For my write-up today on Richard Nixon's 1994 book Beyond Peace, I'll use as my starting-point something that Nixon says on page 136.
"By
the time of my initial visit to Beijing in 1972, China was still
repressive domestically, but except for its brief invasion of Vietnam,
it was no longer a direct military threat to its neighbors. Of the
three remaining communist states, North Korea clearly remains a serious,
active threat, not only to South Korea but to the peace and security of
the entire Pacific Rim. It has not yet crossed the threshold that I
set more than twenty-five years ago for China. Until it ceases to be a
threat, we should treat it as a pariah nation that its leaders still
persist in making it. Vietnam and Cuba are like North Korea in that
both are still run by repressive communist regimes...But neither
presents an active threat to the peace internationally."
In his 1992 book, Seize the Moment: America's Challenge in a One-Superpower World,
Nixon said that "The United States must insist that [Cuba and Vietnam]
each meet specific political and human rights conditions before
establishing diplomatic or trade relations" (page 259). In my third blog post on Seize the Moment,
I expressed confusion: Nixon, when talking about China and the Soviet
Union, supports trade with those countries as one way to encourage their
liberalization on human rights. Why, then, does Nixon not advocate
the same sort of policy for Cuba and Vietnam?
I still have this question. And yet, the passage on page 136 of Beyond Peace
does demonstrate at least some consistent thread that runs through
Nixon's proposals on how the U.S. should interrelate with Communist
countries, be they China, Vietnam, or Cuba. That thread is this: if the
Communist countries are aggressive against other countries, then the
U.S. should be hesitant to establish diplomatic or trading relations
with them.
On pages 164-165 of Seize the Moment,
Nixon details the considerations that led him to support normalization
of U.S. relations with Communist China. From 1959-1963, Nixon narrates,
alienation was increasing between Red China and the Soviet Union, as
both disputed with each other about whose "brand of Communism was
purest", and as China wanted to be more than merely a junior partner in
its alliance with the U.S.S.R. As a result of the rift, China "found
itself isolated and surrounded by hostile powers by the late 1960s":
Japan was a challenge due to its economic strength; India had a large
population, had Soviet support, was developing nuclear weapons, and had
border clashes with China in the past; and the Soviet Union had
first-strike capability against China, maintained military divisions on
China's border, and in the past had clashes with China over territory
that was disputed. The Chinese had to rely on themselves rather than
foreign aid to develop economically, and they also decided to scale back
"their adventurist policies abroad" (page 165). Nixon thought it was
time to reach out to Communist China.
Regarding Cuba and Vietnam, Nixon's views on whether or not the U.S. should trade with these countries changed between Seize the Moment and Beyond Peace, and the reason is that these countries' situations changed during that time. In Seize the Moment,
on pages 260-261, Nixon notes examples of these countries' foreign
policy that (in his opinion) do not serve the interests of the United
States: Cuba was providing military supplies to the rebels in El
Salvador, obstructing the peace talks there and perpetuating a war that was
resulting in an immense loss of lives and was causing economic damage;
Vietnam was economically and militarily supporting its client
dictatorship in Cambodia; and the Vietnamese in Laos were using chemical
weapons against the Hmong in the south. According to Nixon in Seize the Moment, Vietnam was seeking to maintain its own empire in Indochina.
In Beyond Peace, which was published two years after Seize the Moment,
Nixon presents a different picture of Cuba and Vietnam. According to
Nixon, the "global network of communist aggressors" of which Castro was a
part "vanished", presumably with the fall of the Soviet Union, and so
it was unlikely that Cuba would be aggressive (page 138). Vietnam was
becoming open to economic liberalization and was focusing less on
aggression against foreign countries. Nixon, therefore, was for greater
economic openness on the part of the U.S. towards these countries, even
though their human rights record remained horrible. For Nixon, this
policy could promote liberalization in these countries in the direction
of greater respect for human rights.
I still have a
question, though. Was it Nixon's consistent policy to link American
willingness to trade with Communist countries with the countries scaling
back their aggression? In Nixon's memoirs, Nixon talks about how he
supported MFN with the Soviet Union and normalization of relations with
China, and yet he acknowledges here-and-there in the memoirs that both
countries were playing a role in other nations: Red China was supporting
Pakistan and North Vietnam, and the Soviets were backing India, Arab
nations, and North Vietnam. If aggression entails providing
economic and military supplies to forces in other countries, which is
what Nixon criticizes Cuba and Vietnam for in Seize the Moment,
then was not Nixon supporting a policy of trade and diplomatic
relations with aggressors in his approach to Red China and the Soviet
Union?
Nixon would probably say that this was different:
he couldn't just ignore or effectively isolate Red China and the Soviet
Union, due to their vast size, their huge populations, and their
significant influence on the rest of the world. He had to deal
with them, as bad as they were. But he could pressure Cuba and Vietnam
by withholding privileges (i.e., trade, diplomacy), since they were
smaller.