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Opinion | Hope for US-China relations as behind-the-scenes diplomacy makes a comeback
- Former US secretary of state Henry Kissinger was known for working behind the scenes in the interest of peace
- High-level talks in Vienna, backchannel meetings in China and nuanced, restrained actions around Taiwan suggest greater understanding between Washington and Beijing is not impossible
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Henry Kissinger turns 100 on May 27. In the eyes of some, the former US national security adviser and secretary of state epitomises behind-the-scenes diplomacy with his ice-breaking trips to China, shuttle diplomacy missions in the Middle East and detente manoeuvres with the former Soviet Union in the 1970s.
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The way I see it, what he has pursued all his life is more important than ever. We are in a time when, in the words of US Joint Chiefs of Staff General Mark Milley, “all of us should recommit ourselves to preventing such a [World War II-like] horrific catastrophe, and try to resolve differences in means other than the use of the levels of violence that come with great-power war”.
To prevent such a war from erupting again, we need hard-headed diplomacy, not public shouting matches. We need difficult issues to be subject to more to honest, behind-the-scenes discussions with less “megaphone diplomacy”, to quote Brian Davidson, Britain’s consul-general to Hong Kong and Macau, who spoke to the Post earlier this month about Britain’s relations with China and his hope of seeing a new chapter in ties with Hong Kong.
The need for behind-the-scenes exchanges was illustrated when Cui Tiankai – China’s longest-serving ambassador to the United States until his retirement in 2021 – spoke at an online seminar held to celebrate Kissinger’s 99th birthday a year ago. Foreign Minister Wang Yi also gave a speech at the event where attendees included Robert Zoellick, who in 2005 urged China to become a “responsible stakeholder” during his time as US deputy secretary of state.
Cui said he was “worried about the quality of communications between us”. “Sometimes, it’s too much for political show … rather than for substantive policy exchanges,” he said, adding that the US and China needed to “sit down and have real discussions” including face-to-face talks, not just online.
Ever since his PhD dissertation “A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh and the Problems of Peace 1812–22”, devoted to exploring how 100 years of peace was secured for 19th-century Europe after the Napoleonic Wars, Kissinger has lived for about 70 years with an obsession over the balance of power in contemporary international relations, given the forbidding deterrent of nuclear weaponry.
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