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The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

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Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#171

Post by [deleted] »

mytailorisrich wrote: post #89
the_af wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's very interesting how Mao claimed he preferred "rightists" in power in the West, because leftists were usually pro-Soviet. > Mao: That is to say, I voted for you [Nixon] during your election. [...] I like rightists. People say you are rightists, that the Republican Party is to the right, that Prime Minister Heath is also to the right. [...] They also say the Christian Democratic Party of West Germany is also to t…

This is normal pragmatism and real-politik. Mao is looking after his and China's interests. The public are usually fed simplistic, emotional propaganda by their governments, all of them: good vs evil, right thing to do, freedom, whatever. But in fact policies are based on interests and cold calculations.

[deleted]

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#172

Post by chrysler »

hutzlibu wrote: post #144
chrysler wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Because it was verbally promised by different high ranking officials, that the NATO would NOT move further east. Not according to the Soviet foreign minister at the time. He also explains why this conspiracy theory is nonsense: at the time when that verbal promise was allegedly given, no-one could even imagine that Warsaw Pact would cease to exist. According to him, NATO status of Warsaw Pact countries was not dis…

It is not a conspiracy theory that german foreign minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher, assured "NATO will not expand to the east".

As Shevardnadze clarifies, all they talked about NATO was strictly in the context of German reunification and attempts to take quotes out of context are anarchronistic. What assurances did the USSR need if it had a large nuclear-equipped group of forces in Poland?

And besides that, many years later, but months before former Warsaw Pact countries started official NATO negotiations, NATO and Russia signed a treaty that gave a green light.

So one one side of the conspiracy theory, you have a handful of scraps arranged to look like something, and on the opposing side you have actual written agreements and recollections from key people directly involved in those events.

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#173

Post by H8crilA »

was8309 wrote: post #170
H8crilA wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty clear, no? Ukrainians seek the destruction of Russia as the political system that we know today, Taiwanese seek maintaining the status quo.

are you saying that Ukrainians want more than to just not be invaded?

Yes, they want to not be invaded now, not invaded in 5 years, in 10 years, etc. No pieredyshka.

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#174

Post by hutzlibu »

RealityVoid wrote: post #161
hutzlibu wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"You have a megalomaniac dictator waging an unnecessary imperialist war of aggression ." Yes, one that was raised by the KGB, and his work possible consisting of coordinating left wing terrorists in the west. "That should make it pretty straightforward, no?" Sadly no. Because his character and the general political ideas and red lines of the russian establishment were known. Ukraine was russias sphere of interest/dom…

Russian security interests lie: https://www.reddit.com/r/CredibleDefense/comments/t2mb0c/the... I feel people bringing realpolitik into this fail to see the not-so-real politik of what happens when national sentiment is misaligned with their interest. It's all a sham anyway, as if smaller countries are not worthy of self determination and are just at the whims of great powers. And a nauseous point of view. And it's a…

"Russia can barely keep itself together at the moment."

Which is the reason why they started the war in the first place. They feel cornered. And a smarter politics by the west, would not have pushed them so much.

But I am all for self determination of even the smallest states.

But I do not really see this as the goal or applied politics of the US, nor EU, nor obviously russia.

It can happen as a side product, like when the kurds were supported, when it fit the greater game and dropped when that changed. And now Ukraine is important and get supported and tomorrow that can change again. The determining factors are likely not idealism.

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#175

Post by lisasays »

chrysler wrote: post #130
hutzlibu wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Can you tell me why Russian apologists always phrase it as if a shadowy cabal in Washington forced countries into international cooperation " Because it was verbally promised by different high ranking officials, that the NATO would NOT move further east. This does not create trust.

>> Because it was verbally promised by different high ranking officials, that the NATO would NOT move further east. Not according to the Soviet foreign minister at the time. He also explains why this conspiracy theory is nonsense: at the time when that verbal promise was allegedly given, no-one could even imagine that Warsaw Pact would cease to exist. According to him, NATO status of Warsaw Pact countries was not dis…

The matter is murky in the details, but it certainly isn't a "conspiracy theory".

Not surprisingly -- different participants have different recollections of what was said, and in what context. As a counterpart to the above, we also have Baker's assurances, made to the Soviets at the time “neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place". And that the Americans understood that “not only for the Soviet Union but for other European countries as well it is important to have guarantees that if the United States keeps its presence in Germany within the framework of NATO, not an inch of NATO’s present military jurisdiction will spread in an eastern direction.”

