His century of age did not prevent Henry Kissinger from speaking recently about the war in Ukraine, let alone traveling to China for 17 hours in July to meet in Beijing, at his own expense, with Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu, sanctioned by the United States for buying arms from the Russians in 2018.
There he also met with the head of foreign policy, Wang Yi, and expressed the need for his country – the United States – and China to eliminate misunderstandings, coexist peacefully and avoid confrontation, according to official sources from the Asian country.
Washington clarified that the visit was not official but that Kissinger made it as a “private citizen”, according to Matthew Miller, State Department spokesman.
Henry Kissinger – American politician of German-Jewish origin – “has not only outlived most of his colleagues, eminent detractors and students, but has remained tirelessly active. And he plans to continue like this. He plans to visit New York, London and his hometown of Fürth, in Germany, ”as his son David recently wrote in ‘The Washington Post’.
The important and controversial character has just turned 100 years old and does not seem to give up in the face of the challenges of time. In the centenary of his life, he is hailed and condemned both as a diplomatic genius and for his decisions that cost the lives of thousands of people. But power continues to be for him, without a doubt, that “definitive aphrodisiac”, as he once defined it.
His visit to China came amid heightened tensions between that country and the United States, Washington’s failed efforts to stabilize relations with the giant and the failed attempts by Biden administration officials to establish high-level communication between the military.
Beijing cut off high-level military communications with the United States a year ago, in retaliation for a visit to Taiwan by Nancy Pelosi, then Speaker of the House of Representatives.
China also did not agree to a meeting between Li and US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin in early 2023, although the two officials spoke briefly at Asia’s top defense summit, the Shangri-la Dialogue, held in Singapore between on June 2 and 4.
However, China did receive the centenary Kissinger, who reportedly said that he traveled to Beijing as a “friend” of the Asian power and that “the United States and China must eliminate misunderstandings, coexist peacefully and avoid confrontation,” according to an official Chinese statement. .
But some Western analysts recalled that “the United States has no permanent friends or enemies, only interests,” as Kissinger once said. Member of the Republican Party, Secretary of State and National Security Advisor of the United States in the 1960s and 1970s, and one of the most trusted advisers to former President Richard Nixon in his administration (1969-1974), Kissinger, curiously, increased his power during and after the Watergate scandal, which toppled his boss, the thirty-seventh president of the United States.
Vice President Gerald Ford, who took office after Nixon’s resignation, awarded him the Presidential Medal of Freedom in 1977 and kept him in office.
Born in Germany on May 27, 1923 and naturalized as an American in 1943, Kissinger is recognized, among other things, for the important role he played as National Security Adviser and Secretary of State, in promoting the rapprochement of the United States with China during the Nixon administration and for its attempts at peace in Vietnam.
For his work in the negotiation for the ceasefire, which culminated in the Peace Accords in Paris, where the conditions were established to end the war and restore peace in Vietnam, Kissinger received and accepted “with humility” the Nobel Peace Prize 50 years ago, along with Le Duc Tho, a member of the North Vietnamese Politburo, who turned it down on the grounds that peace had not been restored in South Vietnam then. The conflict only ended in 1975.
Kissinger’s action is also considered key in the detente and reopening of US relations with the then USSR, which reduced Cold War tensions and led to nuclear weapons delimitation treaties.
Throughout his centennial life, he has also been an adviser to Democratic and Republican presidents, including Donald Trump, and currently heads a consulting office that he opened when he arrived in the United States after he fled with his family from Nazi Germany in the 1930s.
Recently, from the summit of its 100 years, he opined that the war in Ukraine reached a turning point with the participation of China in the negotiations and predicted that, “by the end of this year”, they will reach their critical point, in an interview with CBS News.
Co-author, with former Google CEO Eric Schmidt and MIT Dean Daniel Huttenlocher, of The Age of AI: And Our Human Future, published in 2021, Kissinger has also warned governments to prepare for the potential risks associated with technology.
The shadows
But why is Kissinger’s importance and influence persisting after 100 years of life? in Portugal.
