No matter how much one expects another Kissinger-like figure to emerge in the United States of the future, the trajectory of history tells us that there will never be another such person.
Because, it wasn't Kissinger who created that era, but the era that went by, that created Kissinger.
Taking people as a mirror, we can know the gains and losses, take history as a reference, and know the rise and fall, hello everyone, I am Xiaozhang said, In this issue, we will talk about Kissinger, an "old friend of the Chinese people."
One. Kissinger, born in 1923 in Fürth, near Nuremberg, Germany, to a Jewish family, was originally named Heinz Alfred Kissinger.
The above short sentence has already doomed the family to misfortune. That's right, he was born in Germany, where the Nazis were on the rise. In the year he was born, Mustache staged a beer hall riot in Munich, which was cancelled and re-incorporated two years later.
Thus began the bitter life of the German Jews.
The misfortune of all is that next door to Kissinger's hometown is Nuremberg, the home of the Nazi Party, and since the founding of the Nazi Party, the annual party congress has been held in Nuremberg, so the anti-Semitic atmosphere here is particularly strong compared to other places.
The members who had been beaten by the mustache at the party congress came out with nowhere to vent, so they went around settling accounts with nearby Jews.
Childhood Kissinger.
Kissinger's father soon lost his job in this atmosphere, and the family lived cautiously.
In 1938, at the insistence of Kissinger's mother, the whole family fled to New York, USA, in order to escape the German fascists.
A few months later, the Kristallnacht attacks on Jews broke out, more than 30,000 Jewish adult men were imprisoned in concentration camps, and in the ensuing World War II, 13 relatives of the Kissinger family were killed by Nazi Germany.
If it weren't for his mother's wise choice, I'm afraid Kissinger wouldn't have survived World War II.
As a result, Kissinger not only survived, but later returned to Germany as an American GI to fight the Nazis, and was given the opportunity to return to his homeland and reminisce about the past.
The family moved into a squat brick building on Fort Washington Boulevard, a lively street that houses hundreds of Jewish refugees. In order to adapt to life in the United States, he gave himself a new name that would later become known around the world: Henry Kissinger.
In the United States, Kissinger spent his days at school and at night in a factory.
At the age of nineteen, Kissinger, who had not yet obtained American citizenship, unexpectedly received a call-up order from the American ** team, and after three months of basic training, in accordance with the "World War II" Power Act introduced in March 1942
Enemy aliens who have served honorably in the army for at least three months are allowed to become U.S. citizens".
Kissinger became an honorable American citizen.
Then the American Kissinger was sent to the European theater to follow the Normandy landing force into the European continent.
Because of his strong German accent, Kissinger was assigned to the 84th Infantry Division, first as a German interpreter, and later transferred to the 970th Counterintelligence Corps, assigned to the "counterintelligence team", whose main job was to search for SS and enemy agents hiding in Allied-occupied areas.
So don't worry, Kissinger will certainly not sacrifice in the European theater.
Troops engaged in intelligence have always had the opportunity to contact more high-level bigwigs. It was here that Kissinger met Fritz Kramer, the most important man of his life and his spiritual mentor.
Officers and soldiers of Company G, 335th Infantry Regiment, 335th Infantry Regiment, 84th Infantry Division, 1944. The fourth row, sixth from the left, is Kissinger.
On the recommendation of Fritz Kramer, Kissinger became an administrator and later an instructor at the Allied espionage school, and it is for this reason that Kissinger repeatedly dealt with spy agencies during his later political career.
After the war, Kissinger returned to China to be demobilized, carrying a letter of recommendation from Fritz Kramer, and entered Harvard University, where Kissinger's talent exploded.
He received a bachelor's degree in political science in 1950, a master's degree in philosophy in 1952, and a doctorate in philosophy in 1954.
The most talked about in this academic career is his super long **, his undergraduate graduation ** "The True Meaning of History" is 383 pages long, the full text is 330,000 words, is the longest one among Harvard undergraduates, so that Harvard has to issue a special regulation to limit the length of graduation**, the standard is the "Kissinger rule", any ** shall not exceed one-third of the **.
