Human Rights in American Foreign Policy. Joe Renouard

for us.” The United States could influence Eastern Europe because these people wanted Western technology, capital, and goods—things that the Soviet Union could not provide. “Détente and greater freedom of action in Eastern Europe go hand in hand,” the adviser concluded.⁹¹ Despite this belief in potential benefits for Eastern Europeans, Nixon and Kissinger were unwilling to dwell on it publicly for fear of inflating expectations. They were somewhat more willing to tout these benefits as détente met more resistance after 1972, but they did not want their goals to be overshadowed by concern for human rights.⁹² Nevertheless, while they did not seek to change these societies, détente did offer new opportunities for a wide array of actors to promote reforms in the Eastern Bloc.

      Nixon’s opening to China did not have the same effect on human rights promotion. Despite years of Beijing’s abuses, Western activists and politicians paid far less attention to China than they did to the Soviet Union between 1949 and the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre. On those occasions when Beijing relaxed its grip through mild liberalization programs, some citizens pressed for greater reform, and their assertiveness was invariably met by renewed repression.⁹³ Nixon was hardly alone in disregarding human rights in China; indeed, his White House predecessors and successors acted in much the same way. Because China had long been closed off from the West, Westerners did not have an accurate sense of just how oppressive Mao Zedong’s regime was. When Westerners did hear about Chinese abuses, many dismissed them with the fallback logic that China was geographically distant and culturally enigmatic—that is, that “they do things differently there.” Unlike the Soviet Union, China did not pose an existential nuclear threat to the United States. Also, more Americans traced their lineage to ethnic groups in the Soviet orbit and thus were more aware of Soviet violations than Chinese ones. Human rights concerns did not fundamentally alter the long-term trend of closer Sino-American relations, from rapprochement (1971–1972) to diplomatic recognition (1979) to conditional most-favored-nation (MFN) trade status (1980) to permanent MFN status and billions of dollars in annual trade.

      The February 1972 Nixon/Mao summit took up trade, exchanges, and regional matters, and was completely unencumbered with talk of Beijing’s internal policies.⁹⁴ This was consistent, of course, with Nixonian realpolitik. As early as 1969, Kissinger was telling the press, “We have always made it clear that we have no permanent enemies and that we will judge other countries, and specifically countries like communist China, on the basis of their actions and not on the basis of their domestic ideology.”⁹⁵ In Nixon’s eyes, rekindling relations with a large communist country was a delicate mission that could be derailed by a focus on humanitarian issues. He sought only a basic rapprochement that could foster opportunities in other areas.

      Although most contemporary observers applauded the opening, the preponderance of evidence shows that Nixon and Kissinger were willing to give up far more than they received. The administration proposed diplomatic recognition of China and support for Beijing to assume the Security Council seat of America’s old ally, Taiwan. They also volunteered a timeline for a unilateral U.S. withdrawal from Vietnam. “After a peace is made [in Vietnam],” said Kissinger in private, “we will be 10,000 miles away, and [Hanoi] will still be there.”⁹⁶ Kissinger went on to provide the Chinese with a great deal of classified information over the next few years. The historian Robert Dallek confirms that “Nixon was eager to flatter Mao,” even to the point of telling the Chairman that his writings “moved a nation and have changed the world.”⁹⁷ Meanwhile, Mao’s government was more than willing to have its humanitarian record ignored. China had endured a long history of outside interference, and “human rights” seemed to many Chinese merely another form of foreign meddling. Mao’s government had earlier pieced together the Five Principles of Peaceful Coexistence in its relations with India—equality, territorial respect, nonaggression, peaceful coexistence, and mutual noninterference in internal affairs—and by the time of Nixon’s opening, these had become China’s foreign policy guidelines. In the human rights era, and especially after 1989, Beijing would defend its domestic policies by elevating the “noninterference” principle to the top of the list.

      Not everyone was smitten with the summit or the new Sino-American relationship. Some American conservatives were angry, as were some European and Asian allies. The British ambassador to the United States thought the Sino-American joint communiqué had about it a “distinct whiff of ‘peace in our time.’”⁹⁸ After observing Nixon toast Chinese officials at a state dinner, conservative commentator William F. Buckley concluded that it “was as if Sir Hartley Shawcross had suddenly risen from the prosecutor’s stand at Nuremberg and descended to embrace Goering and Goebbels.”⁹⁹ But even these criticisms were more “anti-red” than pro–human rights, and most Americans were happy with the summits.

      Why did Nixon and Kissinger offer Mao so much? Nixon was far more concerned with electoral politics at home than he was with gaining concessions. If he could forge a Sino-American working relationship, he would score political points for being a foreign policy visionary and gain crucial leverage against the Soviets—both developments that would boost his reelection chances. We must also consider Nixon and Kissinger’s Western worldview. Both men had studied European history and Great Power diplomacy, but knew comparatively little about China. After the summit, Beijing invited congressional delegations to China, and in the next seven years before formal U.S. recognition, around one hundred American legislators visited. Before one such delegation departed, Nixon cautioned them to avoid linking trade with the political relationship, though he admitted that they were linked in an unspoken way because of America’s economic power. “We don’t have to like each other’s systems to work with them,” he concluded. “Frankly, they don’t have anything to sell us.”¹⁰⁰

      Given Nixon and Kissinger’s willingness to concede so much to achieve a rapprochement, Mao’s treatment of the Chinese people was nowhere near Nixon’s agenda. The only humanitarian matter raised at the entire summit was the plight of four American pilots who had been imprisoned after their planes were shot down during the Korean and Vietnam Wars. Zhou Enlai was clearly interested in removing this obstacle; Beijing released one of the prisoners immediately and freed the others the following year.¹⁰¹ Kissinger later had an exchange with Zhou regarding missing American soldiers and journalists in Southeast Asia, though even here he clarified that he was not making a formal representation, but rather “a personal request” for information. True to his style, Kissinger also showed his hand by noting that the issue was only for public consumption and would not interfere with the relationship. “The families ask us if we have asked you the question,” he told Zhou. “If we could say at a press conference that we have asked you and you have assured us that there are no missing in action, that would be sufficient.”¹⁰² But although the release of the imprisoned pilots and the search for missing soldiers and journalists were humanitarian matters, they had nothing to do with the rights of the Chinese people. Indeed, negotiating for the release of one’s own nationals was a routine aspect of bilateral diplomacy. Margaret MacMillan concludes that the 1972 U.S.-China breakthrough was good for both countries, but she adds that it is possible to ask whether Nixon and Kissinger were too eager for a rapprochement. They offered the lion’s share of concessions, and they made some promises that they could not keep.¹⁰³ The budding relationship had virtually no impact on Chinese internal policies, nor would it in the years to come.

       The Ongoing Crisis of Greek Democracy

      President Nixon’s preference for realpolitik formed the basis of his policy toward the Greek junta. He was willing to listen to different opinions during his first year in office, but it was not long before he decided to continue, and eventually augment, American support. Nixon publicly backed a return to democracy, but in keeping with his noninterference principle, and because he saw Greece as a bulwark against Soviet power and an important link to the Middle East, he worked to strengthen relations and keep it within NATO. In the words of a senior official, “We have a better chance to influence the [Greek] government to change if we continue to work with them than if we turn our back to them.” Thus Nixon lifted the arms embargo and instructed Ambassador Henry Tasca to stay out of Greek internal affairs.¹⁰⁴ The Greek government reciprocated with a beneficial homeporting agreement for U.S. Navy vessels, but uncomfortable questions about America’s