Nixon and Mao by Margaret MacMillan Read Free Book Online Page A

Chinese died as a result of the Cultural Revolution. That is not counting the many millions more, by the admission of the Chinese authorities themselves, who were brutalized and victimized. An Italian psychiatrist who visited China shortly before Nixon’s visit was astonished at the prevalence of facial tics. 13
    In 1972 the American visitors did not have any idea of the extent of such horrors. Their Chinese hosts were unfailingly helpful and polite but simply ignored awkward questions. The journalists had hoped for man-and-woman-in-the-street interviews but found them impossible to arrange. Since owning a book published outside China could be enough to ruin a family, it is not surprising that no Chinese would take the risk of talking to foreigners, especially those who, until so recently, had been portrayed as China’s bitter enemies. The day Nixon arrived in Beijing, a Chinese woman had been arrested by plainclothes police for waving at his motorcade; it turned out that she had seen her niece who was an interpreter for the journalists. 14 The only Chinese the Americans were going to meet were officials and a few carefully selected individuals, such as writers or academics who were always brought out to greet foreign visitors. “Pathetic mummies” was how Pierre Ryckmans, the Belgian China expert who wrote as Simon Leys, described them. “Out of eight hundred million Chinese, foreigners meet about sixty individuals.” 15
    In 1972 there were very few foreigners living permanently in Beijing or, indeed, in China. The Chinese Communists had moved quickly after they seized power to drive out foreign businesspeople, missionaries, and teachers, all of whom were lumped together as imperialists. A few enthusiasts for Communism—“our foreign friends”—had chosen to stay on after 1949 and, at least until the 1960s, had lived privileged lives. The “Three Hundred Percenters,” as a British diplomat called them, were trotted out to laud the glories of the revolution and Mao and to condemn the inequities of the West. 16 During the Cultural Revolution even they came under attack, much to their bewilderment. Chinese universities, as part of the attempt to position China as the leader of revolution for the Third World, took in some foreign students, but this foundered when African students complained that they were looked down upon by the Chinese; after a brawl at the Peace Hotel, most of them left. 17 A handful of foreign journalists from China’s fellow Communist republics or from countries such as France and Canada, which had already established relations with China, tried, usually unsuccessfully, to find some real news.
    Only forty or so countries had any sort of relations with China, and the lives of their diplomats, even those from friendly countries, were severely circumscribed. There was little to see in Beijing; most of the famous sites had been badly damaged during the Cultural Revolution and remained closed. Foreigners could visit the Temple of Heaven, where the Ming emperors had once sacrificed to the gods, and one street to look for antiques. Most restaurants did not serve foreigners at all, and those that did had a special room set aside. Travel outside Beijing, except to the Ming Tombs, required a special permit, and permits, usually, were not forthcoming. Most diplomats had to live in the Diplomats’ Big Building, the Communists’ equivalent of the old imperial Barbarian Hostel, which had once housed foreign emissaries. Their servants, supplied by the Chinese authorities, undoubtedly spied on them. 18
    When the Communists took power in 1949, their fellow Communist regimes, led by the Soviet Union, moved quickly to recognize them as the new government of China. So did a number of newly independent Third-World nations, such as India and Indonesia. The Japanese, who accepted American influence over their foreign policy, were able only to move cautiously to reestablish trading relations. By the time Nixon visited