largest federal office in the united states and controlled 70% of the country's customs revenue. conkling tightly controlled patronage within his day and he had expected complete and unquestioning loyalty in fact his apartment in new york was known as the morgan. conkling was enraged when his candidate, former president grant didn't get the nomination. but she was apoplectic when he realized that he couldn't control garfield. to conkling, it was his ticket back into power. coming up next, book tv present "after words," an hourlong program where we invite guest hosts to interview authors.

this week former u.s. secretary of state henry kissinger and his new book "on china." the diplomat who accompanied president nixon to the communist nation presents his thoughts on the history of china's relationship with the united states and its current influence on american politics and monetary policy. he shares his perspective with former nixon aide and fox news contributor monica crowley. >> host: dr. kissinger, great to see you. so nice to see you come and congratulations on your extraordinary new book, which is called quite simply "on china." and i can't think of anybody else i would rather talk to about china. china has gone over the last few decades from being an important concern for the united states to an important, urgent and primary concern for the united states and there are so many layers to the final american relationship and we are going to get into it with you some things you for being here. let's begin with how china sees

itself and how it's traditionally seen itself. making my way through your book you write that the united states and china believe that they represent a unique values in the world. and you say that the united states believes it has an obligation to spread its values to every part of the world where as china acts on the basis of its similarity in that its expanded for what he called cultural osmosis. tell us what you mean. >> guest: america believes that its values apply everywhere and society can adopt them in the situations can be spread everywhere. the chinese believe they represent the uniques civilization you can't really become the chinese you have to grow up in the cultural environment. you can't really naturalized as

chinese. so as a result, americans have fought of the world was composed of more or less equal society and the concept of sovereignty to go with that. the chinese until the end of the 19th century thought of the world and as tributaries to what they call the celestial empire. tributaries didn't mean that they had to pay tribute. it was expected that they would bring some gifts, but they were often given gifts in return but it did mean the indicated for the chinese society and chinese supremacy so the chinese relations and other nations are based more on mutual respect

than on the concept of equality but the chinese as we do believe the values are unique, and it makes them even more sensitive than we would be to outside pressures telling them how to redo their society. >> host: do the chinese when you say there -- >> guest: it's not necessarily >> host: you also write that when yours entered the modern age of had a tremendous experience with diversity by the end and you had these cities across europe that govern themselves and you have an entire political philosophy build on that concept of that liberalization, right? you also say that when china entered the modern age it had

been a fully functioning imperial bureaucracy. tell us what you mean by the imperial bureaucracy. >> guest: china, modern china about two-thirds years ago when china was unified, and then it was governed by a democracy that was selected by competitive examination, so in that sense it was more modern than europe was at that period. but china had a governing philosophy which was confusion, and the governing bureaucracy which played on a national basis, and therefore when others said occasionally china was conquered by its neighbors but

they didn't know how to govern it and they needed the chinese bureaucracy so on at least two occasions in the chinese history foreigners came in and conquered the country, used the chinese bureaucracy to government and became sanctified themselves, so china explanted sometimes by the opposite of western rights, not by conquest, but by been conquered and then -- and the north. >> host: a much more efficient way, isn't it? you also say that because china was never forced to engage, but because of that it also considered itself the center of the world. does that still hold true?

>> guest: in a way it is still held true. the conduct of the first revolutionary leaders in china still were influenced by the chinese, for example you never had an appointment with mao. you were sentenced to see mao come and that was also the scene of any that came. there was a british at the end of the 18th-century they sent to beijing and the trade and diplomatic relations. he was marvelously received but

he couldn't get an audience, and it took him three months before he was summoned, and then they said the you have nothing we want and we have nothing you should want. it is not possible, and we don't receive ambassadors because anyone who lives in beijing has to wear chinese close, live in a chinese house and can never leave china, so your question is do they still think this. of course that is exactly this way and with globalization of the economy and the daily contact but there is still a tendency to think in the central command in terms though it's

much attenuated. >> host: you mentioned the five chinese father of the constitution. you knew him and worked with him or spoke with him. >> guest: i met him five times. >> host: what were your impressions of him both as a strategic leader and as a movement leader? >> guest: first as a movement leader one has to understand that the tens of millions of people were killed under his rule, and the reason for that was because he wanted to complete the communist revolution in his lifetime. he knew that the chinese history the leader that he respected most was an emperor of the unified china, and then 20 years after his death all vestiges of

its rule had to accept. so he, for example, organized what was called the great leap forward, in which china was supposed to move from under development to the production at the end of britain and three years, and in order to do that, they had to get resources from the countryside and the narrow donna steele employment. the result was famine in which as many as 40 million people may have been killed than ten years later he started the cultural revolution which was another, produced another huge quantity on the moral ground.

