A Guide to Nixon's China Journey

Great plans are being made.

A bridge will fly to join the north

and south, A deep chasm becomes a

thoroughfare; The mountain goddess, if she still

is there, Will be startled to find her world

so changed.

--Mao Tse-tung

A) Richard Nixon prepares to fly to Peking this week, he is reading, among other things, some of the writings of the remarkable poet-politician who will be his host. The haunting, prophetic verse quoted above, written in 1956, is included along with the eight thick black volumes of political and cultural notes that were put together by Henry Kissinger to brief the President for his historic mission to China. A year ago, the very idea that Nixon, or any other U.S. Chief Executive, would visit China on a good-will mission would have seemed absurd. But not only the mountain goddess is startled these days by how the world has changed.

The Peking summit fairly shimmers with the kind of historic aura that Richard Nixon dearly treasures--the leader of the world's most powerful nation meeting with the ruler of the most populous. Never, perhaps, have two men who so dramatically epitomize the conflicting forces of modern history ever sat as equals at one negotiating table: Mao, the self-styled heir of Marx and Lenin and revolutionary leader of China's revolutionary masses; Nixon, elected spokesman of the world's richest, most advanced capitalist society and once the archetypal Cold Warrior. Even if nothing happens at their meeting--and no dramatic breakthrough is in sight--the reopening of a U.S.-China dialogue has fundamentally altered the power structure of the globe.

Prime Time. The ceremonial portions of the seven-day visit will be televised live by satellite to a worldwide audience that may match or exceed the estimated 600 million who saw man's first steps on the moon. The President and Mrs. Nixon will depart Washington on the morning of February 17. After spending two nights in Hawaii and one in Guam (and losing a day by crossing the International Date Line), they should reach Peking on February 21, at 11:30 a.m. That is 10:30 in the evening Eastern Standard Time, an excellent hour for a presidential candidate seeking re-election to make a television appearance. He will be accompanied by an official party of 13, including the ubiquitous Kissinger, Secretary of State William Rogers, and Presidential Assistant H.R. Haldeman, as well as 87 American newsmen and TV technicians (see THE PRESS). He will spend five days in Peking, where he will be accorded a full state welcome. He will then fly aboard a Chinese aircraft to Hangchow for a day's sightseeing before departing on February 27 from Shanghai for Alaska and Washington.

Although many details of the trip are still secret, it is likely that in Peking the President and Mrs. Nixon will stay in a government guest house near the Jade Abyss Pool on the capital's western outskirts. On the evening of their arrival, there may well be a state banquet in the Great Hall of the People, the all-purpose government entertainment center. Before departing for Hangchow, the President, it is thought, will repay his hosts with a banquet, also in the Great Hall. The Chinese will supply the food, but Nixon is carrying in American champagne for the occasion.

The Chinese are clearly going out of their way to make Nixon's visit pleasant and untroubled. On the eve of the journey, China is undergoing a great wave of repainting, face scrubbing and sign switching. Slogans referring bluntly to "U.S. imperialists and their running dogs" have been replaced by blander remarks about "the unity of the world's peoples." In some cases, however, it is impossible to tell whether the bustle is caused solely by the impending visit. Since Nixon will reach Peking only six days after the start of China's New Year, a traditional cleanup time, much of the activity is undoubtedly in honor of the Year of the Rat.

Despite the enormous publicity buildup for the Peking summit, both sides have cautioned against expecting too much to come from it. Practically speaking, the White House hopes to achieve a few small substantive gains and does not expect anything large or sensational. The central objective is to establish a permanent channel for communications between Peking and Washington. An exchange of ambassadors is not likely until there is a solution of the Taiwan problem. But perhaps a hot line similar to the one that links Moscow and Washington might be installed between the two capitals.

During his two earlier visits to Peking, Kissinger worked out an agenda with Premier Chou En-lai for the talks, which will be held in secret. The meetings, probably daily ones with Chou and at least one with Mao, will cover a wide variety of topics, including the release of the remaining three American prisoners in China (likely, but later), an exchange of artists, athletes and journalists (almost certain), increases in trade (very likely, but limited) and landing rights for U.S. commercial airlines in China (maybe later). There will also be talks (probably inconclusive) about divided Korea, Sino-Soviet relations and the future relationships between the U.S. and China in Asia. Still another subject for discussion is the future of Taiwan. The U.S. will not, of course, abandon its treaty agreements with the island republic. But Washington has finally accepted Peking's position that the future of Taiwan is essentially an internal Chinese problem, to be worked out by Peking and Taipei. Peking seems to accept the logic of the U.S. position that it cannot sever its commitment to Taiwan until Peking and Taipei work out a settlement.

