Working from a New Map in Asia

Henry Kissinger has made seven trips to Peking since his dramatic secret visit in 1971. Last week he flew off on a five-day journey to the Far East that will take him to Tokyo (twice), as well as to the capital of the People's Republic. Around Washington, some of the Secretary's critics were asking, "Is this trip necessary?" Although the U.S. and China still have major areas of disagreement--notably over the status of Taiwan--they have learned to live with their differences. The Secretary of State is friendly with the men who make China's foreign policy, and there appears to be mutual confidence at the top.

Changing Map. In fact, as both sides work out an agenda for President Ford's trip next month, conversation will no doubt be useful and to the point --or points. Since Kissinger's last trip a year ago, the map of Asia has greatly changed. The most important differences, of course, are the fall of Viet Nam, Laos and Cambodia and the virtually complete withdrawal of the American presence from Indochina. Much of last spring's panic in non-Communist Asia has now disappeared. Nonetheless, once staunch American allies like the Philippines and Thailand are still trying to readjust to a world no longer dominated by the U.S.

The U.S. is now more concerned with Northeast Asia--Korea and Japan --than with Indochina. The Viet Nam earthquake may yet shake loose the fragile peace on the Korean peninsula. Fired by the Communist victory in Indochina, North Korea's President Kim II Sung seemed to some observers to be on the verge of invading South Korea last spring; he even went to Peking to seek Chinese support but came back chastened. China, he learned, wanted the Korean situation to remain peaceful for the time being, with an American garrison of 42,000 men as a counterweight to the Soviet presence in Siberia.

In his talks in Peking, Kissinger will try to get the Chinese to go along with a multinational effort to secure a permanent Korean peace. Korea, he reasons, is vital to the security of Japan, the economically most powerful nation in Asia. If Korea should go Communist, or be swept by war, Tokyo might well be forced to rearm in a massive way, probably with atomic weapons. Many Japanese officials are as afraid as Kissinger is of the prospect of a remilitarized Japan. They have urged him to make direct approaches to North Korea, if necessary, to guarantee peace on the peninsula.

Seoul, however, opposes any direct U.S. talks with Pyongyang unless South Koreans are present, and Pyongyang refuses to sit down with the South Koreans. Only last month, moreover, Chinese Foreign Minister Chiao Kuan-hua denounced as "of no avail" Kissinger's own plan for peace: a conference that would include the U.S., China, the two Koreas, and possibly Japan and the Soviet Union. In an interview with TIME last week (see page 35), Kissinger said, however, that he did not think this was absolutely the last word on the subject.

Pragmatic China. After the fall of Viet Nam, the major change in Asia in the past year has been in China. Peking seems to be less ideological and more pragmatic in foreign policy than it has been since the Chinese Revolution 26 years ago. At the end of the 1960s, China's stance toward the rest of the world was almost psychotic--withdrawn, erratic, sullen and uncooperative. Today Peking is an active, if still occasionally belligerent participant in major international conferences.

Since the discovery of major oilfields in the mid-'60s, China has become an economic power to reckon with. The first significant shipment of petroleum, 7 million bbl., was sent to oil-thirsty Japan only two years ago. Total oil exports this year are estimated at 70 million bbl. By 1980, oil shipments abroad are expected to reach 350 million bbl. and amount to one-third of the country's exports. China's trade, which remained virtually static at about $4.5 billion annually through the long years of isolation, jumped to $6 billion in 1972 and reached $13.7 billion in 1974.

Peking has also changed the way it does business. In the xenophobic past it avoided all foreign economic entanglements and, to prevent trade deficits, practiced a punishing austerity. Now, Peking reasons, like other nations it can borrow the money it needs for investment. Result: despite its oil revenues, China's trade deficit shot up from $80 million in 1973 to $1 billion last year, a figure that foreign economists feel is still prudently low. "The economy is not doing spectacularly," says an American economist in Hong Kong, "but it is getting down to stability--and stability is an achievement."

A stronger, more confident, more practical China will presumably be an easier China for Kissinger to talk to. Nonetheless, he will have to navigate several trouble spots before he can call his journey a success. A major difficulty, paradoxically, is Chinese fear of the Soviet Union, the very factor that brought the U.S. and China together in the first place. Seldom has the Sino-Soviet dispute been so heated. Believing that detente has made the Soviets stronger, Peking has heaped vitriol and ridicule on any move to lessen East-West tension. Kissinger's concern for detente has affected his standing with the Chinese. "To Peking," says a Western diplomat, "Kissinger is soft on the Soviets. Detente involves an element of trust the Chinese feel is excessive." Beyond that, Premier Chou Enlai, who collaborated with the Secretary on the Sino-American rapprochement in 1971, suffers from heart disease. Chou, 77, has not been seen in public for more than a month, and may be too ill to meet Kissinger.

Canceled Visit. State Department officials are also concerned about a curiously hostile Chinese tone toward the U.S. in recent weeks. Last month Peking, in a gesture of support for Puerto Rico's independence movement, refused to let the mayor of San Juan join 13 other U.S. mayors in a tour of Chinese cities. The mayors canceled the entire visit as a result, but Washington got the message: If the U.S. does not withdraw its support for China's island--Taiwan --China will not recognize U.S. sovereignty over Puerto Rico.

At about the same time, Peking angrily objected to the facts that the U.S. has been letting Tibetan refugees maintain an office in New York and that a Tibetan song-and-dance troupe is now being allowed to play across the country. China took over Tibet in 1951, and is annoyed by any hospitality shown Tibetan refugees. Washington is puzzled by such seemingly silly incidents, coming just before Kissinger's visit, and is uncertain just what should be made of them. The best guess is that the Chinese are warning the U.S. that it cannot forever support Taiwan and remain friends with Peking as well.

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