Ford in China: Warm Hosts

"Significant" was a word never far from Gerald Ford's lips during his five-day visit to Peking. He used it to characterize his long conversation with Chairman Mao Tse-tung. He unfurled it again to describe his three morning sessions with Vice Premier Teng Hsiao-ping, the tough Pekingese who is acting operational head of the Chinese government. And finally, in his last champagne toast, Ford declared that the whole visit had been "significant," adding that his talks with the Chinese leaders had been "friendly, candid, substantial and constructive." It was as if the President constantly had to remind himself--and the people around him--that his journey across the Pacific was more than a political junket.

No new agreements were reached during the visit, the second by a U.S. President in four years; indeed, none had been expected. The real substance of the visit was in what Secretary of State Henry Kissinger calls "personal assessments," the getting-to-know-you among world leaders that may mean much in the long run--or nothing at all, if major shifts occur in either government in the months ahead.

Kissinger indicated that in order to "normalize" diplomatic relations with Peking, the U.S. may eventually pull its troops and the U.S. embassy out of Taiwan, replacing the embassy with a liaison mission. But Ford hardly wanted to make any compromises with Communist China last week that might further weaken his position with Republican conservatives. It was clear enough well before the trip, moreover, that the deteriorating health of Mao and Premier Chou En-lai precluded any serious dealings on the touchy subject of Taiwan. This awaits the successors to Mao and Chou and, as Ford and Kissinger may have reflected, perhaps their own, too.

Ford's schedule was plotted with careful respect for diplomatic niceties. After touching down at Fairbanks, Alaska, and Tokyo, Air Force One flew southwest toward Shanghai and then north to Peking, to avoid offending the Chinese by flying over South Korea. At the airport the reception for America's Fu-t'eh Tsungtun (Chinese for President Ford) was warm and less tense than the one extended to Richard Nixon in 1972.

Stark Reality. At the welcoming banquet in the Great Hall of the People, the atmosphere turned briefly ominous. Teng in his toast sternly warned the Americans against being roundheeled with the Soviets on detente, which the Chinese regard as naive and a self-defeating attempt to appease imperialist Moscow. Mystifying the Americans, Teng summed up Peking's world outlook with a Maoist aphorism: "Our basic view is, there is great disorder under heaven, and the situation is excellent." Less inscrutably, he added: "Rhetoric about detente cannot cover up the stark reality of the growing danger of war." Ford sat impassively through the diatribe, though he later reaffirmed the U.S. commitment to detente.

Beginning the next day, Ford and Kissinger spent about two hours each morning conferring with Teng and close aides. Teng and Kissinger, who dislike each other, refrained from acrimonious exchanges. Kissinger once called Teng a "nasty little man," while Teng sometimes addresses the Secretary of State as "your doctor of philosophy," a veiled insult in a country where academicians are held in low esteem. The conversations were a tour of world problems. Equally broad discussions took place with Mao. The President and his party found the Chairman surprisingly vigorous at 81 despite recent ailments.

Afternoons, Ford took in the sights: the Summer Palace, the Temple of Heaven and the Agricultural Exhibition Hall. Daughter Susan photographed the Great Wall; Wife Betty joined student ballerinas at the Central May 7 Art College and performed a folk-type dance.

Serious Smog. American reporters who had accompanied both Nixon and Ford to Peking were struck by the city's rapid modernization. Reported TIME'S Hong Kong bureau chief Roy Rowan: "Trucks, automobiles and buses were previously a rarity but now rumble incessantly down the streets, contributing to the city's serious smog problem. Apartments of up to 15 stories are rising. All 580 rooms of the new 17-story Peking Hotel are equipped with electric motors that open or close the window curtains at the push of a bedside button. Blue-and-white motorized street sweepers have replaced the women's broom brigades. Red-and-gold Mao buttons have disappeared from tunics, and there are fewer billboards emblazoned with exhortations."

The frenetic trip exhausted most members of the U.S. party, including Ford, who rarely showed any enthusiasm. With eyes occasionally glazed and attention wandering, he sometimes made meaningless remarks. One evening he turned to Foreign Minister

Chiao Kuan-hua and said: "It's nice to see you. I've been with you all day."

The schedule permitted no rest stops. On Friday he flew to Jakarta, where he conferred with President Suharto. Next day he went to Manila for talks with Philippine President Ferdinand Marcos. Ford was to return on Dec. 8 to Washington and all the problems he had left behind. Chief among them was the threat of Republican Challenger Ronald Reagan, which was supposed to have been reduced by the demonstration of Ford as a world leader. Instead, though there may have been some gains in personal enrichment, the diplomatic emptiness of the trip suggested Ford might have accomplished more by staying in Washington than by taking a showboat to China.

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