Not only that, but four years later, he broke the record again with his Ph.D., "The World Reconstructed: Metternich, Cassuri, and the Peace Problem 1912-1822," which is 280,000 words long and is considered the longest Ph.D. in Harvard's history.
More importantly, this article initially laid the core of Kissinger's diplomatic thinking in the next few decades, that is, balance-of-power diplomacy.
The core point of this article is that after the Congress of Vienna, the main credit for the 100-year peace in Europe is that Austrian Prime Minister Metternich and British Foreign Secretary Cassuri did not take too many revenge on France after Napoleon's defeat, but maintained the balance of power under the international system.
Vienna Conference on the Distribution of Spoils among the Great Powers.
This logic is correct in a sense, for example, after World War I, it was precisely because the Allies signed the most harsh treaties with Germany that the Germans were very dissatisfied, and the extreme ideas of the mustache would have the soil to support.
At Harvard, Kissinger met his second Bole, who was also his Enshi, Harvard professor William Elliott.
In 1951, when Kissinger was still in graduate school, his mentor used his position as a college summer school director to help him plan a project, the Harvard International Symposium.
In today's words, William Elliott held a tutorial class in the summer, and the students were young politicians and leaders from all over the world, and everyone listened to the lectures and worked together to take policies.
William Yandell Elliott was Kissinger's mentor in the Department of Public Administration at Harvard University.
At the end of the program in 1969, more than 600 students had participated, some of whom had become presidents, newspaper editors, and bank presidents, and Kissinger, who was 28 years old at the time, had accumulated a wealth of contacts in academia and bureaucracy through this program, and initially built his own full foundation.
And the Ph.D.** published in 1954 is also a set of diplomatic codes of conduct summarized by Kissinger under the experience of this project.
All of his diplomatic views that later dominated the international situation boiled down to one point, that is, balance of power diplomacy.
In 1955, in this academic circle, Kissinger met a third Bole, who was more powerful and influential than the first two Bole, Nelson Rockefeller. Son of Standard Oil tycoon John D. Rockefeller.
Nelson Rockefeller entered politics in 1940 and successively worked under Roosevelt, Truman, Eisenhower, and Kennedy. He was elected governor of New York in 1958 as a Republican candidate, and served a term until 1973, when he was nominated by then-Ford as vice president of the United States in 1974, and attended Chiang Kai-shek's funeral until his retirement in 1977.
Chiang Kai-shek's funeral, fourth from the left is Zhang Xueliang.
In 1960, 1964, and 1968, this guy ran for the United States three times, and he was not very lucky, and he did not even pass the Republican nomination hurdle, during which time Kissinger was Nelson Rockefeller's campaign adviser.
In 1968, Nixon defeated Nelson Rockefeller to become the first candidate for the Republican nomination, although he has always been at odds with Nixon, but in order to influence Nixon's foreign policy in the future, Nelson Rockefeller generously recommended Kissinger to Nixon as an adviser.
In that year, Nixon defeated the Democratic candidate and took the throne.
Nixon in the campaign.
In return, Kissinger was appointed by Nixon as assistant to the committee and director of the committee.
Let's not underestimate this position, *Affairs Assistant is referred to as *** Advisor, from *** Committee, This department gathers the top think tanks in the United States, and its status in *** is higher than that of the Department of Defense and ***
This position is directly related to the nature of U.S. foreign policy, such as Usain Bolt in the Sino-American war, and now Biden's Sullivan.
By the way, Kissinger also served as Secretary of State of Nixon and then Ford from 1973 to 1977, with full responsibility for U.S. foreign affairs, which is the highest position that can be given by the U.S. Constitution for an immigrant.
From left to right: U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, Deputy Nelson Rockefeller, Ford.
In January 1969, Kissinger left Harvard and took up his post in Washington, D.C., transforming himself from a civilian strategist to a policymaker.
Two. On July 1, 1971, Kissinger left Washington to begin his and Nixon's elaborate "Polo Project," an official trip to Vietnam for investigation, followed by visits to Thailand, India, and Pakistan.
