Nixon and Mao: the handshake that turned Taiwan towards a new future

The handshake between then US president Richard Nixon and chairman Mao Zedong half a century ago was hailed at the time as a historic moment. But for Chiang Ching-kuo, Taiwan's then vice-premier and the eldest son of Kuomintang leader Chiang Kai-shek, it was a slap in the face.

The sting from that handshake remained with Chiang until his death in January 1988, and confirmed to him a belief he already held strongly - that "imperialistic America" would easily sell out its friends "in exchange for its own despicable goals".

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The moment also ended once and for all Chiang's hopes of realising his father's long-held ambition of reclaiming the mainland, and set him on a path that helped turn Taiwan into the industrial tiger that it remains today.

The handshake between Mao Zedong and Richard Nixon in 1972 sealed a long-held belief for Chiang Ching-kuo. Photo: Xinhua alt=The handshake between Mao Zedong and Richard Nixon in 1972 sealed a long-held belief for Chiang Ching-kuo. Photo: Xinhua>

Chiang followed his father to Taiwan after the KMT's defeat in the Chinese civil war in 1949. Chiang Kai-shek originally hoped to set up an interim government on the island as the redoubt for reclaiming the mainland. But with Nixon's visit - which opened the door to normalisation of US-China ties - all family hopes of that ambition were shattered.

Chiang's anguish and frustration with the United States are documented in his personal diaries, now held at Stanford University's Hoover Institution.

The diaries cover the decade from 1969 to 1979, a stormy period of US-Taiwan relations in which Washington gradually eased its support for Taipei and eventually switched official recognition to Beijing.

The watershed year of that decade was 1971. Not only did Nixon's national security adviser Henry Kissinger make a secret trip to China that year but Nixon also made his stunning announcement that he would make the journey himself.

Records show that the US tried many times to convince Taiwan that Nixon's trip was a journey for peace for the sake of future generations. The Nixon government had also sent officials to Taipei to convince Chiang that the visit had not compromised the island's interests.

But Chiang's distrust of the US had built over time, the diaries show, and was confirmed when Nixon decided that year to withdraw US support for Taiwan's participation in the United Nations.

"This is the US' new scheme to sell out our interests, which is not only callous but also shameful to an unbearable extent," Chiang wrote in his diary on September 9, 1971.

The Nixon administration had offered a "dual representation" to allow both Taipei and Beijing to share the UN seat, but the idea was strongly opposed on both sides of the Taiwan Strait.

Chiang expressed his disappointment to the US and other democratic countries such as Japan, New Zealand and Australia for failing to support the island, saying those countries "would soon realise how big a mistake they made, but it was already too late as it had already harmed us seriously".

Finally, on October 25, 1971, the UN voted to admit the People's Republic of China as the only legitimate representative of China and removed Taiwan as a member.

"Finally announced withdrawal from the UN," he wrote on October 26, 1971. "Wanted to take it easy, but it's hard to do so because such a move will affect the fate of our country."

Even before the vote, Chiang was aware that, irrespective of the outcome, Taiwan would need continued ties with the US and its allies to ensure its future.

However, he was also looking inward.

"Realistically, regardless of how the international situation changes, for the sake of our interests, we should still seek to continue our cooperation with the US and Japan," Chiang noted in his diary on October 1, 1971, three weeks before the vote.

"Militarily, we should strengthen our own national defence, boost our anti-submarine and naval combat capabilities as well as the air power of our armed forces.

"Politically, we should maximise the flexibility of our government, personnel and legislative systems ... and appoint local Taiwanese to major government posts in a bid to ensure domestic unity and social stability.

"Economically, we must overhaul our industries, use trade to swap political interests and develop new technologies to ensure our survival and increase our competitiveness."

Chiang was changing his mindset away from retaking the mainland and towards the future of Taiwan itself.

Chiang Ching-kuo inherited and then abandoned his father's goal of retaking mainland China. Photo: Handout alt=Chiang Ching-kuo inherited and then abandoned his father's goal of retaking mainland China. Photo: Handout>

Three days after the vote, Chiang noted that many countries, including the US, favoured Beijing's side on the "mission of countering the Chinese communists to recover the mainland".

By the following February, while Nixon was still in China, the ambition had been abandoned entirely.

In a meeting with Taiwan's military leaders on February 26, a day before the issuance of the landmark China-US joint communique in Shanghai, Chiang told the generals that Taiwan must have a new vision in future ties with the US.

"The Americans are not reliable and we have been too courteous to them," he wrote. But he also lamented that "regretfully we are unable to give up our relationship with the US".

The Shanghai Communique called for Beijing and Washington to work towards the full normalisation of diplomatic policy.

In a top-secret document to the island's foreign ministry, Taiwan's embassy in Washington analysed the change in the US' position.

It said that instead of viewing Taiwan as the representative of China, the US regarded the legitimate representative issue as a problem that had to be resolved by Taipei and Beijing, and the US should not intervene.

The document, now stored in the Chiang Ching-kuo digital archive, said the communique showed that the US also changed the way it referred to the island - from the ROC to Taiwan - and the mainland - from the Chinese communist regime to the Chinese government.

