We return to the subject of ignorance, which Brzezinski lists as one of America’s six “key vulnerabilities” in his book alongside “mounting debt’, a “flawed financial system”, “decaying national infrastructure”, “widening income inequality”, and “increasingly gridlocked politics”. He contrasts the level of knowledge of Chinese policymakers with that of their American counterparts. Having befriended Deng Xiaoping, China’s former leader, who led the country out of its long dark Maoist night, Brzezinski is an unabashed admirer of China’s diplomatic skills. He even had Deng round to his DC home for dinner. The diminutive Chinese leader was amused when Brzezinski served him from a bottle of Russian vodka he had been given for Christmas by the Soviet ambassador.
“The Chinese are really good at diplomacy – and even at making their interlocutors feel very uncomfortable,” Brzezinski says. “Sometimes they look at you while you’re making a point and they start laughing. And you’re saying to yourself, ‘Am I really a fool? What am I saying that’s so ridiculous?’ I very early on realised that their negotiating technique is a form of masterful manipulation. I was also struck by how well informed the top Chinese leaders are about the world,” he says. “And then you watch one of our Republican presidential debates … ” Brzezinski does not feel it necessary to complete the sentence but he later adds: “The GOP field is just embarrassing.”
I push him further on Obama. Shortly before our lunch, the president returned from Australia where he announced plans to deploy 2,500 Marines there to shore up alliances in Asia. This is exactly the kind of move that baffles Brzezinski. What’s wrong, I ask, with Obama’s so-called pivot to Asia? Doesn’t it make sense to wind down the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and shift attention to the rising east?
When Brzezinski feels strongly, he barely pauses between paragraphs. “I was not aware that Australia was about to be invaded by Papua New Guinea, or by Indonesia,” he replies. “I assume most people think Obama was thinking of China. What’s worse is that the Chinese will think he’s thinking of China and to define our engagements in the east in terms of China is a mistake. We have to focus on Asia but not in a manner that plays on everyone’s anxieties … It becomes very easy to demonise China and they will then demonise us in return. Is that what we want?”
Ms. Cat’s Chronicles 