In order not to attract attention, Kissinger spent three days in Saigon, South Vietnam, one day in Bangkok, two days in New Delhi, India, and even announced that he would only stay in Pakistan for two days in order not to make India jealous.
On the morning of the 8th, Kissinger arrived in Islamabad, and with the cooperation of Yahya Khan of Pakistan, Kissinger pretended to have a stomachache at the welcome dinner that day, and then was announced in front of reporters to go to his villa to recuperate.
At four o'clock in the morning of the next day, Kissinger boarded a 707 passenger plane that flew directly to Beijing. There, the prime minister has arranged for *** and others to pick up the airport.
Kissinger's secret visit to China began with this.
Two days later, China and the United States reached a preliminary consensus, paving the way for Nixon's visit to China, and the following year, Nixon's visit to China officially established diplomatic relations between China and the United States.
This ended the 23-year hostility between the two powers.
Today, we call Kissinger "an old friend of the Chinese people," standing on our Chinese standpoint. After all, after the establishment of diplomatic relations between China and the United States, China's external pressure has been greatly reduced, and the 10s even ushered in a honeymoon period, and in 2001, China joined the WTO amid frictions, and to this day, China has become the world's second largest economy.
Kissinger has made great contributions to the great cause of the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation.
However, between countries, whether they are harmonious or divided is always determined by interests, and no matter what kind of contribution Kissinger objectively makes to the great cause of our nation, subjectively speaking, this is a diplomatic action for the sake of the United States.
In the 60s of the last century, Sino-Soviet relations deteriorated, and even a big fight was fought on Zhenbao Island, and since then they have parted ways.
In the 70s, Brezhnev came to power on the Soviet side and started an active policy of foreign expansion, while the United States was mired in the quagmire of the Vietnam War, and the country entered the quagmire of economic stagnation, and the bipolar struggle between the United States and the Soviet Union entered the stage of the Soviet Union attacking the United States and defending the United States.
In the face of the aggressive Soviet threat, China and the United States reached an agreement on *** for the first time in history.
To put it bluntly, isn't this Kissinger's "balance of power theory"?
At that time, the United States needed to dissolve an enemy, and expected to turn this enemy into an ally in the great power game to counteract the threat from the Soviet Union, so the fundamental reason for Kissinger's ice-breaking trip was to help the United States achieve a new balance of power in the international arena during the Soviet Union's offensive and defensive phase.
Didn't he say in "The World Rebuilt: Metternich, Cassuri, and the Question of Peace 1912-1822" that only the balance of power will contain war and there will be peace.
For example, under his leadership, the United States withdrew its troops from Vietnam while supporting the South Vietnamese regime, and in 1971, when East Pakistan (present-day Bangladesh) became independent, the United States chose to stand by in order not to provoke pro-Soviet India.
In 1973, the Fourth Middle East War broke out, Israel was defeated and then won, Kissinger persuaded Israel to give up the occupied land in exchange for peace, at that time Kissinger shuttled back and forth between Arab countries and Israel, with his efforts, Egypt finally fell out with the Soviet Union, became a staunch ally of the United States, and even a few years later completely reconciled with Israel, and the old Syrian Assad, who had always been pro-Soviet, also began to seek a balanced diplomacy between the Soviet Union and the United States.
You see, balance will bring back peace, and one-sidedness will only irritate the Arabs even more.
But in some corners of the world, if the United States does not need balance, then this kind of peace is completely unnecessary.
In 1973, under the planning of the CIA, the chief of staff of the Chilean army, Augusto Pinochet, staged a coup d'état to overthrow the democratically elected leftist Allende**, Allende was killed, and then Chile began the rule of the military.
Simply because of the fear that Chile would fall to Cuba.
Some people may ask, what the CIA planned may not have anything to do with Kissinger, don't forget, the CIA is affiliated with the United States, and the director of the Security Committee is Kissinger.
In 1975, the Portuguese colony of East Timor in Southeast Asia became independent, and Indonesia on the side actively prepared a plan to annex East Timor, and Kissinger clearly said to Suharto**, We are not against your annexation, but act quickly.