"The Nixon government had long planned to make concessions for the Chinese communist regime," according to the document. "Our friends in the US also told us that we should not trust the promises made to us by Nixon."

A day after the document's release, Chiang told then chief of general staff Lai Ming-tang that the communique dealt a blow to Taiwan. "It is tantamount to the US betrayal of us and this will be tough," according to a record of his meeting in the archive.

He also asked Lai to ensure that all military orders within the military be carried out faithfully. This suggested Chiang was concerned about the morale and loyalty of the island's soldiers in the aftermath of the communique.

He also let Nixon know that his actions had a lasting impact.

On March 16, Chiang sent a letter to Nixon, saying that his new dialogue with the Chinese communists had "indeed had a painful impact upon my government and people".

"On our part, however, we have remained calm and restrained, knowing perfectly well that any emotional outburst could only bring comfort to our enemy," he said, reminding Nixon to "maintain our friendship, our diplomatic ties and our defence commitment".

In an apparent last-ditch attempt to retain official US-Taiwan ties, he implored Nixon to "discuss our differences quietly and candidly".

Chiang became premier and Taiwan's de facto policymaker in May that year when his ailing father was no longer able to supervise national matters.

Knowing there was little hope of reversing the situation, Chiang started focusing on developing Taiwan.

He spearheaded the NT$300 billion "Ten Major Construction Projects", between 1974 and 1979 to promote the island's sea, land and air transport, and upgrade industry.

"The projects laid a good foundation for economic and technological developments at home and allowed Taiwan to become one of the four Asian [tigers] between the 1970s and 1990s," said Max Lo, a researcher at Tamkang University's Centre for Advanced Technology in New Taipei.

On April 5, 1975, Chiang Kai-shek died, and the son became KMT chairman. In May 1978 he became the island's president. A year later the US recognised Beijing and severed diplomatic ties with Taipei.

"It finally comes as expected," he wrote in his diary on December 15, 1978, when he was woken up in the middle of the night by a sudden visit from Leonard Unger, the last US ambassador to Taiwan. Unger had come to notify Chiang that then US president Jimmy Carter would make the announcement the next morning.

"To attain its despicable goals ... the US has revealed its true side of imperialism ... and we need to be prepared for the worst and can no longer rely on others except for ourselves," he wrote on January 1, 1979 - the day of the formal diplomatic switch.

Wang Kung-yi, director of the Taiwan International Strategic Study Society, a Taipei-based think tank, said Chiang was well aware of what was coming and prepared the way with his localisation programme.

"In addition to concentrating on local economic development, Chiang had also started grooming local elites, which led to the transfer of power from the KMT to the Democratic Progressive Party in 2000," Wang said.

Among the elites were former Taiwan governor Lin Yang-kang and Lee Teng-hui, who succeeded Chiang as president after his death in January 1988.

"Chiang's tolerance of political opposition in the final stages of his life propelled Taiwan towards full democratisation, where civil society, aided by strong economic growth, became sufficiently strong to demand political reform," said Lin Hsiao-ting, curator of the Modern China collection at the Hoover Institution.

Seven months after the DPP was founded in 1986, Chiang lifted martial law. He died in office a few months later.

Decades on, there are still questions about whether it was the right move for Beijing and Washington to establish formal ties at the expense of Taipei.

In an article in Taiwan News last April, William Stanton, a former US de facto ambassador to Taiwan, said the US diplomatic recognition only helped Beijing to thrive, going on to become the chief strategic competitor and threat to the United States, its allies and friends, and democratic values.

"For a while, of course, it served the principal goal of dividing China from the Soviet Union, but now they are among the closest military and political allies in the world," said Stanton, who teaches at National Chengchi University.

"And it came at the cost of a willingness to sacrifice Taiwan, which nonetheless became a model democracy, a thriving economy, and a technological marvel in Asia and the world."

Alexander Huang Chieh-cheng, a professor of international relations and strategic studies at Tamkang University in New Taipei, said in recent years, there had been a "great awakening" of the US policy elites from the long-standing engagement policy towards Beijing.

"The People's Republic is definitely a peer competitor to the US today and its policy behaviour has endangered American interests," he said.

But Beijing could not be contained or isolated forever, and "the American strategy that led to the PRC's opening up to the outside world has significant impacts on Chinese society and its development".

Asked if Nixon miscalculated in normalising ties given that the US administration was now moving closer to Taipei, Wang said power competition and strategic realignment had been constant features in global politics.

He said both Moscow and Beijing were considered "revisionist powers" so it was understandable that Washington would now choose to strengthen ties with Taipei as part of an integrated Indo-Pacific strategy.

"Nixon's trip to Beijing 50 years ago should not be seen as a miscalculation in the Cold War context. We only hope that from Moscow to Beijing and from Washington to Taipei, there will be no miscalculations in all parties," Huang said.

This article originally appeared in the South China Morning Post (SCMP), the most authoritative voice reporting on China and Asia for more than a century. For more SCMP stories, please explore the SCMP app or visit the SCMP's Facebook and Twitter pages. Copyright © 2022 South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.

Copyright (c) 2022. South China Morning Post Publishers Ltd. All rights reserved.