger welcomes Xi Jinping in Beijing on November 8, 2018. Thomas Peter (AP)
Henry Kissinger delivers a speech at the Alfred E. Smith Foundation dinner in New York on October 19th this year. GREGORY A SHEMITZ (Portal)
Join EL PAÍS to follow all the news and read without restrictions.
Subscribe to
Another memorable passage tells of the negotiation of the so-called Shanghai Communiqué, written as the culmination of the meeting between Nixon and Mao in 1972 and still today one of the cornerstones of the ambivalent diplomatic balance surrounding the issue of the self-governing Taiwan island, the Beijing claimed as an inalienable part of its territory and which was then home to the Chinese government, recognized by Washington as legitimate. They even argued about commas. The key paragraph is short, but it took almost two nights of work and discussion. It begins: “The United States recognizes that all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait maintain that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of China.” Pure dialectical balancing act.
“Important relationship for peace”
At this last meeting with Xi, Kissinger recalled the validity of the text: “Under the current circumstances, it is important to adhere to the principles set out in the Shanghai Communiqué,” he stressed, according to the official reading of the July meeting of the government of Beijing. . “The relationship between the United States and China is critical to the peace and prosperity of both countries and the world at large,” Kissinger added. Although it is difficult to say to what extent, his visit had an impact, contributing to Xi and Biden meeting in San Francisco a few weeks ago, the latest sign of stabilizing relations.
The Chinese president also mentioned the importance of meeting Kissinger and other Americans he recently met while speaking at a dinner with businessmen in San Francisco. “I told them that the hope of China-US relations lies in the people, that its foundations lie in our societies, that its future depends on the youth, and that its vitality comes from exchanges at the subnational level.”
Chinese Prime Minister Li Qiang and Foreign Minister Wang Yi also sent condolences to Kissinger’s family and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, foreign spokesman Wang Wenbin said during a routine appearance this Thursday. “The Chinese people will turn to Dr. Remember Kissinger for his sincere devotion and important contribution to China-US relations,” Wang added.
State media CGTN highlighted “his important role as a mediator in the rapprochement between the two countries more than five decades ago.” The hardline newspaper Global Times reviewed the comments of two users of Weibo, a Chinese social network: “Rest in peace, you have been a friend of ours forever” and “History will not forget your name.” Another, the saw this newspaper had a darker tone: “There are few wise men left in America, and an era has ended.”
Kissinger considered it an “honor” to have received Nixon’s request to go to Beijing to restore relations. For decades he maintained a unique bond with the country. “Like many visitors over the centuries, I admire the Chinese people, their resilience, their subtlety, their sense of family and the culture they represent,” he wrote.
Follow all international information on Facebook and Xor in our weekly newsletter.
Subscribe to continue reading
Read without limits
_