Big Impact. Repeatedly, Nixon and Kissinger have stressed that no deals affecting third countries will be made in Peking. That applies only in a limited sense. To be sure, the Indochina war will not be settled in Peking. China lacks both the inclination and the influence to force a settlement on Hanoi. In a broader sense, however, a Sino-American understanding about the future of the war and of Southeast

Asia would have great impact. If, for example, Washington and Peking threw their support behind Malaysia's call for the neutralization of Southeast Asia, they might conceivably become the joint guarantors of the area's security against potential Soviet incursions.

Offsetting the harm done to U.S. alliances, most notably with Japan, is the fact that the opening to Peking undercuts what was a Soviet advantage in world politics. In the past, the Soviets profited from an unequal arrangement whereby they were dealing with Washington and Peking but neither of those capitals was in contact with the other. The lack of communication with Peking had denied the U.S. the option of supporting China, if it wished, and thus checkmating the Soviet Union. By the same token, the lack of a Peking-toWashington leg in the triangular relationship gave the Soviets an advantage over China, which lacks a nuclear arsenal large enough to make its own military strength credible against Moscow's overpowering array of strategic weapons.

Cultural Shock. It was a deep fear of the Soviet Union that caused China to make the drastic diplomatic shift that has made a Peking summit possible. As China began to recover from the xenophobic frenzy of the 1966-69 Cultural Revolution, Chou and other Chinese leaders, mindful of Moscow's 1968 actions in Czechoslovakia, were deeply alarmed by the threats of a Soviet pre-emptive nuclear strike and Russia's million-man buildup on China's northern border.

The Chinese leaders were equally alarmed that many countries, frightened by China's internal convulsions and irrational behavior, might indeed have regarded a Russian intervention as a laudable public service. Under Chou's leadership (see following story) China began to reassert the image of sane and responsible world power. Chinese embassies, which had ceased to function during the Cultural Revolution, were restaffed, and China began to search for alignments that would offset the Soviet threat.

During that search the Chinese became intrigued by the diplomatic potentialities created by Richard Nixon's conduct of U.S. policy in Asia. As long as the U.S. had been building up its military power on the Asian mainland, Peking had regarded the U.S. as a dangerous threat. But the Nixon Doctrine, with its emphasis on U.S. disengagement in Asia, as well as the President's efforts to wind down the war, made an opening to Washington an attractive line of action for Peking.

For the U.S., the shaping of a new relationship with Peking also made eminent good sense. In seeking to extricate the U.S. from the war, Nixon became convinced that the old strategy of applying U.S. force to resist Communist inroads at all points no longer was a wise or feasible policy. If nothing else, the Sino-Soviet split had made Communist aggression far less likely in Asia. If the U.S. no longer felt compelled to combat Communism at every point, it followed that there was little sense in treating China as an enemy or in denying it a legitimate sphere of interest in Asia. And so the dialogue began.

Renewed Concern. The beginning of that dialogue has stirred up all sorts of hopes and interests about China among Americans. Some of the interest is pure fad--the fascination with baggy peasant suits and spicy Szechwan cooking, for instance. But the fact is that the last 23 years of ill will and hatred represent an aberration in the history of Sino-American relations, and the renewed concern about China is a restoration of normalcy. America's attachment to China dates back to the mid-19th century, when the U.S. derived considerable moral satisfaction from befriending the helpless, prostrate country and exerting its diplomacy to limit the exploitation by other Western powers. In the ensuing decades, China became the prime beneficiary of the U.S. missionary movement, which along with Christianity brought education, health services, and a political philosophy that helped spark China's first democratic revolution in 1911.

In a historic tumble of events, the missionary movement was swept aside by a larger, more militant native movement, which combined raw terror with a renascent Chinese nationalism. In the process, China has been transformed into a new society whose ideology and structure would defy reconciliation with the U.S. --unless the U.S. too became a Maoist-style revolutionary society. Still, the old legacy of American friendship toward China, combined with a large measure of Yankee curiosity, undoubtedly helped account for the overwhelming approval with which the American people welcomed Nixon's new policy toward Peking.

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