Chas Freeman on Mao, the next Kissinger and why now is not like the Cold War

Former Nixon interpreter says with strategic vision and diplomacy, US and China could have ties ‘grounded in equality and mutual benefit’

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By Shi Jiangtao

This interview was published by the South China Morning Post on August 26, 2024.

In this latest interview in the Open Questions series, Charles “Chas” Freeman assesses the history of China-US relations and where they might go from here amid their “adversarial antagonism” stage and as the US presidential election looms. Freeman interpreted for then-president Richard Nixon during his historic 1972 Beijing trip to meet Mao Zedong. He has served in the US Foreign Service and state and defence departments and was US ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the 1991 Gulf war. This interview was first published in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here.

How would you compare and rank the incumbent and past US presidents and their handling of China since president Richard Nixon? What’s your impression of Chinese leaders from Mao Zedong, Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping to Xi Jinping?

Nixon was a devious and manipulative politician who became a statesman with a sophisticated understanding of geopolitics. His opening to China reflected that evolution. More recent presidents are ideologically unsympathetic to China, uncomprehending of the developing global order, and in denial about the rapid retreat of US global influence.

I never met Mao Zedong. (Nixon did not take anyone from the Department of State to his meeting with the chairman on February 21, 1972.) Mao Zedong had a force and energy which none but men of equally great spiritual conviction could withstand. His animal appetites, we now know, matched his intellectual vigour. He was an object of adulation to his subjects and of mingled admiration and dread to his subordinates and intimates. While Mao lived, the brilliance of his personality illuminated the farthest corners of his country and inspired many would-be revolutionaries and romantics beyond it.

Chas Freeman interpreted for Richard Nixon during the then-US president’s historic 1972 Beijing trip to meet Mao Zedong. Photo: Brown University, Watson Institute for International & Public Affairs

Few indeed loved chairman Mao’s style of governance, but all but a few of those who despised it most loved the People’s Republic he had founded more, and hated him less than they feared him.

Had he been less insistent on grand and impractical visions, his ideas would not have convulsed his country as desperately as they did, nor would they have been as thoroughly discredited. Had he not driven his country mad with attempts at sudden, violent change, China would not, however, be as devoted to domestic tranquillity as it now is, nor would it have so easily accepted the international order it once rejected but in which it now prospers.

Had Mao died earlier, his ideas might have fared better in the new China. He would certainly be seen by history as a greater man.

As it is, Mao is likely to be remembered as a great military strategist and a good poet who was a failure in the crafting of a sustainable order in the country he sought to liberate from its past as well as from its foreign and domestic oppressors. Had he succeeded in his multiple attempts to eliminate Deng Xiaoping’s political influence, the world might still worry about the consequences of China’s backwardness and disgruntlement about the international status quo, not its rapid advance as a leading participant in the quintessentially capitalist process of globalisation.

But Mao did not succeed in doing in Deng, and China and the world are greatly the better for that.

US president Richard Nixon dines with Chinese premier Zhou Enlai (left) and Shanghai Communist Party leader Zhang Chunqiao on February 27, 1972. Photo: Getty Images

Zhou Enlai was a brilliant diplomat whose graceful manners and tact concealed his ruthless realism. I had many interactions with him and agree with the late Dag Hammarskjold that he epitomised the most refined aspects of Chinese civilisation. Zhou was a great man, not least because he was willing to satisfy himself with the role of a faithful counsellor and servant of Mao Zedong and new China, while softening its harshest tendencies with compassion for the Chinese people and loyalty to his subordinates.

Mao Zedong, like [first emperor of China] Qin Shi Huang, both conquered and transformed China. But the current Chinese system only partly retains the political-economic model for society that he favoured. The real creator of modern China was Deng Xiaoping. He is likely to go down in history as the equivalent of [Han dynasty emperor] Liu Bang, the man who built on his predecessor’s politico-military achievements to create a successful Chinese political economy and world order. Deng’s embrace of eclectic modernisation is the basis of China’s return to wealth and power.