it it was enormous cruelty and disaster. at the same time as the root of china he had to maneuver china and a whole host of other countries and china but was poor, underdeveloped, and on very strong militarily and just emerged from a century and a half of colonial degradation. so long that strategic level, he was a great leader, he had the skill in the strategic analogy and maneuvered china that survived the collapse of communism all over the world and he managed to switch from the communist side to the winning side in the cold war without

missing a beat. from that point of view which is how we got to know him first as he would expect from somebody and duenas fight the huge society and for the decade-long civil war one cannot forget the suffering. >> host: you mentioned you met him a total of five times, three times alone one-on-one. what were your impressions of him as a man? >> guest: it was never one on one but mao in that context, and i didn't have to be with him on that level, i think that is how

these meetings came about it as i said he was summoned so they would take off to where he lived the one they showed foreigners and soviet-style in which there was none of the majesty of the families. the first time i saw the room had a big table and it and he had received one in a study in which they were scattered all over the place and these are in the middle of the circle. he had a furious attack manner.

he did not as almost every leader over the years would do most leaders would say i have five points and here are my five points. he wouldn't do this. he would begin his conversation what is your consideration? posing the issue then you would say whatever you wanted to say and he would say have you considered the following, and every once in awhile he would make the objection at one point we would discuss the contribution europe could make to the common defense and they

remind me of swallows to fly given to the air of an approaching storm and flap their wings, but you, professor, and i will know that the flapping of the wings does not affect the common of the storm. so, he achieved in that two things. one, he gave me equal status with him and sort of a philosopher, professor, you and i come and then he had his metaphor, and this is how he would conduct a conversation. and sometimes he would get pointed but there was usually in an indirect way, but when he

spoke it wasn't that his voice was so good, but he had almost dominance. the last time he had a stroke and he had great difficulty speaking, and he had to croak out his sounds, and china of being a tone language did not understand what they held him to say until they could interpret it, but even then he conducted a meeting of over two hours. so he was a formidable person. >> host: let's talk about 1972 in that diplomatic breakthrough. with president nixon, of course, it's interesting because president nixon told me in the

1990's the thing that brought the two of you together, china and the united states was a major strategic concern over the growing soviet power and the chinese looked across the border to solve the assertiveness and the accelerated nuclear buildup very concerned so they approached the united states coming you approached china and came together for the strategic reasons. can you describe the dynamics at the time that allow the kind of trying to other diplomacy that you were president nixon were trying to develop? >> as you saw we saw the growth of the soviet power. and the soviet union had in this space of ten years to occupy hungary and poland second time coming and it had occupied czechoslovakia. now in the summer of '69 along the chinese border there were

military branches along the river between the two sides coming and they were sort of watching these. and then the soviets made the mistake that accelerated considerations. the mistake was did they send in their ambassador to brief us periodically about the chinese? they did that probably because they were considering attacking china, and they wanted to prove that they had a good reason for doing it. i created a map for nixon of the location of these incidents, and then we called in an expert and said if there are expert in these places must they suggest

to you who use the attacker and that expert said this is all close soviet and pretty far from the chinese supply forms, therefore it is unlikely that the chinese if they wanted to talk would do it from such a posture, and then we picked up a few other signals. and then nixon made an unannounced but important decision which was as we discussed the war. what position does the united states taken? and we concluded that was against the american interest to have china defeated even though we have no contact with them,

and so we decided that in case of the war we would be technically neutral towards china and try to give it as much ability to survive as we could. we didn't communicate that with the chinese because we had no way of communicating with them. but what we did do is to step up statements that we would not be in different to such a war and we had the director helms make a speech i think it was the two political sides, something which in a low-key way he made that point and the deputy secretary of state, and then we began looking for channels into china

