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Then-US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger shakes hands with then-Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai on July 9, 1971. (Hankyoreh photo archives)

Henry Kissinger, the White House national security advisor in the Nixon administration, made a secret visit to Beijing on July 9-11, 1971, where he reached a “historic détente” in a meeting with then-Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai. On July 15, the US and China simultaneously made the earth-shaking announcement that US President Richard Nixon would visit China on the invitation of Chinese President Mao Zedong. That was the beginning of the end of the Cold War.

Exactly 50 years later, on July 9, a ceremony was held in Beijing marking the anniversary of Kissinger’s secret visit to China. In a speech delivered over video, Kissinger said that “conflict between the US and China will divide the whole world.”

“I therefore hope that a serious dialogue starts soon again on the major issues between us,” the 98-year-old former diplomat added.

Kissinger, the architect of the US victory in the Cold War, has exercised immense influence on American foreign policy over the past 50 years. He has been to China nearly a hundred times, and Chinese leaders have treated him with the utmost courtesy and viewed him as a vehicle for lobbying.

Kissinger is the only American who has met all Chinese leaders from Mao Zedong to Xi Jinping. During a meeting in 2019, Xi Jinping referred to Kissinger as “an old friend of China.”

But today, Kissinger and those he influenced — known as the “Kissinger school” — are no longer in fashion. The ceremony marking the 50th anniversary of Kissinger’s secret visit was a lavish affair in China, attended by Vice President Wang Qishan. But in the US, pundits argued that Kissenger’s diplomacy was ultimately a failure. From the American point of view, Kissinger was right at the time but wrong today.

Vested interests in the US and China have benefited enormously from Kissinger’s realist foreign policy over the past 50 years. With the help of China, the US brought down the Soviet Union and triumphed in the Cold War. The US also let China into the World Trade Organization, reinforcing a neoliberal system that maximized its financial and economic interests. The resulting rapid growth in China has also aided the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) and other vested interests there.

But the US has now concluded that China has become too much of a threat and is working with its allies to weave a tight net of containment. China is challenging the US in cutting-edge technology, the military, economic models, and the international order under its long-term plan of freeing itself from the American system and creating a Chinese-led world order.

When China finds itself on the defensive, it may temporarily seek compromise, but the tectonic shift in the world order will continue for decades to come. China has officially unveiled a plan to supersede the US by 2049.

The US strategy of containing China flips Kissinger’s approach on its head. It seeks to strengthen relations with Taiwan, lure Russia away from China, and exclude China as much as possible from the high-tech supply chain and international order of trade.

Hardliners are gaining ground in both the US and China. American hardliners attribute the China problem to the very existence of the CCP and argue that the goal of the US’ China policy should therefore be toppling the CCP through “regime change.”

Meanwhile, China has been emphasizing an exclusive and aggressive form of patriotism and a military buildup. Xi Jinping shocked the world with his recent remark that any foreign powers that “bully” China will have “their heads bashed bloody.”

As military tensions between the US and China over the Taiwan Strait become prolonged, there’s a growing risk that South Korea will become the front line in a new Cold War. Koreans need to be on guard to ensure that US military bases in South Korea — including bases in Pyeongtaek and Jeju and the THAAD missile defense battery in Seongju — aren’t roped into US attempts to deploy intermediate-range missiles in Asia or build a missile defense system aimed at China.

At the same time, the “third way” is playing an increasingly important role. Germany, France and other countries in Europe have reaffirmed their alliance with the US and plainly criticized China for its human rights violations, undermining democracy, and unfair economic practices while opposing military confrontation that views China as an enemy.

China is also vigorously cultivating relationships in Europe to prevent the US’ web of containment from growing too strong. European countries are taking advantage of this rivalry to gain various advantages, such as seizing the initiative in responding to climate change and expanding their share of the Chinese market.

Even the US’ key ally of Japan is making complicated calculations to avoid a direct clash with China and ensure their bilateral economic relations aren’t severed.

While there’s a definite consensus about containing China in the US, there’s also a debate over methodology. American proponents of the realist school of international relations oppose the push for “regime change” against the CCP, arguing that the US should focus on blocking and changing China’s threatening and unfair behavior.

In a three-way alignment in which buffer states stand between hardliners in the US and China, South Korea needs to engage in sophisticated diplomacy so that its position as one of those “democratic buffer states” can be adequately represented in the new world order.

Unfortunately, there have been few signs in the debate between Korean presidential hopefuls of any vigorous reflection on the shift in the world order or on South Korea’s diplomatic strategy. A boisterous debate has centered on ideological purity tests, partisan quibbling over whether the US troops that entered South Korea after World War II were “occupying forces” or “liberating forces,” and Manichaean rhetoric insisting that Korea must choose sides between the US or China.

I’d like to see a future-oriented leader who can ensure that Korea doesn’t become the front line of a new Cold War, who can secure a voice for Korea in the newly forming world order, and who can transform the geopolitical crisis of the Korean Peninsula, which is at the juncture of continental and maritime forces, into an opportunity.

By Park Min-hee, editorial writer

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