Xi Jinping has inherited a modernised, powerful China as well as the traditions of both Mao and Deng. These are solid foundations on which to build and surmount the challenges currently facing the country, the region and the world.

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You said US-China ties had moved from healthy competition in the past to the era of hostile, “very unhealthy competition”. With US-China ties trapped in a downward spiral and hardening public perceptions towards the other in both countries, are you concerned that a new cold war is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy, with the US and its allies – such as Europe, Japan, South Korea – on one side and China, Russia, Iran and North Korea on the other? How far away are we from the disastrous enmity stage that you described?

Competition can take at least three forms. Rivalry is healthy because it stimulates those engaged in it to improve their own performance so as to be able to outdo each other. Enmity envisages the annihilation of an opponent and is very dangerous, especially in the nuclear era. In between these two extremes is adversarial antagonism, in which competition relies less on self-improvement than on hamstringing an adversary – inhibiting or reversing its progress rather than progressing oneself. The United States and China are now in the intermediate stage of adversarial antagonism.

But I do not agree that the world can be divided in the way your question posits. China, Iran and Russia have little in common other than opposition to the threats they perceive from the United States and their commitment to a world order based on the principles of the United Nations Charter and the rule of international law rather than US hegemony. China is a world power. Russia is a great power. Iran is a regional power. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is a masterless outlaw in world affairs. American and British portrayal of these four countries as some sort of “axis” ignores the many differences between them.

It is noteworthy that, with the exception of those long aligned with the United States, the world’s countries almost all refuse to choose between America, China or Russia. Countries like Turkey and Saudi Arabia that once cleaved to the United States no longer do so. Nato is far from unanimous in its views of world or even European affairs. Many countries are hedging against possible abandonment by their former American protector. Few nations have chosen to align themselves with Iran and none rely on North Korea.

This is an era in which middle-ranking powers have no overlords, insist on their right to chart their own course, and reject subjugation by great powers. It is nothing at all like the Cold War.

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As a veteran China hand, you have been fairly critical of American diplomacy towards China in the past decade. To what extent do you think decision makers in Washington should be blamed for the deterioration of US-China ties?

Neither country is without blame. Both have made mistakes. The invective that [former] secretary of state [Mike] Pompeo directed at China was matched by Chinese Wolf Warrior diplomacy, which was equally repellent and counterproductive. But the trade and technology wars were launched by the United States, not China, and it was the United States, not China, that crippled the World Trade Organization and insisted that dubious national security considerations replace comparative advantage and economic factors in governing international trade.

China continues to negotiate market opening with other countries. The United States has embraced protectionism and stopped doing so. American policy towards China now consists largely of sanctions intended to cripple Chinese exports and technological progress.

Chinese scholar Yang Jiemian said last year that a self-centred, “narcissistic” US historical view was at the heart of Washington’s turn towards an increasingly confrontational China approach because the US wanted to maintain its hegemony, or at least delay its own decline, a view largely in line with that of the Chinese government. Do you agree?

I have great respect for Dr Yang and am sorry to say that I largely agree with his analysis. Empathy is the basis for successful diplomacy and the current American government is foreign to it.

You said in the past that the US should reduce weapon sales to Taiwan to pressure Taiwan into negotiations with Beijing, and “Taiwan is an established American foreign policy success story that appears to be nearing the end of its shelf life”. Last year, you said the US had wasted opportunities created in 1972 for a peaceful accommodation between Taiwan and the mainland, while urging Washington to use its influence to push Taiwan to accept a negotiated settlement with Beijing. Could you explain your rationale behind those policy recommendations?

The Taiwan issue is the legacy of the Chinese civil war, the Korean conflict and the Cold War. It did not begin with the US opening to China in 1971-72. But the Shanghai Communiqué and the two later joint communiqués were premised on “a peaceful settlement of the Taiwan question by the Chinese themselves”. The United States has accepted every agreement the two sides of the strait have made but they have not settled their differences. In my view, it would serve the interests of the United States as well as the China mainland and Taiwan for them to do so but US policies, pronouncements and actions have instead served to bolster resistance to cross-strait rapprochement.