at the same time, and we did a number of little things, for example, in retrospect it looks very minuscule. nobody normally can buy chinese goods anywhere, and so we lifted the restrictions so that as a tourist you could buy $100 worth of chinese goods. the chinese relieved some people and the occupants had been captured and they were released. so we had these signals, but we found it hard to establish a contact because, for example, we

sent some messages through romania to be told the iranians may have a strategy. we chose to travel because nixon had been in romania and the romanians had been the most independent of the east european communist countries. so, we thought they might have lost credibility in beijing. the problem was the chinese communist didn't trust any communist, so they were reluctant to be very specific. finally on a trip around the world nixon talked to the pakistan president, and that established the contact we then used. >> host: let me ask about the immediate backdrop to what you were doing with the opening to china with the viet nam war.

we talked about the strategic dynamic in the united states, the soviet union which was growing at least in strategic terms, and china. talk a little bit if you would about how you and expected the opening to china to affect the war in vietnam. >> guest: nixon didn't start the war. nixon inherited the war in vietnam. but nixon ended others, there were 545,000 americans in vietnam, and we had just gone through the tet offensive which was a major attack by the vietnamese and we had riots in the streets in this country against a the war and the

vietnam. we were the same country in which of the security of almost every region of the world depended command nixon felt even though he hadn't made the original commitment he would not abandon the people in reliance on american promises have staked their future on cooperating with us, so nixon decided to withdraw from vietnam but to do it in a way in which the people of south vietnam would be given the opportunity to develop to choose their own faith. the one condition he would not meet is to turn over the vietnamese population. he wanted the political process and people say we could have ended the war more quickly than ever tell you how because if you

look at the record of negotiations you will see every other condition to be made except that one. now the vietnamese approach and a negotiation with us west to try to break us. i read every article to negotiate on behalf of nixon and the united states, and they -- their strategy was to out when us by opening to china we had developed benefits. it changed the debate. it showed that nixon who had been vilified as being opposed to peace in viet nam have actually larger grandiose exception which included the

whole world, and so at the same time it isolated and the vietnamese because it meant that their closest most nearby allied bomb was willing to deal with the united states without informing them and to some extent their disadvantage because it developed a mill with tourism and the thought that was an important aspect. >> host: in any national security foreign policy calculus there is always american domestic opinion, which any great leader knows how to change, how to persuade, how to move. >> guest: sometimes you can and sometimes you can't. >> host: exactly. when you think about the opening to china and the soviet union which you conducted as well. was that part of a strategy to

signal to the american people that while we were fighting the war in vietnam that this administration was seeking longer-term pieces with china? >> guest: it wasn't done as a political maneuver. it was done because we believed to be that. it had the practical effect of telling the american people not to be obsessed with a fence in one part of the world that we had inherited, and to the to the overall design which put china, soviet union, europe into a pattern that could be grasped in time by public opinion. >> host: the united states and china still have wildly divergent views about tie one. how did president nixon moved

past that? >> for 20 years of negotiation between china and the united states followed course. the chinese negotiator would say we won't do anything else until you turn taiwan over to us when we turned that down. the american negotiator would say we won't do anything else until you give us a pledge of peaceful attitude towards taiwan. so there was an absolute deadlock. so even before i got to beijing, and in the first communication to us the chinese invited us in order to discuss to really apply

that we were willing to talk about the issue of taiwan but only in relation to all other issues of asia and in the world and the chinese accepted that so that was already before we ever cut there. but then one has to remember the united states and president roosevelt in the declaration of 1943 had declared that the united states considers taiwan to be a part of china. so the fact that tie one belonged to china had never been evoked by any american president, the only condition the american president made was the takeover were the union to

be peaceful. so, we got around this problem by signing a communique, in which each side stated its own views. we stated in our view that the chinese people on both sides of the taiwan strait assert that there is only one china. the united states, which does not challenge the proposition. so, that was the way of accepting one china, but we still did not recognize beijing as the government of china, nixon was in the capitol of the country but he did not recognize as the capitol of that country.

so, if you look at the 40 years that has happened since then, both sides have the problem on the three principles that the united states accepts the principal of one china, that the united states strongly insists or affirms the need for a peaceful solution, and that the united states warns each side not to take action and to consider this has been carried out for 40 years. now today there are many heroes of the husaybah and nixon might have done and what nixon might

have extracted we didn't hear from any of them at that time. >> host: of course not. now the framework that you put in place in 1972 has been remarkably durable. >> guest: the administration of both parties come so it's one of the most continued foreign policies. >> host: dr. kissinger, please stand by. we are going to take a short break. when we come back i would like to move into more current affairs in the relation with human rights. we are going to cover all of those issues with former secretary of state henry kissinger in his new book "on china" when we come back.

