People’s Daily: The Last Meeting Deng Xiaoping Accompanied Mao Zedong: The Meeting President Gerald Ford
The US-China Discussions on the Soviet Threat
Editor’s note: The Party History Channel of People’s Daily Online has serialized a book called “The Era of Deng Xiaoping” (written by Fu Gaoyi) published by New Knowledge Sanlian Bookstore . The book records that Mao Zedong met with President Ford on December 2, 1975. This was the last time Deng Xiaoping accompanied Mao Zedong to meet with foreign guests. The excerpt is as follows. After this meeting Deng Xiaoping was demoted due to a plotted campaign against him by the Gang of Four.
During this period, Deng Xiaoping was granted a temporary break from criticism as he negotiated with Henry Kissinger and President Gerald Ford. In order to prepare for President Ford’s visit to China, Deng Xiaoping and Kissinger held three days of long talks from October 20 to 22 to exchange views on the international situation.
Deng Xiaoping barely let Kissinger make his opening remarks, forcing him to express US position on the key issue: How much grain do you sell to the Soviet Union? How much modern American equipment and technology did you give the Soviet Union? How do you evaluate the Helsinki Conference (at which the United States pushed for détente between Western Europe and the Communist bloc)?
Deng Xiaoping then talked about the lessons learned from the appeasement policy adopted by Chamberlain and Daladier towards Hitler on the eve of World War II: Because Britain and France showed weakness to Hitler’s initial aggression, it led to Hitler’s attack on the West. He advised that a strong response was necessary to stop the threat, and now the United States was showing weakness. He said the Soviet Union was now more powerful than the United States and Western Europe combined. The Soviet Union had two weaknesses. It lacked food and technology, and the United States provided assistance in these two areas to help it overcome its own weaknesses. This would only increase the risk of Soviet attack. Zhou Enlai had been accused of being too soft on the United States, and when the meeting was reported to Mao Zedong, had struggled to find evidence that Deng Xiaoping was also soft on the United States.
During lengthy talks with Kissinger on global issues, Deng repeatedly returned to the threat posed by the Soviet Union after the United States withdrew its troops from Vietnam. Deng Xiaoping repeatedly pressured Kissinger throughout the talks to make the United States respond more forcefully to the Soviet threat, while Kissinger tried to explain that the United States had already done a lot to deal with the Soviet threat. Although Deng Xiaoping was aggressive, he did not exceed the bounds of diplomatic etiquette.
Kissinger was accompanied by Deng Xiaoping when Kissinger met with Mao Zedong. Mao Zedong, like Deng Xiaoping, also took seriously the failure of the United States to respond appropriately to the Soviet challenge.
In a report written to President Ford after his talks with Deng Xiaoping and Mao Zedong, Kissinger said that the talks during his visit to China contained some hints of trouble that might cool down U.S.-China relations. This was in line with China’s feeling that the United States was facing the Soviet offensive. Relevant to withdrawal attitude. Kissinger believed that China was disappointed with the United States’ response and planned to rely on its own strength to confront the Soviet Union.
Even during long talks, Deng Xiaoping could always remain highly focused on the content of the talks, which is a reflection of Deng Xiaoping’s perseverance and strong character in the face of pressure. Neither Kissinger nor any of his aides were aware that Deng Xiaoping was under heavy political pressure from Mao Zedong. In fact, Kissinger concluded from the talks that since Mao Zedong was too ill to intervene in the state’s daily work, “Deng Xiaoping was now the key figure.”
On November 4, the day Deng Xiaoping was criticized for the first time at the eight-person meeting plotted by Gang of Four, Foreign Minister Qiao Guanhua met George Bush, director of the U.S. Office in Beijing, and suggested that the United States postpone President Ford’s visit to China until December. However, The United States demanded that the visit go ahead as scheduled. China agreed to the original visit schedule on November 13. Deng Xiaoping, President Ford’s main host, went to the airport to greet Ford a week after being criticized at a meeting involving more than 130 senior Chinese officials. But Deng Xiaoping was calm and held a welcome banquet, a farewell luncheon, held three lengthy talks, and accompanied Mao Zedong to meet with Ford.
Chinese officials did not expect much from Ford’s visit.
They believed that in the face of pressure from the Soviet Union, Nixon was a resourceful and reliable leader, while Ford was much weaker and had just taken office and had not yet fully recovered from the “Watergate” incident. Nixon had promised to restore normal relations with China in 1976, and they knew before the visit that Ford would not bring forward plans to normalize relations. Ford was not as diplomatic as Nixon in foreign affairs.
Deng Xiaoping did put pressure on the United States to take tougher action against the Soviet Union in the first round of lengthy talks, telling Ford at the time: “I don’t want to offend you, but we may be better than you in dealing with the Soviet Union.” Just like when he met Kissinger six weeks ago, Deng reiterated his views on the Soviet Union. Deng said that China was ready to fight the Soviet Union alone. Although China was poor and lacked technology, China was ready to “dig deep tunnels” and “use millet” to feed its army. Although Deng Xiaoping was dissatisfied with the United States’ show of weakness to the Soviet Union, he did not say that China would increase its military spending.
However, Mao Zedong and Deng Xiaoping’s attitude towards President Ford was much more polite than when they received Kissinger six weeks ago. Deng Xiaoping told Ford: “We believe that as long as we maintain contacts…our differences of opinion and sometimes even quarrels can be surmounted.”
In addition to pressuring the United States on the Soviet issue, Deng Xiaoping used his charming and argumentative personality, urging the United States to pay attention to the national relations, trade, and cultural exchanges between China and the United States as well as the United States’ Taiwan policy. Deng Xiaoping also discovered that President Ford knew much more about international affairs than he thought, and his anti-Soviet attitude was much stronger than he expected. A week later he told George Bush that the results of his talks with Ford far had exceeded his expectations.
After Ford returned to China, meetings in China to criticize Deng were resumed immediately, but no one in the United States learned that Deng Xiaoping was being criticized. A week after Ford’s visit to China, when Deng Xiaoping held a farewell lunch for George Bush, who had completed his term as director of the U.S. Liaison Office in Beijing and was about to return to the United States, Bush described this lunch as “a relaxed and happy atmosphere.”
Mao Zedong met President Ford on December 2, 1975. This was the last time Deng Xiaoping accompanied Mao Zedong to meet foreign guests, and it was also the last time Deng met Mao. Deng was given permission to meet with Nixon’s daughter, Julie Nixon, and her husband, David Eisenhower, on January 1, and the next day Deng met with a U.S. congressional delegation led by Margaret Heckler. This was also the last time Deng Xiaoping met with foreign guests before his comeback to power in 1977 after comrade Mao Zedong fell in September 1976 and after Gang of Four’s 6th October 1976 state coup was suppressed by CPC General Secretary Hua Guo Feng.