“Just as neoliberalism is the opposite of liberalism, the neoconservative is the opposite of the conservative. The last one considers himself superior to the adversary to overcome him, especially if you don’t have to negotiate with him. Kissinger is a conservative”, he responded to EL TIEMPO.
Kissinger’s political and diplomatic history has been clouded by accusations about his participation in terrorist actions in various parts of the world, in which fundamental rights were violated.
With Nixon’s permission, Kissinger tried to get Washington and Hanoi to sign peace, but was embroiled in unrelated episodes. Declassified files from the United States and the Soviet Union give an account of their participation in the bombing raids on Laos and Cambodia during the Vietnam War, between March 18, 1969 and May 26, 1970, in which thousands lost their lives. of civilians from both countries.
Kissinger and Nixon also promoted a series of secret operations that created the conditions for the military coup in Chile against the Popular Unity government of President Salvador Allende in 1973, according to the National Security Archive, which opened its doors to the public. on November 3, 2020.
Kissinger has also been accused of applying measures of political realism in favor of US interests and of aiding or emboldening repressive regimes in Pakistan and Indonesia.
In the best seller ‘Trial of Kissinger’, published in Spanish by Crónicas Anagrama in 2006, the Anglo-American journalist and writer Christopher Hitchens (1949-2011) maintains -based on these files, first-hand testimonies and an extensive study of the material declassified– what Kissinger is also related to the Indochina war; the mass killing in Bangladesh; the assassinations planned in Chile, Nicosia and Washington, in addition to the genocide in East Timor.
“The only impunity that Henry Kissinger enjoys is rank; he smells like he stinks. On behalf of the countless victims, known and unknown, it is time for justice to intervene,” wrote Hitchens, who has also authored, co-authored, and edited more than 30 books; among them, five collections of essays on politics, literature and religion, among other topics.
With the arrest of the Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet in London in 2000, and the
With intense pressure to proceed with the capture of former Serbian President Slobodan Milosevic, the possibility of international legislation acting against tyrants around the world loomed as a reality.
“As Christopher Hitchens demonstrates in this unappealable book, the West need not look far for suitable candidates for the dock. The United States is the homeland of an individual whose record of war crimes bears comparison with the worst dictators in recent history: former Secretary of State and National Security Advisor Henry A. Kissinger,” he states in the book review in Spanish. published by Amazon in 2006.
In the opinion of Bernie Sanders, Hillary Clinton’s pre-candidate and Democratic contender for the presidency of the United States, Kissinger “He was one of the most destructive secretaries of state in the history of the United States.”
The Spanish judge Baltasar Garzón also tried to prosecute him for human rights violations, but failed because he was not allowed to question him.
Last year, the Extradition Unit and the British Ministry of the Interior informed Garzón, through Interpol, that his request to take a statement from the former Secretary of State in London could not be carried out.
“The British Home Office contacted the US State Department to inform them of the Spanish judge’s request. Said department replied that Henry Kissinger was National Security adviser between 1969 and 1973 and Secretary of State from 1973 to 1977 and that it has decided not to authorize him to testify in London, as requested by Judge Garzón, about the crimes of the dictatorship of General Augusto Pinochet”, according to the Madrid newspaper El País.
For all of the above and other reasons, Professor Boaventura de Sousa Santos considers that Kissinger will go down in history as “a war criminal who was partially forgiven in this world but will not be in the next.”
Opinion aside, what almost nobody disputes is that to study the history of the second half of the 20th century you have to study Kissinger. Few figures in the 20th century have had the influence that he still has in international politics and diplomacy.
Professor Thomas Schwartz, author of the biography Henry Kissinger and American Power, in statements to Efe, explained that Kissinger’s personal history made him a fascinating figure: “He survived the Watergate scandal and after his time in politics, Kissinger has continued to be omnipresent in editorials, books, talks and interviews to broaden a myth with which many have wanted to be photographed: from Hillary Clinton to Donald Trump, passing through Vladimir Putin or Xi Jinping”.
For his part, Barry Gewen, editor of The New York Times Book Review, argues that more than a historical figure, he should be considered a “philosopher of international relations.”
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