>> we're joined by former secretary of state dr. henry kissinger who has a new book out called quite simply speeding. dr. kissinger, let's talk about more current events particularly as it relates to the united states relationship with china. it's very complicated now. i remember when i was working for president nixon in the early nineties he said it's interesting because when kissinger and i opened relations with china in the early 70's it was all about strategic issues, which we talked about before the break. he said now in the early 90's it is almost all about economics. i think now in the 21st century is a combination of both strategic and economic. when you look at china's incredibly rapid economic rise, are used on, are you surprised or not at all? >> guest: i am surprised and

so would that nixon be in the group that opened to china, but nixon -- i had been to china before nixon went. nixon invited the french who had been in china to see what we could learn from him, and china had such disparate country the most important thing you could do was to do a kind of plan to give them economic aid. but "after mao didn't want them connected with the rest of the world at all. china was so poor that time that when nixon went there they did not have the equipment to connect us with washington in a way that was appropriate to the president. so, we will in the state that

sold it to the chinese. at any rate, we would have been amazed at the progress that had taken place and couldn't take place until mao had delayed and the group came in. >> host: succeeded by deng xiaoping who really revolutionized the chinese economy because he began reform through agriculture. he began agricultural reform that had laid the framework for what we see today. right? >> guest: right. for mao everything was ideology. i don't know whether it is black or gray as long as it catches mice, so anything that worked was acceptable and he liberated

the energy to the chinese people. one has to remember that over the last 2,000 years in 1800 in the last 2000 years china had the largest growth domestic product in the world in the 19th century because of the impact of the colonialism. but the chinese economic growth didn't really take place until just about 30 years ago. >> host: how would you describe chinese katulis on? would you describe it as managed capitalism? >> guest: i would describe it as what would we call it i think a market economy --

>> host: chinese characteristics. >> guest: but it is market economics and guided by strategic decisions from the center which holds establish priorities, and so far it has worked amazingly to have a growth rate eight to 10% over a 30 year period is an extraordinary achievement. >> host: even during times of global recession. >> guest: during times of a global recession they could do things that we can't even think of. i was in china in 2008. i talked with the mayor of a city and he said they had 5 million unemployed trenches in that city. i asked him what he was going to

do about that and he said they all go home on the chinese new year's and we will only let about a quarter of them come back so they use the chinese family tradition of taking care of their people come as their family has a social security network. but on the purely economic level, it is a combination of market principles and central management. it's not a planned economy in the soviet cents. >> host: there's a point of contention between the united states and beijing over the manipulation of its currency. how is this straining the relationship and how should the administration be dealing with it? >> guest: the argument that is made the chinese are manipulating their currencies at an artificially low level which gives them an advantage in

exports and therefore improves the payment and gives them greater economic financial reach. my view is is it is caused by our own actions. some of it is caused by chinese actions. it is caused by our own action because as long as we are financially profited, and as long as we run the huge deficits, deficits in the current account are inevitable because we have to borrow to meet our deficits. so, we need to look at our own

problems first and concurrently where the chinese take an unfair advantage we have to defend our interest, but the way that it does is to arrange for the balance of rewards that achieves this. >> host: it is striking to me that just about every time the chinese leadership to meet with the american leadership whether it is president obama, secretary, secretary to invite more, they never miss an opportunity to lecture us on this critical issues, our spending levels, deficit and debt. and it strikes me as very ironic that we have chinese communist lecturing the american capitalists. >> guest: it is economic evolution for the greatest part after the opening of the relationship with the chinese

they thought that some of our political enthusiasms -- some of the more immature, but the huge respect for our economic capacities, and they thought we were armed in the management of the world financial system from which they could learn a great deal so they sent the soviet union but the scent capitalists over the year to learn how to run back the assistance of the american investment banks and so forth. then in late 2007 and 2008 they think they learned that the americans didn't know how to run their economy very well, and that caused a tremendous amount both for us but also for the

