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today, he said, Bismarck was simply defined negatively, as a reac–
tionary, an oppressor of the working class; why, then, had I intro–
duced contradictory elements? At a meeting in Shanghai the same
wonderment emerged: "Was Bismarck progressive or reactionary?"
I replied that Western historians did not think in these relatively sim–
ple categories, that we accepted the historic grey, that we were not
clever enough to know what was progressive and what was reaction–
ary-only the Chinese know that it was progressive
to
be with the
USSR in the 1950s and even more progressive
to
be with the US in
the 1970s. They laughed at my impertinence, as they did so often.
But the need to fix on an ultimate label remained: historic figures
had to be either black or white, villains or heroes.
There were also more immediate questions about Bismarck.
What about his ties
to
Russia, his ability to play East and West
simultaneously? Does his diplomacy have a direct effect on German
policy making today? Behind the questions was an absorbing inter–
est with Germany in world politics. Would Germany go back to a
balancing act between East and West, would Rapallo be repeated?
The Chinese were troubled by the long tradition of Russo-German
intimacy, interspersed with devastating wars. They questioned
themes from an article I had written on "Germany in a Semi-Gaul–
list Europe" and asked about West Germany's putative tendency to
drift into "self-Finlandization," to slide into a position of loosening
its ties with NATO and strengthening its relations with the USSR.
Anti-Soviet sentiment was ferocious-and would leave our
"cold warriors" gasping. The Chinese are certain that the Russians
have a master plan for the conquest of the world; they see the Soviets
embarked on a pincer movement, striking at the Persian Gulf and
the Straits of Malacca. While the Soviets move ahead, the West
seems as a sleeping and enfeebled giant. When I said to one official
at the Foreign Ministry that we had been anti-Soviet for much
longer than they, he replied that the Chinese knew more-"we have
graduated from Soviet tutelage" -and they could now instruct the
rest of the world about the dangers of the hegemonial power. At the
same time they professed no fear of a Soviet strike against them, for
they were strong enough to "punish" the Soviets for any such effort.
Or, as the same official put it to me, "The Russians may come into
China, but they will not be able to leave."
The Chinese know that NATO is a de facto guarantor of their
security; hence the great concern with the West's morale and mate-
