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Lesser, but nonetheless sticky, differences over China's desire to import high-technology equipment from the U.S. and American restrictions against textile imports from China were not resolved either. The normally imperturbable Shultz seemed testy on trade issues. At a lunch with U.S. businessmen in Peking, Shultz rejected complaints that the Government was moving too slowly to improve trade with China. "Sometimes the problems are created by you," snapped Shultz. "They're your problem. Don't complain to the Government." And if they think European governments are more helpful in expediting trade with China, he added, "why don't you move to Western Europe?"
On the delicate strategic issue of China's relations with the Soviet Union, Zhao said that he hoped for "a breakthrough" when the two sides meet in Moscow next month. But in private talks, Shultz apparently detected no real determination by his hosts to develop closer ties with Moscow. Aides traveling with Shultz indicated, somewhat surprisingly, that the Administration was inclined to downplay China's importance in the global strategic picture.
The Shultz visit, in fact, did little to warm the official coolness between Washington and Peking, and the visiting Americans seemed quite content to maintain that distance. This was a sharp break from the "opening to China" zeal during the Nixon and Carter Administrations.
While both Shultz in Asia and Bush in Europe effectively presented U.S. foreign policy positions in places where those policies have been criticized, both operated within the limits of mainly restating old arguments. That needed to be done, perhaps, but salesmanship cannot really substitute for creative American proposals. More substantive diplomacy will be required if the U.S. is to ensure that the deployment issue does not pull apart the NATO alliance and that the Taiwan question does not permanently poison relations with the People's Republic.
—By Ed Magnuson. Reported by Roland Flamini/Berlin and Johanna McGeary with Shultz