Absolutely fascinating, thank you.
The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973
31–40 of 309 posts
Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973
#32Looks like some game of chess: China stopped supporting North Vietnam, but that didn't stop North Vietnam from invading South Vietnam, after the pullout. However at that point no one in the US cared about any domino theory, because the US was now friends with China against the Soviet Union.
I wonder what the chess pieces were all thinking...
Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973
#33> Chairman Mao: You have about 600, 000 Chinese in the United States. We probably don't even have 60 Americans here. I would like to study the problem. I don't know the reason. I wonder if he studied it and what he found.
I thought about moving to an Asian country as a white person. I asked myself: What does it mean to be Korean? What does it mean to be Taiwanese? What does it mean to be Malaysian? In most Asian countries ethnicity not a wildly different concept than nationality. So to be Korean means you share a history with other Koreans. America, at least the liberal side of America, has tried to push the definition of being Americ…
While your central thesis probably has merit, I just want to point out that the way you present it sounds incredibly ignorant and simplistic to anyone in Asia. Maybe Japan and Korea are more ethnostates.. but it's sorta ridiculous to say it's an Asian things
Within 5 minutes of arriving in Kuala Lumpur you will see more diversity than in most American cities - with equal parts Indian, Chinese and Bumi (ethnically Indonesian). I mean.. maybe they all just look "asian" to you, but they're distinct to anyone from the region. On top of that you will regularly see people from the middle east and elsewhere.
The Chinese, outside of han-nationalist circles, typically do not see themselves as an ethnostate (but by contrast the Taiwanese sort of do) - that was sort of the central theme of the 2008 olympics.. and I've met many minorities in China that would be confused and maybe offended if you suggested they weren't Chinese
So by extension Taiwanese also view themselves as Chinese, but typically not part of China geopolitically. ( a lot of the issues here stem from linguistics.. b/c in Chinese there are many separate terms to distinguish things like ethnic Han, culturally Chinese, Chinese citizens of the PRC and other subtleties - I'm not going to pretend to understand all of them)
Thailand is also incredibly pluralistic, though minorities are more integrated into one culture.
There isn't typically "founding father" hero worship and the same ideological cohesion as in the United States, but it's also simplistic to say that doesn't exist at all. You have for instance Sun Yat-sen who is .. sort of founding-father-like (his ideology doesn't seem as coherant as in the US though) . If you want ideological though, the most obvious is Maoism. Ideological purity is sort of unacceptable in the post-Cultural Revolution period, but it's still a powerful force in their society
Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973
#34Looks like some game of chess: China stopped supporting North Vietnam, but that didn't stop North Vietnam from invading South Vietnam, after the pullout. However at that point no one in the US cared about any domino theory, because the US was now friends with China against the Soviet Union. I wonder what the chess pieces were all thinking...
The Chinese split from north Vietnam is just a consequence of the sino-Soviet split that began under kruschev. However, the Vietnamese did help with Soviet tech to preserve and display Mao’s body, at least.
Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973
#35Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought about moving to an Asian country as a white person. I asked myself: What does it mean to be Korean? What does it mean to be Taiwanese? What does it mean to be Malaysian? In most Asian countries ethnicity not a wildly different concept than nationality. So to be Korean means you share a history with other Koreans. America, at least the liberal side of America, has tried to push the definition of being Americ…
While your central thesis probably has merit, I just want to point out that the way you present it sounds incredibly ignorant and simplistic to anyone in Asia. Maybe Japan and Korea are more ethnostates.. but it's sorta ridiculous to say it's an Asian things Within 5 minutes of arriving in Kuala Lumpur you will see more diversity than in most American cities - with equal parts Indian, Chinese and Bumi (ethnically Ind…
Han runs China with a strong majority. For western provinces where minorities are a majority, the symbolic governor will always be an ethnic minority (eg Tibet will have a Tibetan governor), but the real power will be held by the Han party secretary. Some of the party secretaries that have run Tibet and Xinjiang are famous hardliners that have probably created more problems than they’ve solved.
Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973
#36This reminded me of the great story where Kissinger, on that trip, asks Zhou Enlai "What do you think of the French Revolution" and Zhou replies "It's too soon to tell." I love that, and it is what I say when people ask "how are you" too early in the morning.
But I've also been trained by a passion for too-good-to-be-true quotes and that one definitely sounds too good to be true. Guess what - it is. But for an interesting reason:
https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2011/06/it...
https://mediamythalert.com/2011/06/14/too-early-to-say-zhou-...
Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973
#37Was this before mao killed millions of Chinese or after?
Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
I thought about moving to an Asian country as a white person. I asked myself: What does it mean to be Korean? What does it mean to be Taiwanese? What does it mean to be Malaysian? In most Asian countries ethnicity not a wildly different concept than nationality. So to be Korean means you share a history with other Koreans. America, at least the liberal side of America, has tried to push the definition of being Americ…
While your central thesis probably has merit, I just want to point out that the way you present it sounds incredibly ignorant and simplistic to anyone in Asia. Maybe Japan and Korea are more ethnostates.. but it's sorta ridiculous to say it's an Asian things Within 5 minutes of arriving in Kuala Lumpur you will see more diversity than in most American cities - with equal parts Indian, Chinese and Bumi (ethnically Ind…
I agree with your criticism and should have called out Malaysia's multiculturalism instead of going with the (wrong) implication expressed by where I asked that question; that in Malaysia ethnicity = nationality.
FWIW, my experience of Malaysia, admittedly as very much an outsider, is that it is multiple ethnicities living together, rather than a society bound by a set of shared values so I would assume the primary lens of politics is still ethnicity. Are various ethnicities vying for dominance, or are people vying for specific ideals? When "Indian, Chinese and Bumi" look at each other do they first experience "us" or do they first experience "them?"
America is dealing with these problems and it would be charitable to say that America is a values first country, although I think America is doing better than most. My experience is that Malaysia is probably doing the best in Asia.
> There isn't typically "founding father" hero worship and the same ideological cohesion as in the United States
That touches on the fundamental idea I am trying to convey (the one I am conveying much much much more poorly than the article I linked).
Are people deifying a "founding father" or are they deifying the ideals for which they stood? Do they engage with their history (of having founding fathers and what they did) or their values (influenced by and reasoned about by their founding fathers).
> I've met many minorities in China that would be confused and maybe offended if you suggested they weren't Chinese
Are they experiencing being Chinese through sharing the Chinese history, or are they being Chinese through sharing Chinese values? Could black people go to China and share those values and experiencing being Chinese or does the fact that black people do not share Chinese history make them ineligible to be Chinese?
Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973
#39[flagged]
Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973
#40I'm not entirely sure I get what this tells us. A degree of cynicism in politics is inevitable, for the players. And, Kissinger was undoubtedly playing. As was Mao, with other people. Interesting Edgar Snow was brought up, I read his long March piece as a child, it's pretty accessible. ("Red Star over China" 1937) Zhou EnLai was a survivor and a moderating force in the bad times. The national museum in Tienanmen squa…
> Christopher Hitchens was right: Kissinger was a war criminal so I tend to regard this kind of verbatim report as reflecting two criminally minded geniuses shooting the breeze together.
Perhaps, but the trade arrangements made at that meeting have essentially been policy for every Administration since. That's very interesting. What to make of that? Why have no U.S. Presidents (except, maybe, maybe in rhetoric, Trump) wanted something different? The point is that Kissinger figured out something very important, and got it done, and it's lasted half a century. Policy momentum is a fascinating thing, and how to arrange for it.
Another question I have is why Mao's intense hostility to the Soviets. Yes, Kruschev's Secret Speech was the cause of their schism, but why did all the premiers who followed Kruschev fail to right things with the Chinese? And why did Kruschev not find a way to smooth things with Mao? "Look, that Speech is not an attack on you, it's just me shoring up support in the USSR by attacking Stalin, and that works because Stalin made himself so feared, m'kay?" And why wouldn't that work, as long as the Speech stayed Secret and even if not, as long as it stayed out of the public eye in China? Well, ok, Kruschev couldn't keep it that secret, but still, the premiers that followed him could have denounced that speech and made things ok with China. But this hostility survived Mao's death, even when Deng Xiaoping essentially (but not overtly) accepted Kruschev's position against personality cults! Why? Only now, maybe, the Russians are finally repairing that schism.
Really, TFA is extremely interesting.
And yes, it's clear that to some degree Mao and Kissinger were playing roles, being flattering and saying things they probably didn't really mean.
And then there's Mao's quip about Americans not being "awakened". Who knows what he meant, but Kissinger either did or pretended. Mao might have meant something very pedestrian, or perhaps something sinister, or perhaps something very good -- it'd be good to know.
I'm not all the way through reading this and I'm just full of questions.
Say what you will about the protagonists, but these memos are riveting.