chinese who had been associated with the reform program, and some of the difficulties that followed after words and which it is claimed incorrect in some respects but the chinese were too assertive to go back to that period where the shock occurred. >> host: the chinese are the biggest foreign creditors. how much of a threat to us is that? >> guest: it is a complicated issue because on the one hand, you can say if they exploit the credible they could make life very difficult for us. at the same time, $100,000 it's your problem. if you go 100 million it's their problem so that the credit her suffering enormously in the

several trillion dollars as the certainly became worthless as a result of inflation and their harassing us it would be a blow to them so we have a kind of mutual suicide. >> host: there was a high-level member of a chinese military who said last year he began talking about the united states in terms of economic warfare, not military but economic warfare. how big of a concern should that be for the united states? >> guest: what i came to focus is we are the two most powerful countries in the world today. there are a series of issues that are new in proliferation, fair distribution of energy. these are unique profits that can only be solved on the local basis. secondly, we ought to learn from the european experience that the

established britain had to deal with each other and didn't manage to do it and the result was world war i. if the leaders that went to the war in 1914 had known what the world would look like four years later when the war ended, with the ever have done that or what one or the ever have made an accommodation. so what i say in the book is we ought to approach the policy with china with that in mind. we are to look for opportunities in the relationship at the same time to decide our interests, and if the chinese approach the problem in the same way, then i'm hopeful that the ingenuity of both sides will find a way through, but both sides have to

have this attitude. the united states cannot do it by itself, and i think it is a stipulated challenge to peace and the greatest test is possible. >> host: let's talk for a moment about the strategic challenges facing the final american relationship. there's a lot of concern in the united states about the chinese military buildup. i would like for you to comment on that. how worried should we be about at about growing chinese assertiveness in asia in the region and globally as well as the stability to project power, and should we be doing anything to shore up our allies in the region, south korea, japan and others who are increasingly worried about china? ..

and challenge existing institutions at that point. we are in a period of potential confrontation and if there is not -- then it could slide into a confrontation. they haven't yet reached that point, but they certainly are increasing their military capability and we certainly have to be sure that we maintain the edge or the balance that has characterized the situation before that.

now, if they conducted a series of policies, we should have a clear notion of our national interest. when our national interest is challenged by assertive or non-assertive policies, we will take measures to protect it, and so when the chinese conduct and assertive foreign policy with all my commitment to cooperation, i would have to say that american interests come first. if the chinese conduct an open-minded policy, then we should have a discussion of oppositions and see where progress can be made. but, it is always necessary that any foreign country dealing with us should understand that we protect our interest.

we strengthen our relations with korea, india and japan. it is absolutely essential that america remain an asian power and that america maintains its relationship in the asian world. we cannot do it the same way it was done in europe because in europe there was an existential threat so that the relationship with europe took on a heavily military character. in the relationships between japan, korea, the united states and indiaindia, the economic and social factors play a huge role. the practical consequences very similarly namely to show that america is committed to the independence of key countries but i wouldn't object on these

projects the chinese participated so long as they are not the hegemony of power of asia. >> host: talk if you would about china's role in nuclear proliferation. there is a big concern that china is working with rogue powers like north korea, even pakistan to some degree to share nuclear technology with the iranians, perhaps the syrians, perhaps venezuelans, all opponents and enemies of the united states. what can we do to try to rein china in on the proliferation area? >> guest: well on all issues except north korea, i think the chinese national interest is very parallel to ours. neither of us can be interested in the proliferation of nuclear weapons because nuclear weapons can spread to countries that cannot have the same technological -- and they do not understand the nature of modern

technology adequately. the danger of a catastrophic conflict or even of an outburst of terrorism are overwhelming. so, i am quite hopeful that with respect to this aero weekend get gradual chinese support. the major hesitation the chinese have is they always have outside forces can tell a country what to do internally but i think with globalization china will come to that point. at the congregated issue. it's north korea because on the one hand, it's not in the chinese interest for north korea to have nuclear weapons. on the other hand, the chinese believe that it's also not in their national interest to have

north korea collapse and then faced the prospect of a large country on its border which may even inherit the north korean nuclear capability, so i think china has been going back and forth on the north korean nuclear issue and hasn't really made a decisive move. i think they would be delighted if these weapons would go away, but they don't want to do what is required to make them go away. so, they bear a responsibility for the consequences. now, they themselves have not been active in nuclear proliferation, because it would hurt them more, but north korea has because north korea has -- it's broke and it's just about the most repressive country in the world.

