For China and the US, a welcome return to backchannel diplomacy

An American banker’s recent visit to China has drawn comparisons with historic episodes that preceded a thawing of relations in the 1970s
Amid US-China decoupling, it is encouraging that the two sides have resumed backchannel communications, and a reminder that private citizens can play a critical role

Pete Millwood

Published: 1:30am, 1 Oct 2021

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The visit of the influential American financier John Thornton to China this summer has drawn comparisons with another secret trip 50 years ago: then national security adviser Henry Kissinger’s first trip to China.

Kissinger’s 1971 visit was of great consequence: days after Kissinger returned home, president Richard Nixon announced on live television that he, too, would travel to China, realising a US-China rapprochement after two decades of confrontation.

Thornton’s six-week visit this summer may not bring about such seismic change, but it is an encouraging sign that China and the United States are rediscovering backchannel diplomacy – a tool that could be critical to offsetting conflict in their relationship.

The parallel between Thornton and Kissinger’s trips raises expectations for what might come out of the businessman’s visit. It is not known whether Thornton discussed the case of the recently released Huawei executive Meng Wanzhou, but Chinese officials did tell him ahead of time that China would commit to stop building coal-fired power plants overseas, as the Biden administration has called for.

That pledge and the US Justice Department’s withdrawal of its request to extradite Meng have been two rare instances of compromise in recent US-China relations.

Kissinger’s 1971 trip is not, however, the most accurate historical reference point for Thornton’s visit. Thornton is an influential figure: he co-chairs the China-US Financial Roundtable, which comprises Chinese officials and top US bankers, and helped negotiate president Donald Trump’s phase-one trade deal with China. But he is not a government official, even if he did consult the White House about his trip.

Thornton’s decision to visit Xinjiang in the face of US government objections shows he did not travel to China on Washington’s orders. In contrast, Kissinger was Nixon’s most influential foreign policy aide and travelled in an official, if secret, capacity.

Instead, Thornton’s visit is more an example of US-China communication through private citizens, which began before Kissinger set foot in Beijing. One such citizen was Robert F. Williams, a Black civil rights activist who inspired Huey Newton to found the Black Panther Party.

Williams had been forced into exile after the FBI tried to arrest him on trumped-up kidnapping charges. He lived in China from 1965 to 1969, returning to the United States following personal assurances from Nixon that he would not be imprisoned.

Williams and Thornton – the radical activist and the Wall Street executive – are contrasting in many ways, but they are similar in one: access to China’s leadership. (That Beijing now talks to a banker rather than a black radical tells a tale in itself.)

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Williams had a personal relationship with Mao Zedong, and the night before he left China in 1969, he spent more than two hours with premier Zhou Enlai. Harry Thayer, a senior State Department official, interviewed Williams for four hours soon after he returned home.

Now-declassified US government documents show careful analysis of what Williams revealed about China’s US policy – including the activist’s offer to act as a go-between to Chinese leaders. Williams reported Beijing’s anger at Washington’s slow scaling back of restrictions on trade and travel with China; subsequently, Nixon eased many of these controls.

Chinese premier Zhou Enlai with Henry Kissinger in July 1971 in Beijing. Photo: AFP

The US government considered Williams’ offer to pass messages to Beijing but ultimately only used his information. Simultaneously, the State Department paid careful attention to Mao’s hosting of another private American citizen, the journalist Edgar Snow, in 1970 through to 1971 (even while Kissinger personally failed to realise the significance of Snow’s presence in China).

Chinese records show that the Beijing leadership hoped the backchannel could also run in the other direction: Zhou sought to learn all he could from Snow about Nixon and his foreign policy.

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The state of US-China relations today resembles that 50 years ago. Once again, the two governments indulge in public recriminations, often about the same issues as half a century ago: Taiwan, trade restrictions, and the US military’s presence in Asia.

The ongoing decoupling of the US and China is undoing ties formed since 1971, even if we are still far from the near-total estrangement between American and Chinese societies that existed before that date.

The Chinese government now has more sophisticated means of learning about US foreign policy than chatting to a Swiss-based American journalist like Snow. But interactions with well-connected Americans such as Thornton have been prevented during the pandemic by strict barriers on entry to China for US citizens.

Resuming backchannel communications is vital because both sides have long used such interactions to advance novel suggestions they are unwilling to put forward in deadlocked governmental talks.

03:53

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Now, as then, the Chinese and US governments have publicly placed conditions on deepening bilateral negotiations. Each side’s list of grievances is long, and few are likely to be handled soon; some of those raised by Mao with Snow in 1970 have still not been resolved.

Washington dropping the request to extradite Meng was, however, one of Beijing’s conditions that has now been met; her release might prefigure progress elsewhere in the relationship. Similar steps helped bring rapprochement before: Nixon’s visit was preceded by the release of American prisoners held in China.

While both countries are committed to what US Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman recently described as stiff competition, the challenge for both sides is to conduct effective diplomacy despite insoluble disagreements over fundamental issues such as human rights.

While the low profile of Thornton’s visit might evoke memories of Kissinger’s secret trip, his negotiations in China are also a reminder that private citizens can play a critical role in this diplomacy. They will need to do so if the two countries are to avoid the perilous dangers of war, or inaction in the face of climate change.

Pete Millwood is a postdoctoral fellow in the Society of Fellows in the Humanities at the University of Hong Kong