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1970s American Diplomacy
Jul. 30th, 2015 10:20 am“We simply must find a formula that Egypt and Israel can accept. If you give me a chance, I don’t intend to fail.”
-- President Jimmy Carter
Seeking to encourage Sadat and the Egyptian delegates at the Camp David peace talks, Carter explained that America has dealt with similarly difficult, seemingly impossible, diplomatic negotiations before and succeeded. Where there is a will, there is a way.
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Carter mentioned the 1972 Shanghai communique, a famous document in the annals of diplomacy, which was crafted by Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s national security advisor at the time, and Chou En-lai, the Chinese prime minister. Both U.S. and China had sought to normalize relations, but they could not find a way to agree on the language that would resolve the central issue, which was China’s claim to Taiwan, an American ally. Finally, Kissinger resorted to what he later termed “constructive ambiguity,” by inserting the sentence “The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China, and that Taiwan is a province of China,” but avoiding the question of who should govern it. The agreement opened the way for China and the U.S. to overcome decades of hostility. As Carter explained it to the Egyptians, “We both agreed that there was one China, but we did not destroy the agreement by trying to define ‘one China’ to specifically.”
-- Lawrence Wright, “Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
-- President Jimmy Carter
Seeking to encourage Sadat and the Egyptian delegates at the Camp David peace talks, Carter explained that America has dealt with similarly difficult, seemingly impossible, diplomatic negotiations before and succeeded. Where there is a will, there is a way.
<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<<
Carter mentioned the 1972 Shanghai communique, a famous document in the annals of diplomacy, which was crafted by Henry Kissinger, Richard Nixon’s national security advisor at the time, and Chou En-lai, the Chinese prime minister. Both U.S. and China had sought to normalize relations, but they could not find a way to agree on the language that would resolve the central issue, which was China’s claim to Taiwan, an American ally. Finally, Kissinger resorted to what he later termed “constructive ambiguity,” by inserting the sentence “The United States acknowledges that all Chinese on either side of the Taiwan Strait maintain there is but one China, and that Taiwan is a province of China,” but avoiding the question of who should govern it. The agreement opened the way for China and the U.S. to overcome decades of hostility. As Carter explained it to the Egyptians, “We both agreed that there was one China, but we did not destroy the agreement by trying to define ‘one China’ to specifically.”
-- Lawrence Wright, “Thirteen Days in September: Carter, Begin, and Sadat at Camp David”
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
