Deng Xiaoping and the Transformation of China (62 page)

The next day, December 14, Woodcock and Deng were supposed to meet at 4 p.m., but instructions from Washington had not yet arrived. The small Washington team, already overwhelmed, was trying to adjust to Carter's decision to speed up the announcement of normalization to the very next day, December 15, Washington time. As the level of activity at the White House had picked up in the rush to complete all the details by January 1, other officials had become suspicious that something was going on, so Carter, hoping to head off a leak and a resulting Congressional flare-up that could derail the process, had decided to push ahead and announce normalization on December 15 instead of January 1. The formal communiqué would then be released when relations were normalized on January 1. The small team in Washington that was working secretly on these negotiations—attempting to reach a consensus among the key players, writing draft documents, planning strategies for dealing with Congress, and considering the variety of adjustments needed for commercial, military, and academic activities—was pushed to the breaking point to make this accelerated deadline. State Department China specialist Roger Sullivan, at the invitation of the White House, reported sick at the State Department for three days while he joined the frantic secret effort at the White House to help churn out all the required documents.

The U.S. team in Beijing was working at a similarly frantic pace. Three decades later when the American embassy in Beijing moved into a new building, it had a staff of over a thousand, but in 1978 there were only thirty-three Americans working in the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing, and among them only a handful were dealing with the highly secret preparations.
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In addition, like the Washington team, they had expected to have until January 1 to complete all the negotiations and paperwork for normalization; it would take a herculean effort to get things in order for the new December 15 deadline.

When Deng and Woodcock met at 4 p.m. on December 14, Beijing time, in the absence of instructions from Washington, they focused not on substance but only on the scheduling of normalization and on Deng's forthcoming visit to the United States. Deng accepted the U.S. request to speed up the announcement on normalization, and he agreed to begin his visit on January 28, which was one of the few dates convenient for the U.S. side. The two men then adjourned, agreeing to meet later that evening when Woodcock expected to have the instructions from Washington at last.
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At the 9 p.m. meeting Deng and Woodcock discussed a series of minor changes in the wording for the joint communiqué and reached agreement fairly quickly, with an understanding that Zhang Wenjin and Stapleton Roy would together go over the wording to ensure that the Chinese and English texts were both correct and compatible. Washington had accepted Woodcock's suggestion that they accept China's request for an anti-hegemony clause, since it had already been included in the Shanghai Communiqué. The atmosphere at the meeting reflected the belief on both sides that they had reached an agreement. In his report of the meeting to Washington, Woodcock wrote: “Deng was clearly elated by the outcome of our session, called this a most important matter, and asked that his personal thanks be conveyed to the president, Secretary Vance, and Dr. Brzezinski.” Woodcock reported to Washington that the meeting “went extremely well.”
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Meanwhile, in a conversation with the Chinese Liaison Office in Washington, Brzezinski was surprised to hear that Ambassador Chai Zemin still thought the United States had agreed to cancel all military sales to Taiwan—and feared that Beijing might still misunderstand Washington's determination to continue to sell arms to Taiwan.
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The United States had agreed to Deng's request not to make new arms sales during 1979, but it intended to resume sales thereafter. As Carter, Brzezinski, and Oksenberg began to focus on how they would present the normalization agreement to Congress, they worried that Congress would fix its attention immediately on the issue of military sales to Taiwan. If Beijing still thought there would be no further military sales, when sales were announced it could set back U.S.-China relations just as they were ready to be normalized.

The stakes were high: a misunderstanding on this point, on Deng's stated unshakable “principle,” could derail relations between the two countries at a critical moment. Brzezinski therefore wired Woodcock to ask if he was certain that Beijing understood that military sales would continue. Woodcock and Roy immediately prepared a cable saying that each side had put its position on arms sales clearly on the record.
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Woodcock replied to Brzezinski
that they had previously told their Chinese counterparts: “Normalization will not preclude the American people from maintaining all the commercial, cultural, and other unofficial relations with the people of Taiwan which I described to Acting Foreign Minister Han on December 4.” He also wrote that Acting Foreign Minister Han did raise “emphatic objection to arms sales after normalization.” Upon receiving Woodcock's message, President Carter and Brzezinski believed there was still doubt as to whether Deng clearly understood that the United States would continue selling arms after 1979. Brzezinski therefore wired Woodcock to hold another meeting with Deng to make it absolutely clear that if Congress raised questions about arms sales to Taiwan, it would be politically impossible to answer that the United States would not resume arms sales after 1979. The United States, however, would try to sell arms in moderation.
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Deng agreed to Woodcock's urgent request to meet again. When they met, at 4 p.m. on December 15, Beijing time, Woodcock thanked Deng for his willingness to meet on such short notice. He explained that in the spirit of total frankness, President Carter “wants to be absolutely sure that there is no misunderstanding.” He then read the statement sent from the White House that explained that politics in the United States required that arms sales to Taiwan would continue. Deng, furious but controlled, said that was totally unacceptable and he raged for ten minutes. Then he bellowed, “Why has this question of the sale of arms been raised again?” Woodcock explained that they did not want the president to say something in his announcement that would surprise the Chinese. Deng continued, “Does that mean that the President, in answering questions from correspondents, will say that after January 1, 1980 the United States will continue to sell arms to Taiwan?” Woodcock answered, “We will continue to keep alive that possibility, yes.” Deng said, “If that is the case, we cannot agree to it because this actually would prevent China from taking any rational formula to have a dialogue with Taiwan to solve the problem of unification of the country.” Deng explained that Chiang Ching-kuo could be extremely cocky. “A peaceful solution of the Taiwan issue would be impossible and the last alternative would be the use of force.”
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At this point in the discussion, Woodcock assured Deng that the United States would approach the problem with utmost caution. Deng countered that the Chinese side had made it clear that China would not accept continued arms sales to Taiwan and that he had raised the issue the previous day. Woodcock took responsibility, saying that perhaps he had misunderstood. Deng became so upset that Woodcock and Roy had serious doubts as to whether Deng would agree to proceed with normalization.