Some in Washington now justify their opposition to the unification of China on dubious strategic grounds. Instead of stepping back to let the Chinese parties address their differences though political dialogue, the US has acted to stiffen Taiwan’s resistance to this. The issue is now regarded by most Americans as purely military and treated as such by the authorities in Taipei. I think this is a mistake that is likely to end in tragedy for all concerned but see no prospect of it changing in the near future.

Chinese President Xi Jinping and US President Joe Biden at the G20 summit in Bali in November 2022. Photo: AFP

How will the 2024 US presidential election affect Sino-US ties and Taiwan’s future? You said the transition between the November election and the inauguration in January could be the most dangerous period as countries, including China, may find it “tempting” to challenge the US if it turns chaotic again. What do you suggest the US and China should do to avoid such a scenario?

The United States is in the midst of a mounting constitutional crisis that will come to a head with the November 5 elections and the transition to the January 20 inauguration of the next president. Those in Beijing who have come to believe that there is no longer a viable path to peaceful reunification and that the only feasible way to end the division of China is to resort to force might see this period of confusion in Washington as an opportune moment to do so. This would, in my view, be a tragic mistake. The civilian government in Washington may disintegrate at the end of this year, but the US Armed Forces will not, and the American people would not fail to direct their anger at China were they to regard it as responsible for a war over Taiwan.

Beijing admits it is facing the most challenging external environment due to the feud with the US-led West and rising tensions over the South China Sea, Taiwan, Hong Kong and other geopolitical hotspots such as Ukraine. Do you have any advice for the Chinese government on how to fix its image problem, settle the territorial disputes with its neighbours and “tell China stories well to the world”?

China can no longer maintain a low profile, as Deng Xiaoping urged. Nor can it avoid taking a leadership position on occasion. But it can and should recognise that, as a great power, its statements and actions can evoke fear as well as admiration by other countries, including its neighbours. That is why “observe calmly, secure the Chinese position, and cope with affairs calmly” remains good advice. If China is seen to be overbearing, it will cause other countries to organise themselves against it.

In another context, the late Saudi Arabian king Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz offered relevant counsel: “If you want to be loved, do something lovable.” China’s reputation was burnished by its successful mediation of rapprochement between his country and Iran. China advocates the resolution of international disputes through diplomatic dialogue. It would benefit by making well-prepared proposals for the resolution of its own disputes with Southeast Asian countries.

As probably one of the last “panda huggers”, you have worked tirelessly to promote engagement with China. But with the marginalisation of China-friendly, pro-engagement experts in the US, do you think there will ever be a “next Kissinger” between China and the US, who enjoys political influence in both countries and is willing to serve as Beijing’s backchannel to the White House?

I have many Chinese friends and I am an admirer of Chinese culture, but I do not argue for better US-China relations to benefit China but to serve the interests of my own country. Great Britain handled the loss of its global hegemony to the United States gracefully, yielding privileges it could no longer sustain while ensuring that the transition was as much to its advantage as possible.

I believe that there is no reason for China and America to be antagonists and that, with strategic vision and skilled diplomacy, we too could manage a peaceful transition to a relationship grounded in equality and mutual benefit. I see the alternatives as dire, including a possible trans-Pacific war that could devastate both countries, while destroying Taiwan’s hard-won democracy and prosperity. It is a shame that advocacy of an approach that would leverage rising Chinese wealth and power to the benefit of the United States should be derided as “panda hugging”. It is not.

It is important to recognise that Henry Kissinger began as someone not just ignorant of China but, like many Europeans of his age, contemptuous of it and opposed to it. It took a direct encounter with China to transform him into an admirer of Chinese statecraft and a respected adviser on the management of Sino-American relations. The circumstances made the man. Future circumstances may yet restore respectful cooperation between the Chinese and American political elites as both recognise the many ways in which both countries could gain from that.

