Let’s be clear as mud

Just go out there and confuse ’em

“Diplomacy is the art of saying ‘Nice doggie’ until you can find a rock.”

—Will Rogers

THE STORY goes that when Nixon visited China, as only he could, somebody asked Chairman Mao’s right-hand man and favorite diplomat, Zhou Enlai, what was the party’s take on, um, the French Revolution. You know, just for small talk. To break the ice.

Zhou Enlai thought a moment, and replied: “It’s too soon to say.”

There’s a chance some part of that story is actually true. The Chinese always do take the long view of things. Which is easy to do when your civilization has been a civilization for about 4,000 years. Clever people, these Chinese. Here we are only 240 years into the American experiment, and some folks think it’s all over because of one strange election.

Speaking of that election . . . .

What to make of the most recent president-elect (there will be many more to come, thank you) taking a phone call from the leader of Taiwan last week? You’d a-thunk the man was courtin’ war. Instead he took a phone call of congratulations. Which might be the most gentleman-ly thing he’s done in a year.

The Red Chinese are said to be furious. Or at least pretending to be. They pretend a lot. For example, on the mainland, the Reds like to call themselves the People’s Republic of China. Which is a triple error. It’s not a republic, it doesn’t represent all Chinese, and as for representing the people, we give you Tiananmen Square. But the mainland Chinese, or at least its stuffy diplomats, are clutching their pearls in shock—shock!—that an American leader would take a phone call from the free Chinese in Taiwan.

Note to the Chinese on the mainland: It was a phone call. It would have been impolite not to accept.

America’s thinking on the Chinese question has always been not to answer that question too clearly. Sure, there’s one China. Both the mainland, the island and the Americans agree to that, even formally and in writing. But which is the one China—the one ruled by Beijing or the one represented in Taipei? The right answer: Yes. Depending on the audience. If you’re keeping score, give everybody an incomplete on this one, and move on to the next question. Jaw, jaw, as Churchill said, is better than war, war. In the case of the Chinese, better to be unclear and peaceful than clear and shooting at each other. Ambiguity is often a plus in the diplomatic arts.

Sometimes incoherence is best for everybody. Take, for perhaps best example, a president named Eisenhower, who had his own troubles with Chinese diplomacy. Once upon a time, another crisis threatened to drag the United States into yet another war with the Chinese (not so long after fighting them in Korea). Back then, in the mid-1950s, the fight, or potential fight, was over a couple of islands named Quemoy and Matsu.

How far was Eisenhower, that old war general and defeater of foes, prepared to go to back America’s allies on Taiwan? Would the United States turn loose the nukes on the Middle Kingdom? What course would the president take if the ChiComs found enough boats to launch an attack across the Taiwan Strait? Would he at least threaten war to keep the Reds at bay? Or would he show indifference, and thus assure war?

The experts at the State Department urged the president not to say anything about the mounting crisis in case either one of the Chinas took it the wrong way, and things went sideways. Sure, the president said, “if that question comes up, I’ll just confuse ’em.”

When the press finally calmed down enough at the next news conference to ask a question that everybody could understand, it was, you guessed it, about the Chinese, nuclear weapons, and another potential war in the Pacific. Ike’s response was brilliant and confusing:

“Well . . . . I must confess I cannot answer that question in advance. The only thing I know about war are two things: the most unpredictable factor in war is human nature in its day-by-day manifestation; but the only unchanging factor in war is human nature. And the next thing is that every war is going to astonish you in the way it occurred, and the way it is carried out. So that for a man to predict . .. what he is going to use and how he is going to do it would, I think, exhibit his ignorance of war; that is what I believe. So I think you just have to wait, and that is the kind of prayerful decision that may some day face a president.’’

IMAGINE the translators in Beijing trying to decipher that. Or even our allies in Taipei. Or the Soviets with their earphones and notepads, wondering what to tell Moscow. The most unpredictable factor in war is human nature. The only unchanging factors in war is human nature. What the hell was the president of the United States saying?

That was more than 60 years ago. And the world hasn’t been dragged into a war over Taiwan yet. Mainly because American presidents haven’t been in the habit of making clear statements on what, exactly, America would be willing to do in this situation or those circumstances, at least when it comes to Taiwan. It beats drawing red lines or signaling to enemies when the U.S. will be pulling out of a conflict.

Ambiguity is underrated. As a president named Ike knew. Better to keep saying ‘Nice doggie’ and never need the rock at all.

Let’s hope this current president- elect is just as unclear on this topic as Ike was. And has as much success keeping the seas around Taiwan quiet.

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