As ties with the U.S. worsen, China asks: Who’s the new Kissinger?

Chinese leader Mao Zedong, left, meets with U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger
in Beijing in 1973. (Bettmann/Bettmann Archive)

As ties with the U.S. worsen, China asks: 

Who’s the new Kissinger?

Influential voices in China are openly discussing who could act as a trusted bridge between Beijing and Washington, regardless of who wins the presidency.

By Christian Shepherd

 and 

Katrina Northrop

October 28, 2024

As the U.S. election approaches, China is on the hunt for the “new Henry Kissinger” — someone who is a friend of Beijing but has the ear of the incoming president. Someone who Chinese officials hope can cut through the bipartisan hostility toward China and encourage Washington to engage — as Kissinger did for five decades.

In Beijing’s foreign policy circles, the race for the White House is often cast as lose-lose, with former president Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris both signaling they will take a tough line on China, despite differing on policy details.

Chinese experts fear Trump’s return would mean a full-blown trade war with blanket tariffs on Chinese goods.

Harris, meanwhile, would probably continue the Biden administration’s fragile stabilization of ties — but also the efforts to counter China’s technological and military rise, an approach Chinese leader Xi Jinping has labeled “containment.”

That’s why a new Kissinger is needed, Chinese experts say, following http://Xi’s calls for Americans “of foresight” to step forward and improve ties. (There is no suggestion from the Trump or Harris campaigns that they are looking for a Kissinger-style envoy.)

Influential voices in China are openly discussing who could match Kissinger’s gravitas as a statesman, his unwavering advocacy for engagement, and his ability to act as a back channel in times of crisis — regardless of who wins the presidency.

The Paper, a state-run media outlet, recently ran an eight-part series called “Looking for Kissinger,” identifying American business leaders, academics and former officials who could help keep relations stable.

The list included Stephen A. Schwarzman, the CEO of private equity firm Blackstone who launched an elite graduate program at Beijing’s Tsinghua University; John F. Kerry, the former U.S. special climate envoy who has advocated for close cooperation with Beijing to stem global warming; retired American diplomat Susan Thornton, who openly criticized the confrontational China policy adopted by Trump; and California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D), whose visit to Beijing last year fueled Chinese efforts to court local American politicians.

None of the four responded to requests for comment on their inclusion in the list.

Wang Huiyao, a prominent Chinese foreign policy thinker, says Graham Allison, an assistant defense secretary in the Clinton administration and esteemed political scientist at Harvard’s Kennedy School, would be a good Kissinger-style bridge.

“We hope that you will carry on Kissinger’s spirit and be a great supporter and promoter, and of course, great contributor to the America-China relations,” Wang told Allison earlier this year.

Allison’s warnings about a “Thucydides trap” — a theory that rising powers almost always end up at war with incumbent great powers — have been adopted by Xi to urge Western powers to accept China’s rise.

Allison, who met with Xi in Beijing in March, said the Chinese leader was eager to continue discussions he had with Kissinger about lessons from the Cold War.

Allison is a strong advocate for engagement, which he says is in America’s best interest and needed to avert conflict. “China hysteria infects too many Americans,” he said in an interview.

On Chinese social media, people have suggested that Elon Musk could be another candidate, considering the Tesla CEO’s close business ties with China and Chinese officials, as well as his growing alliance with Trump. Musk often makes arguments favored by Beijing: Last year, for example, he called Taiwan an “integral part of China.”

Almost everyone, whether in the United States or China, agrees that Kissinger’s role in the relationship was unique. But many in Beijing advocate for preserving and, to whatever extent possible, replicating his legacy to avoid competition veering into conflict.

“The search for a new Kissinger is not just about locating Kissinger number two. It’s about Chinese passion and Chinese enthusiasm to search for reasonable, forward-looking views on relations,” said Zhu Feng, dean of international studies at Nanjing University.

But it’s also a prescription for how to manage a hostile White House. “Even when Kissinger was getting older, and China grew bigger and stronger, Kissinger’s mentality remained quite accommodating,” Zhu said.

There is great nostalgia in Beijing for the Kissinger years. Leading scholars write op-eds lamenting the difficulties of reestablishing “Kissinger-style engagement” and blaming American politicians for “spoiling the atmosphere” by attacking China for political gain. They still invoke Kissinger as an example of best diplomatic practices.

Kissinger’s reputation as a visionary diplomat began with his clandestine trip to Beijing in 1971 as national security adviser to Republican President Richard M. Nixon, a trip that paved the way for the establishment of diplomatic ties in 1979.

He continued traveling to Beijing through July last year, soon after his 100th birthday, when Kissinger sealed his legacy as a tireless advocate for improved ties. “We never forget our old friends,” Xi told him in the same building where Kissinger met Premier Zhou Enlai 52 years earlier.

In Chinese state media, that visit was heralded as a turning point in a tentative warming of ties that would lead to Xi meeting with President Joe Biden in San Francisco in November, even as the State Department said Kissinger was traveling as a private citizen and not acting on behalf of the United States.

Kissinger’s death in November led to an outpouring of condolences from Chinese officials as well as a flurry of speeches and essays lamenting the Kissinger-size hole in bilateral diplomacy.

The 10-year anniversary edition of Kissinger’s book “On China,” released in April last year, has over 1.45 million reviews on Chinese online book seller Dangdang.com. Only 338 of those are negative.

Beijing prefers to deal directly with the executive branch, but tensions have made that channel more difficult, creating a need for someone like Kissinger who can act as a “direct channel to the captain of the ship,” said Da Wei, director of the Center for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University. “Captains sometimes cannot talk to each other with trust, so you need to find someone in between that both sides can trust.”

Da acknowledged that no one person could replace Kissinger, but there could instead be “smaller Kissingers” — several people with connections to the leadership and policy circles that can help stabilize relations, he said.

Stephen Orlins, president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, a New York-based nonprofit that advocates for more engagement with Beijing, agreed that China’s search reflects concern that “government-to-government channels are no longer working out.”

“Whether it will be Harris or whether it’s Trump, they are going to need nongovernment channels to communicate the way Henry did for decades and decades,” Orlins said.

But Isaac Stone Fish, founder of Strategy Risks, a consulting firm that analyzes companies’ exposure to China, described Beijing’s search for a new Kissinger as one for a “new top useful idiot.”

Chinese leaders “seem to understand how advantageous it is for them to have this be something that only happens on the American side,” Stone Fish said, arguing that it makes the United States more responsible for improving the diplomatic relationship.

“Where’s the Chinese Kissinger?” he asked⍐.