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Ambassador Freeman, even your critics have spoken highly of your “exceptional intelligence” and “superb language skill”. But you have also paid a high price for your contrarian views on topics, mostly concerning China and Israel, which may have cost you some great career opportunities, including the chair of the National Intelligence Council nearly 15 years ago. Do you have any regrets?

I did not enjoy the political mugging the Israel lobby administered to me. On the Israel-Palestine issue, I have long been in the position of someone denying the car keys to a drunk, trying to avoid the enablement of self-destructive Israeli behaviour. Such behaviour is now a blatant global scandal that has made Israel a pariah state. America’s continued enablement of this behaviour has done enormous damage to my own country’s prestige.

When I was appointed to the National Intelligence Council (NIC), I was accused by my detractors of being a “realist”. I describe things as I see them rather than as our political elite or influential interest groups would like them to be, and I have a long record of declining to tell the powerful what they would like to hear. I could not do for the NIC and the US intelligence community what I was recruited to do. I could not hope to improve the credibility or efficacy of US intelligence analysis while under constant attack from the Israel lobby or anti-China ideologues. I had not sought the position I was offered, was very reluctant to take it, and did so only when I was told my country demanded my return to public service. I would not have lasted long in the position. In my view, the Israel lobby did me an inadvertent favour by convincing me to withdraw my acceptance of it.

As the former ambassador to Saudi Arabia and a long-time Israel critic, you have been critical of the powerful Israel lobby in the US and US policy towards Israel, which you said “had embraced Israel’s enemies as our own”, resulting in Arabs “equating Americans with Israeli as their enemies”. You once said Israel was holding US foreign policy hostage due to its “anti-Iran paranoia” and said Israel was carrying out “a mass lynching” in Gaza, “in utter disregard of international law and in a completely inhumane fashion”, and that the only thing Israel had done for the US was “get us into trouble”. Your views have been criticised by many as not balanced and biased against Israel. What’s your response to the criticism?

I began, like most Americans, as an admirer of what I had been led to believe Israel was. It took subsequent direct experience of its racism, belligerence and inhumanity to its captive Arab population to alter my favourable opinion of Zionism. I believed in “the right of Israel to exist” until I realised that this meant no one else had the right to exist between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean. Israel’s strategy of ethnic cleansing has now extended to genocide in Gaza. I would object to that even if my own country were not funding it and excusing it, which it is. It is inexcusable.

What advice would you give to scholars of US-China ties and tomorrow’s diplomats? China’s leading US specialist Wang Jisi warned that American studies in China were “too weak” compared to Chinese studies in the US, which may have negatively affected China’s decision making vis-à-vis the US. What do you think should be done to address this problem?

When I joined the US Foreign Service it was in part because I foresaw the correction of the irrational geopolitical geometry of the 1960s by a US opening to China and wanted to be part of that drama, if only as a spear carrier on the stage.

The older generation of Chinese-language officers had been persecuted by demagogues in the US Congress and intimidated by Cold Warriors in the Department of State. Ever more of them had never lived among Chinese and had mediocre language skills. I fear that, in the current atmosphere, we are likely to regress to a similar situation, in which the China of our nightmares replaces the China of the real world and in which our academics, think tank researchers, and government specialists on China are fearful of challenging the conventional ignorance of our political class.

Wang Jisi is right to be concerned. The millions of Chinese who have studied in the United States may not have a perfect understanding of my sometimes-inscrutable country, but they have a far better-informed view than the mere thousands of Americans who have studied in China have of China. I do not agree with Secretary of State [Antony] Blinken about very much, but he is right to call out the danger that American views of China will become ever less grounded as there are fewer Americans on the ground among Chinese. The aggressive actions of the security services in both countries are the major deterrent to mutual exchanges of students. They badly need to be reined in.