and and sooner or later, the other countries have to face the issue of what happens when a rogue nuclear country continues to operate and that's an issue before us with iran. it's an issue also, even in a more complex way, with north korea and it can't really be solved as an isolated problem. it needs to be a security concept developed for all of northeast asia and the other nations can enjoy and maybe under that system, north korea will be denuclearize. >> host: human rights. realpolitik dictates that we should not be all that concerned with what goes on internally within a country, that we should only be concerned with their external behavior and that got

into american foreign-policy for quite a while but over over the past eight decades america's current -- concerned itself with what goes on in china. there is a nod of talk and a lot of worry that the chinese are retrenching and that there has been an escalation of the detention of dissidents, of those who are out there arguing very publicly for democratization, liberalization, journalists being detained, religious minorities, catholics and so on. what do you say to the chinese when you talk to them about their human rights record? >> guest: let me say a word about realpolitik which is a term i never use. it's a term my credits use if they want to be able to say, it's really a german and this is not an american concept. even though i lived in germany as a child, as part of a persecuted minority so that in

the school, the jewish school for which i had to go, they were not exactly studying rielle politic. but putting that issue aside, the fundamental necessity of a peaceful world is to elements. i have been preaching that all my life. on the one hand you need equilibrium, the balance of power. why? so that the strong cannot simply dominate the weak. at the same time, we need justice, legitimacy whatever you want to call it, so that the existing arrangements appear justice to just to most of the members and to most of the people so that they don't want to challenge it. the first thing deals with

capability. the second one deals with attitude, so it's that balance that has to be achieved. now, there again are two aspects. what are our convictions with respect to human rights? secondly, what do we do about it? america has been founded on the principles of human dignity, human liberty and human equality. we can never not only not renounce these principles, we need to avert them and other countries should know that it makes a difference to us how they conduct themselves on the human rights issue. the next question is, what do you do beyond this? how many sanctions do you put on

them? to what degree do you assert that you can tell other countries what domestic institutions they should have? and at that point, there is a difference of opinion. some people belong and i would assure nixon and for that, almost every american president i have seen in action at least that's through a policy of engagement, one can move the chinese better than through confrontation for which evokes all the memories of their history and which they have always resisted. when clinton was president in his first years, he adopted a policy of confrontation, and after three years of failure, he gave it up. whenever i am in china, and

every president i have known, we are aware of individual cases in which human rights have been violated. we often speak to the chinese on a private aces and so there is no disagreement about the importance of human rights. there is no disagreement about the role of america. there is a disagreement on whether they should this should be done best by public demonstrations or by diplomacy. >> host: we just have a few minutes left dr. kissinger and i want to ask you, when you look at the geopolitical landscape today, when you survey the world, what worries you the most? what are the threats that are living out there that concern you the most? >> guest: what worries me is

that you have a peoples in every part of the world happening all of the time. without any of the clear guiding principles of where they are going to go. it's one thing to say, to be very enthusiastic, like with the arab spring, but one knows that the revolution is not the day on which they occur, but in the period in which they are being sorted out. on the technical level, what worries me is the spread of nuclear weapons and the way of nuclear technology because as these weapons fled, if any of them ever get used, the casualties would be so unbelievable. it would affect the human sense of security and a political system that cannot prevent this. those are the key issues.

>> host: dr. kissinger is has been such a joy to talk to you in on a personal note you are one of my personal heroes. i have known you for oh my goodness 18 years now? i think i'm dating myself. it has been just such an honor to get to know you. at such a pleasure to talk to you today and it's been a real privilege to call you a friend as well as a mentor. >> guest: i have watched your work over the years and have been impressed and amazed at the tremendous achievements on your part. >> host: thank you. again former secretary of state dr. henry kissinger with his masterful new book called "on china." i am monica crowley. thank you so much for joining us today. >> that was after words, booktv signature program in which authors of the latest nonfiction books are interviewed by journalists, public policymakers legislators and ot