Which certainly sounds like verbal promises that "NATO would not move further east". There is also Gorbachev's famous assessment of the whole matter, after the fact: “It [NATO expansion] was definitely a violation of the spirit of the statements and assurances made to us in 1990".

Not that these assurances had the status of signed treaties -- and not that any of this stuff in any way justifies, minimizes or "explain" the current conflict, which as we know has one aggressor and by this point is entirely one-sided.

But the statements above are part of the historical record -- not some conspiracy theory, or the inventions of Russian apologists.

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#176

Post by samstave »

cryptonector wrote: post #46
samstave wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You left out the Evil multiplier. These are also two of the most vile things to live in the last 500 years. Their great minds are what allowed them to get away with the murder hundreds of millions.

That doesn't make these memos not interesting. Quite the contrary!

I didnt claim that, yes these evil POSs are fascinating, but that doesnt make them any less despicable :-)

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#177

Post by l3mure »

MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #32

Looks 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...

> because the US was now friends with China against the Soviet Union

The US also got the anti-communist genocide and friendly dictator it desired in Indonesia, which was considered a major win for its interests in the region.

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#178

Post by chrysler »

lisasays wrote: post #175
chrysler wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> Because it was verbally promised by different high ranking officials, that the NATO would NOT move further east. Not according to the Soviet foreign minister at the time. He also explains why this conspiracy theory is nonsense: at the time when that verbal promise was allegedly given, no-one could even imagine that Warsaw Pact would cease to exist. According to him, NATO status of Warsaw Pact countries was not dis…

The matter is murky in the details, but it certainly isn't a "conspiracy theory". Not surprisingly -- different participants have different recollections of what was said, and in what context. As a counterpart to the above, we also have Baker's assurances, made to the Soviets at the time “neither the President nor I intend to extract any unilateral advantages from the processes that are taking place". And that the Am…

Soviet leadership, including Gorbachev himself, have explicitly denied that any assurances existed. Like Shevardnadze, he denied that they even talked about it with western counterparts. In his own words: "The topic of ‘NATO expansion’ was not discussed at all, and it wasn’t brought up in those years. … Another issue we brought up was discussed: making sure that NATO’s military structures would not advance and that additional armed forces would not be deployed on the territory of the then-GDR after German reunification. Baker’s statement was made in that context…"

Nobody brought the alleged assurances up when former Warsaw Pact joined NATO either. This narrative didn't exist until mid-2000, by which time NATO enlargement had largely ended.

The spirit that Gorbachev bitterly speaks about is his idea of "Common European Home" that did not come to fruition, as Eastern Europe didn't want to have anything to do with Russians after half a century of oppression and turned their backs as soon as they could choose their own path. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_European_Home

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#179

Post by OfSanguineFire »

kachnuv_ocasek wrote: post #108
woodpanel wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Along those lines runs the delimiter of the often times blurry spectrum of today's western-leftism: The Pro-Soviet western marxists of the past often became today's western pro-Russian "populists", while the western Maoists of the 1968s became today's Pro-NATO "progressives".

None of what you wrote makes any coherent sense in this world. I don't even know where to start…

The OP’s statement is perfectly coherent and sensible. A number of soixante-huitards who flirted with Maoism are now in favour of strong European defense against Russia. Moreover, Maoism deemphasized the individual, but today those ex-Maoists are more likely to support individualist things like gender self-selection.

Re: The Mao-Kissinger Meeting of 1973

#180

Post by lenkite »

Lio wrote: post #140
MichaelMoser123 wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on what Xi is planning over Taiwan, that is where things get complicated. They are all trying to build alliances for that contingency.

It also depends on if Xi is planning to take Primorsky Krai from Russia in the future or not. When Russia celebrated its 160 year anniversary of taking Vladivostok from China, there were descenting voices in Beijing calling to reverse another so called "humiliation". Countries are allied until they are not. Putin signed a treaty to protect Ukraine, it didn't stop him from attacking them in 2014 or escalating that aga…

"Every country protects in established order of the rights of its citizens living in another country, in accordance with commitments to documents of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe and other universally recognized principles and norms of international law, agreements within the Commonwealth of Independent States."

Ukraine stopped following the contents of that treaty after the US supported Maidan coup.

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