FROM OUR CORRESPONDENT IN BEIJING
Xi Jinping sent a message of condolence to Joe Biden on the death of Henry Kissinger. The Doctor of Diplomacy was defined as “a dear and old friend of the Chinese people.” The recognition of “lao peng you” (old friend) is the highest certificate of appreciation that the party-state can bestow on a foreigner. The addition of “dear” underscores the personal affection that Xi and his companions had for the man who, with his secret visit to Beijing in July 1971 and secret talks with Zhou Enlai and Mao Zedong, opened the door to the thaw between the United States and communist China.
Upon closer inspection, Kissinger’s real “orphan” is Xi, not Joe Biden. It is the communist general secretary who lacks the advice of his dear American friend, and not the White House, which recently expressed frustration that Kissinger always had the door to Beijing open while the Biden administration’s envoys served as an antechamber had to act.
The Chinese Foreign Ministry recalled that the former US Secretary of State “has long supported the development of relations with the People’s Republic and made a historic contribution with over a hundred trips to China.”
This feeling of nostalgia, also publicly expressed by Xi, shows that today’s China has not been able to find a new American interlocutor whom it can trust in making joint strategic decisions. Every time Kissinger came to Beijing, the top communist leaders received him with full honors, and they consulted him, above all, with the aim of understanding the deepest feelings of Washington politics.
In May, the Chinese ambassador to the United States visited the grand old man’s home to wish him a happy birthday. And Kissinger had once again emphasized that a new form of understanding between the two rival and almost enemy superpowers was of crucial importance for the world.
His main concern was the threat of war to Taiwan and he said: “Taiwan is an insoluble problem, the only solution is to maintain the status quo for a few more years, during which both sides should avoid threats and limit operations against each other.”
Last July, Kissinger was in Beijing for the last time, always met by Xi Jinping and most likely repeating his advice to maintain the status quo of relations with Taipei. The state press headlined: “What is missing most in US politics today is the pragmatism coupled with the rationality of Henry Kissinger.” A criticism of Joe Biden. But in recent years, Xi’s China has appeared even more orphaned by the pragmatism that led to the thaw between Nixon and Mao, unable to allay its distrust of the West and suspicions that the Americans are a ” China’s “encirclement, containment and suppression” are legitimate aspirations.”
Henry Kissinger (1923–2023)
A man who experienced the entire “short century” and all its upheavals: This was Henry Kissinger, the politician and former American Secretary of State, who crossed the finish line of 100 years of life on May 27, 2023 and died in Kent on November 29, Connecticut. The Shoah, the World War and then the Cold War, the conflicts in the Middle and Far East are pages of history that the centenarian politician experienced first hand. “Might? A tool to do great things” – The historic interview Oriana Fallaci gave him in 1972. Inside Henry Kissinger’s Brain, Clear and Brilliant at the Age of 100: Interview with the Neuropsychiatrist
GERMAN JEW – Henry Kissinger was born on May 27, 1923 in Fürth, Bavaria. He came from a Jewish family and was registered in the registry office under the name Heinz. This would change when he emigrated to the USA in 1938 to save himself from the anti-Semitic persecution of National Socialism. He lives in Manhattan, where he spends his time between studying and working as an employee in a brush factory.
US SOLDIER – Kissinger returned to Germany during the Second World War, but in the uniform of the US Army: in 1943 he took American citizenship and entered military service. Thanks to his knowledge of German, he joined the counterintelligence force. At the end of the conflict, when the German state was liquidated, he was entrusted with the administration of Krefeld, a city in northern Germany with half a million inhabitants.
HIS BEGINNINGS IN POLITICS – Although Kissinger was a Republican, he also worked with Democratic President John Kennedy Lyndon Johnson. Having become an expert in international affairs after initial consultation with the Eisenhower administration, Kissinger was already a permanent presence in the White House by the early 1960s and conducted his first missions in Vietnam.
THE NIXON CONNECTION – In 1969 he became Secretary of State (i.e. Secretary of State) under President Richard Nixon and in the 1970s the former German immigrant’s international reputation and influence grew exponentially. The president asks him to improve Washington’s approach to all pressing global issues: relations with the USSR, war in Vietnam, nuclear proliferation
GROMYKO AND “HAFT” – In his 1970s political parable, Kissinger always faces the same rival alter ego: Andrei Gromyko, Soviet foreign minister during the Brezhnev era. Moscow ushered in the era of “détente” and laid the foundation for the SALT treaties (first moratorium on nuclear arsenals).
THE CHINESE MASTERPIECE – The Nixon-Kissinger axis is also the protagonist of the normalization of relations between the United States and Mao’s China. It was the Secretary of State’s job to pave the way for the President with two secret missions in July 1971. And finally, in February 1972, Nixon and Mao shook hands and Communist China emerged from its international isolation. A diplomatic masterpiece in times of the Cold War, because it finally broke the connection between the USSR and Beijing.
AWAY FROM VIETNAM – After a decade of conflict, half a million dead American soldiers and a growing wave of pacifism among the population, it is up to Republican Kissinger to free Washington from the quagmire of the Vietnam War. On January 15, 1973, the US Secretary of State signed the armistice in Paris with his counterpart Le Duc To from Hanoi. That year both received the Nobel Peace Prize, but Le Tuc To refused the recognition because the conflict continued. And it will stay that way until 1975.
SCANDAL SURVIVOR – The Watergate case overwhelmed Richard Nixon, who was forced to resign from the White House in 1974. He will be replaced by Deputy Gerald Ford. However, the new president will not give up cooperation with Kissinger, who is at the forefront of American diplomacy. A position he held until 1977 and which marked the end of his political career.