After almost an hour of discussion and his torrent of objections, Deng said that the problem of Taiwan was the one problem remaining unresolved: “What shall we do about it?” Woodcock responded that he thought that after normalization, with the passage of time, the American people would accept that Taiwan was part of China and they would support unification—which at the time, many American officials as well as Chinese officials expected would occur within several years. The important first task, Woodcock said, was to accomplish normalization. Deng then replied, “hao” (okay). With that word, the impasse was overcome.

As the meeting was ending, Deng cautioned that if President Carter called public attention to U.S. arms sales to Taiwan, the Chinese side would have to respond, and that any public quarrel over the issue would reduce the significance of normalization. Woodcock reassured Deng that the U.S. government would do everything possible to make the world realize that normalization was as significant as the two sides believed it to be. Deng then remarked, “OK. So we'll issue the documents as planned.” With no consultation with any other Chinese officials, the decision on normalization was finalized.

There is no available record of Deng's personal calculations in making one of the most critical decisions in his life—the decision to normalize relations with the United States despite continued U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. Why did he agree to a decision he knew would thwart one of his most cherished goals, the reunification of Taiwan with the mainland during his lifetime? At the time, Deng was just emerging as the first leader among equals, and it is possible that he calculated that achieving normalization would strengthen his personal position among the Chinese leadership. Perhaps more important, Deng also knew that normalization of relations with the United States would make it far easier for China to have access to the knowledge, capital, and technology that China needed in its drive for modernization. A few weeks earlier Brzezinski had informed Chai Zemin that American politics provided a brief window of opportunity and that if they did not move quickly, the next chance would come at the end of 1979. So many years had gone by as new obstacles to normalization kept cropping up. Deng saw a good opportunity and he took it.

Another consideration high on Deng's concerns at the time was the increasing military threat from the Soviet Union to China's south. At the time, he believed there was a very real risk that the Soviet Union would advance into Vietnam and move on through Thailand and Malaysia to the Straits of Malacca. Deng believed that showing the face of Sino-American cooperation
would make the Soviet Union more cautious. It would reduce the risk that the Soviet Union would respond to China's impending attack on Vietnam. Deng also knew that Brezhnev hoped to visit Washington before he did and that reaching an agreement with Woodcock would likely enable his visit to preempt Brezhnev's. Deng made a calculated decision because he did not have enough leverage to make the United States both normalize relations with China and stop arms sales to Taiwan. If he wanted normalization, he had to pay the high price of yielding on U.S. arms sales to Taiwan. He did not give up his goal of reuniting Taiwan with the mainland. After normalization he would use every opportunity to pressure Washington to reduce such sales.

The announcement of the accord was made simultaneously in Beijing and Washington. At 10 a.m. Beijing time on the morning of December 16 (and 9 p.m. in Washington the night of December 15), both sides released this joint communiqué: “The United States of America and the People's Republic of China have agreed to recognize each other and establish diplomatic relations as from January 1, 1979.” President Carter made the announcement to the American public. In China, Hua Guofeng, who was still officially the top leader, held a press conference to announce the decision. When the news was broadcast in Beijing, the mood among the public as well as in party inner circles was jubilant.

The people in Taiwan, where Chiang Ching-kuo was awakened in the middle of the night to be told of the impending announcement, were as upset as the people in Beijing were euphoric. Taiwanese officials and their friends in the U.S. Congress were outraged, and other conservatives joined in criticizing U.S. officials ready to cooperate with “Communist enemies.” But the image of two great nations with very different cultures extending the hand of friendship to create a peaceful world had appealed to the Americans and Chinese alike. As President Carter himself reported, “The serious opposition we had expected throughout our country and within Congress simply did not materialize. . . . The worldwide reaction was remarkably positive.”
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Deng Visits the United States, January 28–February 5, 1979

Six weeks later, Deng—with his wife, Zhuo Lin; Woodcock and his wife, Sharon; and Deng's staff—boarded a Boeing 707 for the United States. Fellow passengers report that during the long flight, Deng spent most of his
time alert and sober, not reading, not talking, but deep in thought. On some level, Deng must have felt overjoyed—he had not only successfully established formal relations with the United States, but also, on a more personal level, had returned triumphantly from a third purge to become the preeminent leader of China, and was about to become the first Chinese Communist leader to be a state guest of the United States.

Yet Deng's responsibility was heavy and his visit extremely important. Before he met a foreign guest, he would take a few minutes to order his thoughts about what he would say. Now he had to think about what he would say to many people. He would deliver some prepared speeches, but many of his talks would be improvised, without even notes. Moreover, he had already determined that China would attack Vietnam, and there was a danger the Soviets might in turn attack China. How could he secure U.S. cooperation against the Soviets without annoying President Carter, who was working toward an agreement with the USSR? What would he say to Carter about Vietnam? How could he be most effective in establishing good relations with the president, the Congress, and the American public so as to promote China's modernization? On January 9 he had told a visiting delegation led by Senator Sam Nunn that he would not discuss civil rights in the United States; he said he had some opinions critical of the way the United States exerts pressure about human rights, but he would not raise them.
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How would he respond if there were pro-Taiwan demonstrators? How would he respond to Western TV anchormen? What would he say to the thirty-three Chinese reporters who were accompanying him and each day would be sending home news releases and TV reports for his Chinese audience? How could he keep up the pressure on the United States to reduce arms sales to Taiwan without antagonizing U.S. officials?