Recognizing reemergence of China

As this year marks the 50th anniversary of President Richard Nixon's China trip, one veteran American diplomat and core member of the 1972 trip commented that his country should draw lesson from the trip and respond again to the reemergence of China with foresight and farsighted actions, just like what Nixon did half a century ago.

"China is back … as a major participant in global affairs. This requires a response from the United States," said Chas Freeman Jr, the chief interpreter for Nixon during his China visit and career diplomat over the last 30 years.

"I would like to see the United States respond with foresight and farsighted actions to the reemergence of China as a great civilization state," Freeman told China Daily in a recent interview. But, "that has yet to come."

Freeman was involved in every phase of the opening of Sino-American relations, and later became the deputy chief of mission in the US embassy in Beijing between 1981 and 1984. He was assistant secretary for international security affairs for the US Department of Defense in 1993-94, and also the US ambassador to Saudi Arabia during the Gulf War.

Freeman described Nixon's visit 50 years ago as "an American initiative" to moderate US-China relations.

"Nixon, who was a successful politician, showed that he was also a statesman," Freeman said. "He was able to understand the changes in the geopolitical situation globally and formulated a dramatic response to them."

In Freeman's view, the Sino-American relationship is now in a "bad period".

He said that "the economic relationship, despite some problems, is healthy", and "the business communities in China and the United States continue to see merit in cooperating with each other".

According to China's General Administration of Customs, China's trade with the US in 2021 amounted to $755 billion, an increase of nearly 30 percent year on year. The 2020 Annual Business Survey Report on Chinese Companies in the US, conducted by the US Chamber of Commerce in China, showed that more than 95 percent of respondents said they would continue to operate in the US, and nearly 70 percent said they would stick to their investment plans.

However, the bilateral relationship is now "terrible", and "the military relationship is the worst it has been since the 1950s".

Freeman said the visit was "a victory for China" and "a very positive event" because "it set in motion major changes in China".

He said "you can trace a reform and opening and the renewal of Chinese wealth and power very clearly to this event in 1972. So, I think it's proper for the Chinese to celebrate it."

Freeman said that Americans should celebrate the anniversary, too, but the attitudes of Americans toward the visit "are very divided".

He said there is a large anti-China group that sees Nixon's visit and the opening to China as a mistake, because of China's subsequent rise.

Freeman said that to the critics, China's success has created a powerful adversary for the United States.

But Freeman said he does not believe that the US made China successful, nor is China's development a negative for the US.

He said that there are issues the two countries should rightly be concerned about, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, climate change, the non-proliferation of nuclear weapons and the management of the global economy.

"These are long-term issues that require a great deal of effort, which simply cannot be addressed without efforts by both China and the United States, given our size and importance in world affairs," Freeman said.

He also stressed the necessity of US-China cooperation in science and technology, a relationship that may be changing.

"China has been a consumer of American knowledge and know-how. I think this is going to become more equal," he said. "And there will be many things that the Chinese scientists, technologists, engineers, mathematicians come up with, the Americans will want to learn from them and import [them]. So, I see the relationship inherently becoming more balanced and more equal," he said.

"And the question is whether our leaders can find a way to translate that into a more productive dialogue."