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Statesmanship and Scholarship

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 July 2011

Tang Tsou
Affiliation:
University of Chicago
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Extract

“[Policy] is like a play in many acts which unfolds inevitably once the curtain is raised. To declare then that the performance will not take place is an absurdity. The play will go on, either by means of the actors... or by means of the spectators who mount the stage.... Intelligent people never consider this the essence of the problem, however. For them it lies in the decision whether the curtain is to be raised at all, whether the spectators are to be assembled, and in the intrinsic quality of the play….” With these words of Metternich, Dr. Henry A. Kissinger begins the chapter on the definition of the political equilibrium in his book on problems of peace in Europe between 1812–1822.

Type
Review Articles
Copyright
Copyright © Trustees of Princeton University 1974

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References

1 Kissinger, Henry A., A World Restored (Boston 1957), 41Google Scholar.

2 New York Times, August 10, 1971.

3 Barnett, A. Doak, Communist China and Asia (New York 1960), 472–75Google Scholar.

4 Hunter, Robert and Davis, Forest, The Red China Lobby (New York 1963), 172–78Google Scholar.

5 Hinton later makes it clear that he also wants the United States to discourage the Japanese from becoming a nuclear power (p. 148).

* This suggested settlement might become one of the many possible outcomes in the future but had no relevance for policy at that time.

6 New York Times, July 17, 1971.

7 This is what is commonly known as the concept of ‘linkage.’ With regard to Southeast Asia, Whiting expresses his belief that there are no independent viable societies and governments in the near future. He asserts: “If we say we want all these situations [of political instability] to exist widiout any Chinese interference, then let us forget it. Obviously, the Chinese are going to influence and interfere as the Russians influence and interfere in the Middle East . . . and as Americans do in Latin America” (Taiwan and American Policy, 140).

8 Whiting, Allen S., China Crosses the Yalu (New York 1960), 45Google Scholar. For an excellent reappraisal of Chinese intentions and the American policy of containment, see Mozingo, David P., “Containment in Asia Reconsidered,” World Politics, XIX (April 1967), 361–77CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

9 Hinton, Harold, Communist China in World Affairs (Boston 1966), 207Google Scholar.

10 Hinton, Harold, Chinas Turbulent Quest (New York 1970), 4143Google Scholar.

11 In his historical introduction, Maxwell reaffirms the generally known fact that no Chinese Government has ever accepted the McMahon Line, and that the sector between Afghanistan and Nepal remained undetermined.

12 In a memorandum dictated by Nehru and circulated to the ministries concerned, Nehru wrote that this whole frontier “should be considered a firm and definite one which is not open to discussion with anyone” (Maxwell, 80).

13 Maxwell is not totally uncritical of some aspects of China's diplomacy. In retrospect, he feels that if in his meeting with Nehru in 1956, Chou En-lai had brought up the Chinese claim to Aksai Chin in the context of his concession on the McMahon Line, “it was highly probable that this dispute would have been avoided” (pp. 94, 95). He notes that Chou's letter of September 6, 1959, to Nehru misled the Indian Government into considering it as a repudiation of the McMahon Line and “a barely veiled claim for the whole of NEFA [the North-East Frontier Agency] north of Brahmaputra . . .” (pp. 124, 125). He also criticizes the statement issued by China's Defense Ministry on October 20, 1962 (which accused the Indian troops of launching large-scale attacks) as “sacrificing truth for propaganda advantage” (pp. 371, 372).

14 Tse-tung, Mao, “Current Problems of Tactics in the Anti-Japanese United Front,” March II, 1940, Selected Works (Peking 1965), II, 426–27Google Scholar.

15 Tretiak, Daniel, “China's Relations with Latin America: Revolutionary Theory in a Distant Milieu” in Cohen, Jerome, ed., The Dynamics of China's Foreign Relations (Cambridge, Mass. 1970), 88105CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

16 Tucker, Robert C., “The Deradicalization of Marxist Movements,” American Political Science Review, LXI (June 1967), 343–58CrossRefGoogle Scholar.

17 Tang Tsou, “Comments on Tucker's ‘The Deradicalization of Marxist Movements,’” paper read at the Annual Convention of the American Political Science Association, September 1966; subsequently published as “Communication to the Editors,” American Political Science Review, LXII (December 1967), 1101–03.