On May 27, former US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger ushered in his 100th birthday.A century ago, in 1923, Kissinger was born in a Jewish family in Bavaria, Germany.In the first 15 years in his life, he witnessed the rise of the Nazi regime.As a Jews from Nazi Germany, he had encountered huge suffering and lost 13 family members and countless friends in the massacre.In 1938, his family fled to the United States under the Nazi rule.
Kissinger grew up in New York.It is said that in his youth, he was very shy and rarely spoke.After becoming a U.S. citizen, he enlisted in the army in 1943. During World War II, he returned to the motherland and Germany as a American soldier to engage in anti -spy work for the US military.After returning to the United States, he studied politics at Harvard University with a scholarship and received a doctorate in 1954.Later, he taught in Harvard and became a well -known expert in the international political field.In 1969, Kissinger was hired as a national security consultant by President Nixon.In 1973, Nixon appointed him as Secretary of State, and he had been working until the end of the presidential term of Ford in January 1977.
This life experience sounds a bit like a "American dream" (the so -called American dream is divided into a broad and narrow sense, in a broad sense, refers to the equality, freedom, and democracy of the United States;If you work hard, you can get the ideal of a better life, that is, people must move towards prosperity through their diligence, courage, creativity, and determination, rather than relying on the aid of specific social classes and others. Many European immigrants areIt is a model of going to the United States with the ideal of the American dream).It seems that it is not difficult to understand. He worships the United States in a nearly emotional way.Regarding this country that contains him, he once wrote: "I can't find the same generous spirit and no malicious things anywhere in anywhere."
There are reason to believe that it is precisely based on this love and loyalty for the United States, making this persevere person full of mission -everything is based on the national interests of the United States.It was this sense of mission that made him a cold and realistic pragmatism.Like all pragmatists, he pays attention to reality, practice, refuses useless problems, emphasizes efficacy, but has sufficient flexibility.
Of course, it is also his practical principles and positions of this reality that made him criticize.From the perspective of those critics, he is simply a power politician who ignores morality. As long as he meets the national interests of the United States, he will also support the dictator.Such examples include: It is believed that in 1973, Kissinger and the Central Intelligence Agency were involved in the bloody coup of Chilean General Pinocter's then candidate President Alian.In 1975, it supported the bloody invasion of Indonesia against East Timor.Of course, in his supporters, Kissinger is a diplomatic rosewood that reshapes the global geopolitical pattern and allows the United States to return to the top of the world.
This big pen is exactly his extraordinary vision, political courage, and diplomatic wisdom, breaking through ideological obstacles, breaking the absolute anti -firm ice between China and the United States, and realizing the "handshake crossing the Pacific Ocean" that shocked the world "It has opened two new chapters of national relations with distinctive ideology.He is also regarded as the "old friend of the Chinese people."In the minds of many Chinese people, Kissinger has become synonymous with friendship with China.Especially every time Sino -US relations fluctuate, people always look forward to his or his concept of successor, which can become the leading force of US foreign relations.
But they forgot a basic fact: Kissinger is a thorough pragmatism with US national interests.At that time, the main strategic opponent of the United States was the Soviet Union, and affected by the United States' deep trapped in the Vietnam war mud. From 1969 to 1979, the Soviet Union obviously occupied the upper hand in the US -Soviet hegemony pattern.At that time, the Soviet Union and Huayo Group became allies in the United States, Europe, Japan and other allies.At that time, China and the Soviet Union also had evil because of the dispute between the route and territorial issues, so that the soldiers met.It is in this context that the enemy of the enemy is the pragmatism logic of friends that Kissinger chose to fight against the Soviet Union.
US national interests first
Shi Shi is easy? With the improvement of Sino -US relations, China has successfully joined the international division of labor system, making the economy grow rapidly.But it is also the growth of China's economy that has changed the balance between the country and regions.If Kissinger can still control the U.S. State Department, I want to be a practical practitioner, what he wants to do most should be with Mills Heis (the University of Chicago University of Chicago, a professor of political science and "offensive realism" theoryLike the advocate), it advocates United Russia's anti -China Central?
After all, Kissinger is a practical international political scholar and a firm American patriot. He promoted the Nixon government to "fight against the Soviet Union" in order to safeguard the national interests of the United States."United Russia anti -China" is also for the benefit of the United States.The ideological logic and behavioral logic in this are consistent.In fact, as early as 2018, the U.S. Beast Daily cited a detailed report on Kissinger's instructing Trump's "United Russia Anti -China" to guide Trump.
To be honest, as far as the global geopolitical pattern is concerned, it is not the lack of pragmatism Kissinger, but the idealist Robert Schuman.At the beginning of World War II, people were generally pessimistic about the future.At that time, people generally believed that after the First World War, the world became a mess due to the need to pay compensation and difficulty in managing debt.It is this mess that makes the country full of opposition and confrontation.It is for this reason that it has strengthened economic instability.It can also be said that it was the sequelae of the First World War that that it promoted the Great Depression in the 1930s and the Second World War in the following.For those who have witnessed the tragic situation of World War II, it is naturally difficult to optimistic about the future.
Fortunately, many visible politicians and thinkers have begun to change their ideas.Shuman, then French Foreign Minister, believes that if Europe wants to get out of history, especially the barbaric periodic repetition and circulation of the World War I and World War II, it must have a community consciousness.In his opinion, only by integration into a community can Europe achieve peace and stability, and achieve the purpose of development and prosperity.Since then, he is committed to the propaganda and system construction of a joint European community.
At that time, the two resources of coal and steel, the production of military weapons, had an irreplaceable role.Schumann believes that in order to promote peace and stability in Europe, the most critical step is to restrict the two major countries of Europe, France and Germany, in the two resources of coal and steel, especially in Germany.Because Yu Shuman's view, as long as the two countries are restricted in coal and steel resources, the probability of the European outbreak of war will be greatly reduced.How to restrain it?In May 1950, Schumann gave his plan.He proposed that the production of all coal and steel in France and Germany was placed under the control of a senior associates that can be participated in a high -level associates that can be participated in other European countries.This is the famous "Schumann Plan" in history.
This plan of Schumann has received collective responses from major Western European countries, such as West Germany and French leaders.Like Schumann, they decided to sacrifice some of their own interests and urged countries to cooperate to establish a European community.In this way, the risk of war again to minimizes the risk of war, to seek peace, stability and development, and prosperity in Europe; the EU's predecessor -European coal and steel community was born.The Schumanan plan and the European Union model have shaped a sample that can be borrowed by the current lens: it tells the world that the best way to "eliminate" potential enemies is not the traditional confrontation, but the party under the cognition of a community.Find the union of common groundwriter.
In short, it is the world that needs a idealist Schumann today, not pragmatic Kissinger.
The author is a Chinese economist and a financial columnist
