A Conflict Perpetuated PDF Download

This study profiles Kennedy as a man of many guises. He was often a hostage to the Cold War, to constrictive perceptions of the domestic climate, and to the image of a predatory China. On the other hand, he recognized Washington's finite capacity to shape events on the China Mainland. Possibly excepting a preventive strike against China's nuclear installations, he was also reluctant to run the risk of military confrontation with Beijing. On the eve of his assassination, Kennedy may have even contemplated a China policy departure during his second term. Regarding leadership style, a fragmentary and reactive pattern pervaded both the conventional and the creative modes of his China performance. More a student of China than Kennedy, Rusk alternated between two divergent strategies. In the summers of both 1961 and 1962, he endorsed discrete probes in the hope of nurturing moderate forces in Beijing's ruling circle. Other times saw him in favour of the "pressure-wedge" logic, which prescribed the ostracizing of Beijing as a means of deepening the Sino-Soviet rift. A calm appraisal of China's capabilities and intentions comprised the distinguishing feature of revisionist thinking during the Kennedy years. Three sub-schools are discernible. "Visionary revisionists" harboured an expansive sense of China's susceptibility to American power. "Modest revisionists" departed from the standard "zero-sum" conceptualization of the Sino-American conflict. Drawing on both, "educative revisionist" still implied a search for American primacy. The revisionist approach did facilitate the transformation of bilateral relations in the early 1970s. From a shorter-range perspective, however, the Kennedy era only added fuel to the fire of Sino-American confrontation. The Limited Test Ban Treaty accentuated the sense of encirclement and vulnerability in Beijing's psyche, and clouds gathered most ominously in Vietnam. Kennedy bears some responsibility for the bilateral impasse: he personified a decision-maker so obsessed with the objective of deterrence as to overlook the "security dilemma." But Mao's preference for a radical course, independent of Kennedy's conduct, contributed as well. Neither side was ready for a breakthrough. The opportunity to transform Sino-American relations apparently did not exist during the Kennedy years.