Richard Nixon's Long March to Shanghai

WHAT, if anything, did Richard Nixon bring back from Peking?

Above all, the event itself, the fact that it took place. Rarely had a U.S. President spent so long a time--a full week--in a foreign land. The visit, moreover, was to a country with which the U.S. did not even have diplomatic relations and which for two decades had been a virtual enemy. That paradox was obscured by the pageantry and (most of the time) by the warm atmosphere. As summits go, the meeting was a glittering technical success, stage-managed with precision.

Until the final communique, his negotiating sessions with Premier Chou En-lai were kept entirely secret so as not to jeopardize the delicate talks, as Nixon later explained to the press. No leaks escaped to upset the routine, no emotions exploded to disturb the surface tranquillity. There was no shoe pounding, no confrontation of raw power, as occurred at the Kennedy-Khrushchev meeting in Vienna. There was none of the Big Daddyism that Lyndon Johnson exhibited in 1966 at his Asian summit in the Philippines. Security was not obtrusive; crowds did not have to be controlled because they rarely gathered.

Nixon, comporting himself with dignity but with an enthusiasm that sometimes made him seem overeager, said nothing of importance in public during the entire trip. His ingratiating small talk was more pedestrian than usual; his toasts were ringing evocations of a world without walls. He even quoted Mao Tse-tung: "So many deeds cry out to be done . . . Seize the day. Seize the hour."

Hidden Talks. All this was elaborate scrollwork, hiding content. The substance of the week's talks was finally revealed in a 1,500-word joint communique released just before the President left Shanghai to return to the U.S. It contained no great surprises, no great letdowns. If the communique had said any less than it did, the trip would surely have been considered a failure. It might have said a little more; it largely dwelled on the need for friendship without getting down to many specifics.

The sharpest language was reserved, in fact, for matters of disagreement. In a departure from the normal communique form, each side was given a chance to present its own views and beat the drum for its own cherished cause. The U.S. announced that it was trying to reduce world tensions and preserve freedom, while the Chinese pledged their faith in the liberation of the oppressed and revolution "as the irresistible trend of history." It was stock propaganda. At the same time, each nation sought to reassure its nervous allies. The U.S. tried to cheer up South

Viet Nam and South Korea (though not, pointedly, Taiwan); China gave encouragement to the Viet Cong and North Korea. The U.S. said it places the "highest value on its friendly relations with Japan"; the Chinese protested any "revival and outward expansion of Japanese militarism."

Even as both countries acknowledged the "differences in their social systems," they found agreement on four broad areas. They would "progress toward the normalization of relations." They would try to rescue the world from the danger of international war. Neither would seek hegemony in Asia or permit any other country to try to extend its power in the area. They agreed not to "negotiate on behalf of any third party" or to assist each other in any operation directed against another nation.

The steps that the two countries proposed to take to "normalize relations" turned out to be small but potentially significant ones. They would encourage an exchange of scientists, artists, journalists and sportsmen; they would increase bilateral trade. Though formal ties would not be established, diplomatic contact, in a form yet to be worked out, would be frequent.

The Jargon. The text of the communique will doubtless be endlessly dissected in the days and weeks to come. Inevitably, and perhaps unjustly, strenuous efforts will be made to score it like a Ping Pong match, in a determined attempt to assert who came out ahead. Some will find the U.S. acceptance of the jargon of the Bandung Conference on peaceful coexistence distasteful. On the other hand. China assented to the proposition that "seeking hegemony in the Asian-Pacific region" is conduct unbecoming a well-behaved neighbor, a precept several of its neighbors would dearly love to see put into practice. As Henry Kissinger pointed out later, such talk about hegemony in a joint communique with China would have seemed very unlikely just six months ago.

On what China calls the "crucial question"--the status of Taiwan--the U.S. made what seemed the major news and concession: the assertion of an eventual goal of complete military withdrawal from the island. That had never been so bluntly stated, and was sure to cause fresh tremors on already edgy Taiwan and elsewhere in Asia. But in fact such a pullback from an essentially untenable position has always been implicit in Nixon's Guam Doctrine, and in the Administration's view, reiterated in the communique, that the problem of Taiwan is ultimately one for the Chinese to settle peacefully among themselves.

Yet in diplomacy, context means a lot, even when stating the obvious. On the face of it, the U.S. got nothing very obvious in return. On all the hard questions, the gaps loomed as wide as ever. There seemed no promise of any aid in settling the Viet Nam War. (Not that there had been much expectation for such help; moreover, if it were to occur, it would scarcely be mentioned in the communique.) There was no call for an Asian peace conference, as some had hoped. There appeared no agreement on Japan's expanding role as an Asian power. There was no give on the problem of divided Korea. What was said about the threat of the Soviet Union, which after all was the principal impetus for getting together in the first place, only the participants know as yet. The communique deplored any effort by countries to gang up on one another, and Kissinger took pains in his press conference to assert that the new U.S. relationship with China "is not directed against the Soviet Union" --an assertion that Moscow may just not believe, and with some reason.

But the promise of cultural exchanges (beginning with permission to let TIME'S Jerrold Schecter and Syndicated Columnist Joseph Kraft stay on for a while longer in China), trade and diplomatic contact created a mechanism that could produce further and future agreements. And there is always the possibility that there is more to the talks in China than meets the eye in this communique. A beaming Kissinger insisted that the U.S. was very pleased: "It exceeded our expectations." That may well be so, but expectations tend to be in the eye of the beholder, and for some, the Shanghai communique will be too little--and for others, too much.

In the U.S., the President jeopardized his standing with part of his own constituency. Conservatives complained that he seemed to have gone too far without a promise of getting much in return. By making such a show of praising his hosts, he cast himself in the role of a suppliant. By appearing to be granted an interview with Mao Tse-tung rather than getting one as a matter of course, he seemed to accept a status lesser than that of the chairman.

In the usual pre-summit euphoria, some commentators had been too prone to overlook the obvious brutality, regimentation and instability of the Chinese regime. The reality of China was a sobering counterbalance for the newsmen on the tour (see THE PRESS). Spontaneity, they often discovered, was carefully rehearsed. Example: when the President visited the Ming tombs, smiling, colorfully dressed Chinese frolicked in the vicinity. Sure enough, as soon as the visit ended, functionaries collected the transistor radios that people were listening to. little girls removed the bright ribbons from their hair and the whole Potemkin-village scene vanished in a twinkling.

Camaraderie. Still, in their brief time in Peking, Americans received a startling lesson in social cooperation. To a man (and woman), they were stunned at the sight of some 200,000 Chinese pouring onto the streets to remove the snow that had fallen during the visit. A compulsory exercise? To be sure, citizens who neglected their ditties would be severely chastised. But the visitors detected a civic spirit and camaraderie that are spectacularly lacking in the present-day U.S. In the long run, one of the most important questions about the U.S. and China will be just how much the two countries may learn from each other.

For the nearer future, though, the President's trip must be judged in terms of world politics. In the U.S., it almost certainly formalized the end of anti-Communism as a dominant foreign policy--and it was fitting that Richard Nixon should help end that era as dramatically as he once helped start it. The trip also marked the beginning of a more pragmatic and complex, less concentrated and crusading application of American power. It officially inaugurated the already much advertised multipolar world of five power centers, with Peking more or less officially proclaimed No. 5 --though in the communique China disavowed superpower status. The components of this pentagram are far from equal. How the President's voyage will really affect the relationships within that new field of force--who stands to gain or to lose--is something that neither Nixon, Mao nor Chou can know at this point.

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