Diplomat who long occupied the world stage was both celebrated and vilified
State media called him “China’s old friend.” On Chinese social media, people said his death marked the end of an era. They remembered his last visit to the country, in July, at the age of 100.
For many in China, Henry A. Kissinger represented a now-bygone chapter in China-United States relations, when the countries seemed to be moving inexorably closer together.
Recollections of Mr. Kissinger in Chinese state media highlighted his role in organizing President Nixon’s groundbreaking trip to China in 1972 and advocating over the past half-century for continued engagement and warmer ties between the two countries. The 1972 visit led to the establishment of diplomatic ties between Washington and communist-ruled China in 1979; Beijing often highlights these years as an example of a golden era in bilateral relations.
At the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s daily news briefing on Thursday, Wang Wenbin, a spokesman, said Xi Jinping, China’s top leader, had sent condolences to President Biden. Prime Minister Li Qiang sent his condolences to Mr. Kissinger’s family, and Wang Yi, the Secretary of State, sent them to Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken. Xie Feng, Chinese Ambassador to the United States, wrote on Xformerly known as Twitter: “He will always live in the hearts of the Chinese people as a highly valued old friend.”
China has sought to emphasize the era of engagement that Mr. Kissinger represented to counter what Beijing sees as the Biden administration’s efforts to compete with and contain China. In July, China laid out a red carpet for Mr Kissinger, including an audience with Mr Xi.
“China-United States relations will forever be linked to the name ‘Kissinger,’” Mr. Xi told Mr. Kissinger as the two men sat side by side in cream-colored armchairs. “I express my deep respect for you.”
In choosing the location, China emphasized the historical significance of that Kissinger-Xi meeting. It was the same building where Mr. Kissinger had met Zhou Enlai, then Prime Minister of China, half a century earlier: Villa No. 5 of the Diaoyutai State Guesthouse.
In July, Mr. Kissinger also met with then-Chinese Defense Minister Li Shangfu, who had rejected multiple requests for meetings with his American counterpart. (This prompted John F. Kirby, a spokesman for the US National Security Council, to do so express frustration that a private citizen had more access to the Chinese leadership than the government.)
Mr. Kissinger, who visited China more than 100 times, “was seen as a living legacy of the good old days,” said Wu Xinbo, dean of the Institute for International Studies at Fudan University in Shanghai.
On the eve of power in 2012, Mr Xi met Mr Kissinger twice: once in Beijing And then in Washington. In 2019, Mr. Xi told Mr. Kissinger that his “important contributions will go down in the annals of history.”
Mr. Kissinger is seen in Chinese textbooks as pivotal in China-United States relations, a leader who set in motion an extended period of increasingly close engagement between the two countries. But as President Trump and then President Biden shifted U.S. policy from engagement to more caution, Mr. Wu said, Mr. Kissinger’s influence was seen as declining.
President Trump has imposed broad tariffs on Chinese goods, increased scrutiny of visa applications from China, tighter restrictions on high-tech exports to China, and tighter scrutiny of Chinese investments and intelligence-gathering activities in the United States. Mr. Biden has kept in place Mr. Trump’s tariffs and further tightened export controls. He has also strengthened military agreements with the Philippines and Australia as a way to counter China.
On Chinese social media, Mr. Kissinger’s death dominated search topics. People shared comments on Weibo, a Twitter-like platform, mourning Mr. Kissinger’s death and so on on Tuesday from Charles T. Mungera prominent American investor who was also well known in China.
Mr Kissinger is remembered far less fondly in Taiwan, a self-governing island democracy over which Beijing has claimed sovereignty. There, he has long been blamed for playing a central role in shifting U.S. diplomatic ties to Beijing from Taipei, and for failing to get a broad commitment from Beijing not to take Taiwan. Mr. Kissinger has been a frequent visitor to Beijing over the past half century, but he has never been to Taiwan.
“Many people think he was not a good friend of Taiwan, and I think there is some truth in that,” said Lu Yeh-chung, a professor at the department of diplomacy at National Chengchi University in Taipei.
“It is understandable that he was concerned about the interests of the United States,” Professor Lu said. “However, during this process, Taiwan felt that it was the party that was being betrayed. Of course it felt bad.”