Personally I do agree with him, mostly becuase Nixon was so overbearing that anything Kissinger proposed had to be examined and authorized by Nixon. Like the whole point of Kissinger's office was to allow Nixon to run his own forgien policy. And to their credit they did do detente with the Soviets and went to China ( which is why a lot of Chinese really like Kissinger and Nixon, of which I am also probably subject).

To their detriment of course is that they killed millions of people, but this is also true of literally every other American administration.

I think the main reason that Kissinger sticks in our minds is that he and Nixon explicitly highlighted their forgien policy becuase they were forced to carry out the Great Society at home by the Dem Congress.

  • Judge_Juche [she/her]
    ·
    2 years ago

    I don't think they wanted to help China in anyway, they explicitly wanted to recruit China as a wedge against the Soviets which China agreed to for recognition and (partial) resolution of the Taiwan crisis.

    Nixon and Kissinger really didn't anticipate the offshoring of American factories to China in '72 since China was still closed and offshoring only started happening with Deng's Reform and Opening Up. Like in his recent writings Kissinger has been lamenting how recognition of China led to the current decline of the American empire.

    Ironically, a lot of Chinese associate the '72 visit with Reform and Opening Up, and with the current position of China today. Like my Chinese parents were born in the 60s and they vividly remember the visit and kind of attribute everything's that's gone right in China to that moment, despite moving to the US in the 90s and me constantly proselytizing Xi Jingping Thought to them.