This is an edited transcript of a discussion between Henry Kissinger, former US Secretary of State and National Security Advisor, and Edward Luce, US National Editor of the Financial Times, which took place on May 7 in Washington.
Financial Times: Earlier this year, we commemorated the 50th anniversary of Nixon’s visit to China, the Shanghai Communiqué. You were of course the organizer, the orchestrator of this Sino-American agreement. And that was a major change in the Cold War: you separated China from Russia. It feels like a 180 degree turn. And now Russia and China are back in a very close relationship. My first question for you is: are we in a new cold war with China?
Henry Kissinger: At the time we opened up to China, Russia was the main enemy – but our relationship with China was about as bad as it could get. Our view, opening up to China, was that it was not wise, when you have two enemies, to treat them exactly the same.
What produced the opening were self-developing tensions between Russia and China. [Former Soviet Union head of state Leonid] Brezhnev could not conceive that China and the United States could unite. But Mao, for all his ideological hostility, was ready to start conversations.
In principle, the [Sino-Russian] the alliance is against vested interests, it is now established. But it doesn’t seem to me to be an inherently permanent relationship.
FT: I suppose it would be in America’s geopolitical interest to encourage greater distance between Russia and China. Is it wrong?
Hong Kong: The world geopolitical situation will undergo significant changes after the end of the war in Ukraine. And it is unnatural for China and Russia to have identical interests on all foreseeable issues. I don’t think we can generate possible disagreements, but I think circumstances will. After the war in Ukraine, Russia will have to reassess at least its relations with Europe and its general attitude towards NATO. I think it is not a good idea to take a contradictory position vis-à-vis two adversaries in a way that brings them closer together, and once we have integrated this principle into our relations with Europe and into our internal discussions, I think history will provide opportunities in which we can apply the differential approach.
This does not mean that either will become close friends with the West, it only means that on specific issues as they arise, we leave open the possibility of having a different approach. In the period ahead of us, we should not confuse Russia and China as an integral element.
FT: The Biden administration defines its grand geopolitical challenge as democracy versus autocracy. I pick up an implicit clue that it’s the wrong frame?
Hong Kong: We must be aware of the differences in ideology and interpretation that exist. We should use this awareness to apply it in our own analysis of the importance of issues as they arise, rather than making them the main issue for confrontation, unless we are ready to make a change. regime the main objective of our policy. I think that given the evolution of technology and the enormous destructive power of the weapons that exist now, [seeking regime change] can be imposed on us by the hostility of others, but we must avoid generating it with our own attitudes.
FT: You probably have more experience than anyone on how to handle a confrontation between two nuclear-armed superpowers. But today’s nuclear language, which comes en masse and rapidly from [Russian president Vladimir] Putin, people around him, where do you place that in terms of the threat we face today?
Hong Kong: We are now [faced with] with technologies where the speed of exchanges, the subtlety of inventions, can produce levels of catastrophe that were not even imaginable. And the strange aspect of the current situation is that the weapons are multiplying on both sides and their sophistication is increasing every year.
But there is almost no international discussion of what would happen if the weapons were actually used. My call in general, whichever side you are on, is to understand that we now live in a totally new era, and we got away with it by neglecting this aspect. But as technology spreads around the world, as it does by nature, diplomacy and warfare will need different content and that will be a challenge.
FT: You have met Putin 20 to 25 times. Russian military nuclear doctrine is that they will respond with nuclear weapons if they believe the regime is under an existential threat. Where do you think Putin’s red line is in this situation?
Hong Kong: I met Putin as a student of international affairs about once a year for a period of about 15 years for purely academic strategic discussions. I thought his core beliefs were some kind of mystical faith in Russian history. . . and that he felt offended, in that sense, not by anything special that we did in the beginning, but by this huge gap that opened up with Europe and the East. He was offended and threatened because Russia was threatened by the absorption of this whole area into NATO. This does not excuse and I would not have predicted an attack of the magnitude of a takeover of a recognized country.
I think he miscalculated the situation he was facing internationally and he obviously miscalculated Russia’s capabilities to support such an important undertaking – and when the time for settlement comes, all will have to take that into consideration, that we are not going back to the previous relationship but to a position for Russia that will be different because of that – and not because we demand it, but because they produced it.
FT: Do you think Putin is getting good information and if not, what other miscalculations should we prepare for?
Hong Kong: In all of these fits, one must try to figure out what the inner red line is for the opposite number. . . The obvious question is how long will this escalation last and what is the leeway for further escalation? Or has it reached the limit of its capabilities, and it must decide how the escalation of the war will strain its society to a point that will limit its ability to pursue international policy as a great power in the future.
I have no judgment when it comes to this point. When that point is reached, will it degenerate into a category of weapons that, in 70 years of existence, have never been used? If this line is crossed, it will be an extraordinarily significant event. Because we haven’t covered globally what the next dividing lines would be. One thing we couldn’t do in my opinion is just accept it.
FT: You have met [Chinese president] Xi Jinping repeatedly and his predecessors — you know China well. What lessons does China draw from this?
Hong Kong: I would suspect that any Chinese leader would be thinking about how to avoid getting into the situation that Putin got himself into and getting into a position where, in any crisis that might arise, he wouldn’t have a significant part of the world turned against them.
Transcribed by James Politi in Washington