Over the next 24 years of Indonesian rule, between 100,000 and 250,000 people were killed in East Timor for rebellion.
You see, because Timor-Leste is so small, it doesn't have much interest in the United States.
Indonesia invades East Timor.
Because Kissinger's diplomatic core, only the interests of the United States, and only those that conform to the interests of the United States, are what he needs and advocates, and this is a very pragmatic style of diplomacy.
Great power politics has always been the law of the jungle, so what is the international morality?
Three. Many people would think that Kissinger is a pro-China faction, and he himself said at an awards gala this year: "I have worked for US-China relations for half of my life."
At first glance, this is very heartwarming, but on closer inspection, it is actually true that he has indeed worked for Sino-US relations all his life.
During the confrontation between the United States and the Soviet Union, he worked hard to improve Sino-US relations in order to win over China and ease the strategic pressure of the United States and make China a trump card to contain the Soviet Union.
In the Sino-US showdown, he advocated suppressing China's rise as soon as possible.
Don't believe me, what do you see what he's said in recent years?
In 2018, when Trump started a war with Europe, he said: When Western countries are no longer dependent on the United States, the Atlantic Ocean will turn Europe into an "appendage of Eurasia". As a result, these countries will be at the mercy of China, which has regained its historical status and has become "the main adviser to all mankind."
It is clear that the 95-year-old Kissinger believes that China's rise will dominate Eurasia and thus completely marginalize the United States.
In fact, he is not really foolish enough to think that China will rule the world, he just wants to contain China's rise.
According to Kissinger's strategic concept, the United States should unite with Russia to counter China's rise.
After the "airship incident" this year, Kissinger openly criticized China, saying that "China is a challenger to the current international order, and in order to maintain world order, it can use force against China if necessary." ”
The purpose of uniting Russia to counterbalance China and, if necessary, to use force against China is the same.
If after the collapse of the Soviet Union, although the United States no longer needed China to contain the Soviet Union, China's huge market was still in the interests of the US economy, then when China has clearly risen in the last decade and has started to compete with the United States in the economic field, then Kissinger believes that the United States no longer needs to tolerate it.
So in the first decade of the 21st century, he has been advocating for continued cooperation between China and the United States, and in recent years, he has begun to go around with China.
Because, the offensive and defensive forces are also different. It was not Kissinger who created that era, but that era needed a Kissinger to take the stage.
But fortunately, American politicians did not listen to his advice, because today's American politicians are too impetuous compared to Kissinger's old ministers to seek the country, and although they cannot tolerate the rise of China, the current threat from Russia is even more uncomfortable.
In the United States, Russia is a direct threat, and China is a long-term threat, and both must be suppressed.
Therefore, after the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war, Kissinger was heartbroken: "Blindly sanctioning Russia is a very stupid diplomatic strategy, and forcing Russia to fall into the Chinese camp is not beneficial to the United States." ”
Isn't it a little hated for the taste of iron not steel?
Compared with American politicians, Trump is a smart man, after this old man came to power, he and Putin eyebrows, but was quickly labeled as "Russia", since then the contradictions between the United States and Russia have intensified step by step, and in turn promoted China and Russia to huddle together for warmth.
They won't let us both be good.
This seems to be a bit of a taste of giving back to the other.
The Americans are now reveling in the joy of the victory in the Cold War, having taken out the world's most powerful Soviets, and characterizing this victory as the superiority of capitalism, and not so much, and with China in mind.
Even if they see us as the primary threat today, their arrogance will not allow them to put down their position and make a comeback to unite with another enemy to suppress us.
Therefore, after Kissinger, there will never be a second Kissinger, because the bipolar pattern has long ended, the rejuvenation of the Chinese nation is inevitable, and neither Kissinger nor American politicians regard China as a cooperative opponent.
On December 25, 1991, the Soviet flag was lowered from the Kremlin and the Russian flag was raised.
From this point of view, Kissinger died as early as 8 p.m. on December 25, 1991, when the sickle flag was lowered from the Kremlin.