Henry Kissinger speaks on Sino-US relations

Henry Kissinger has been right about China countless times. The elder statesman tells Cang Lide where Sino-US relations are heading.

A wheelchair was on standby, ready for him in the spacious room where he was scheduled to meet the Chinese press. But when the lift door opened, he walked toward the room, footsteps slow but steady.

The silver-haired Henry Kissinger was in Beijing to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the ice-breaking Mao-Nixon meeting in 1972 - a historic event that changed the international political landscape and opened a new chapter of Sino -US relations.

This is the second time I am interviewing the former US secretary of state, who played such a key role in Washington's opening up to Beijing. We first met at his Manhattan office in New York, also on a cold winter's day, in 1988.

The impression he made on me has lasted to this day, as much if not more than his insistence that the leaders of both nations must understand the importance of maintaining a strategic China-US relationship, and his conviction of China's economic rise.

Even now Kissinger does not believe there's a need for a cold-war like confrontation between China and the United States although there is growing suspicion in Beijing over the new military strategy that sees the Pentagon shifting focus to the Asia-Pacific. Washington, on the other hand, is getting increasingly edgy over China's economic reach as well as its military updates.

"I don't think the two countries can compete with each other," he says.

Instead, "I think China and the United States should cooperate closer. They should have intense dialogues." And at the same time, "We have to watch out together for unexpected developments internationally."

The key to good relations, Kissinger stresses, is for both countries to protect each other's key interests and neither should think their own views must always prevail.

At 89, Kissinger's mind is still as sharp as a scalpel, cutting to the crux of the bilateral ties.

I ask him why he thinks reconciling the two versions of exceptionalism is the deepest challenge in Sino-American relationship.

"Both sides believed they were unique in history and had unique sets of values - the Americans from a missionary point of view and the Chinese from a performance point of view.

"The Americans thought they could convert the world and the Chinese believed that the world would look at them, admire their eminence and become tributaries.

"I'm talking about Chinese history. So these are the traditions."

The US is very pragmatic, Kissinger says. It wants solutions to every problem.

"China has gone through thousands of years of history, it knows that the solution to one problem is the admission of another, so China looks at problems in a more theoretical, philosophical way."

That the two societies have totally different backgrounds means interaction sometimes gets conflicted, but on the whole, he says, if they both understand what the problems are, then interaction should get easier.

How to deal with differences?

"Now these two countries are interacting everyday and continuing to interact even more. So inevitably, they occasionally have different perspectives.

"It's important not to transform this into a zero-sum game. It's important that both sides understand what needs to be done to keep the process alive and dynamic."

Kissinger emphasizes the imperativeness of firm leadership to cement and continue the ties in the future.

"It's natural that strong leaders are needed to implement this (process). But without it, if one looks at the consequences of stress between China and the United States, all the other countries in the world, especially in Asia, will be forced to choose.

"A general progress will become more and more difficult.

"At the end of it, China and the US are too big - they will still be here. So when the process is all over, we may be back to where we are today which is to see how these two societies can contribute to peace and progress in the world."

Kissinger's wisdom not only comes from his personal meetings with four generations of Chinese leaders since Mao Zedong and Zhou Enlai. He has chalked up more than 50 trips in four decades, and he understands the development and changes in China's domestic and foreign policies.

There is also the backdrop of his own academic studies on the Chinese tradition in dealing with external relations over the past two millenniums as well as his studies on the geopolitical and strategic equilibrium of the modern world.

When he envisions future China-US relationship, the last thing he wants to see is a zero-sum game between the two.

In his 2011 book On China, he compares present day US-China relations to the pre-World War I rivalry between the United Kingdom and Germany.

With the rise of Germany in the late 19th century, the UK concluded that whatever its goals and regardless of its intentions, the Germans military ascendancy was "incompatible with the existence of the British Empire."

The result was a four-year war that devastated Europe and the world. However, Kissinger argues that relations between China and the US need not - and should not - become a win-lose game, because key issues on the international front are global in nature.

"Consensus may prove difficult, but confrontation on these issues is self-defeating.

"The reality is totally different. When it happened in the past it was when one had to win and the other had to lose. But today, that doesn't have to be true. With the United States and China, I think both will lose. If there is a diplomatic struggle between China and the US, it would divide the world, and every country will have to choose sides. So I don't think the old rules will apply."

These are the prophesies of a diplomatic guru, and the world will do well to remember them. History will certainly remember his words when he is proved right - again.