Kissinger: In the 1960s, I would have considered China with its CPC an ideologically more dynamic country than the Soviet Union. But the Soviet Union was strategically more threatening.
基辛格:在20世纪60年代,我就认为中国及中G,是一个意识形态上比苏联更有活力的国家。但苏联是战略上更大的威胁。
SPIEGEL: And yet you and President Richard Nixon did not shy away from resuming diplomatic relations with China's communist leadership, starting in 1973.
明镜:而且从1973年开始,你和理查德尼克松总统并没有回避与中国的GCD领导人恢复外交关系。
Kissinger: Great Britain and France had established diplomatic relations years earlier. Our talks with Beijing served a clear strategic purpose: We thought that a China and Soviet Union that balanced each other were in the Western strategic interest. Also, we thought it was very important to demonstrate to the American public, at that time divided by the Vietnam War, a new notion of international peace.
基辛格:英国和法国几年前就与其建立了外交关系。我们与北京的对话有很清楚的战略意图:中国与苏联相互抗衡符合西方的战略利益。当年美国民众正被越战撕裂,我们也认为,向民众展现一个新的国际和平的构想,也是非常重要的。
SPIEGEL: When you met with the Chinese back then, did you realize the enormous human toll these leaders had inflicted on their own people -- the Cultural Revolution, the Great Leap Forward? Did that not bother you?
明镜:当时你见到那些中国人时,你意识到这些领导人带给他们自己的人民带来的巨大生命损失没有?如:文革、大跃进。那些没有让你不心安吗?
Kissinger: These events were a catastrophe.
基辛格:这些事件是灾难。
SPIEGEL: And well-documented at the time of your talks in China. The Great Leap Forward alone cost up to 45 million lives, according to the estimates of historians.
明镜:而且在你们会谈时已经清楚纪录在案。根据历史学家的估计,仅大跃进就以多达4千5百万生命为代价。
Kissinger: The suffering and starvation were known, but not in their full dimension. In any case, we dealt with China as a state; we did not endorse its moral direction. All of our European allies and Japan applauded this course.
基辛格:苦难和饥饿是知道的,但没有完全清楚。不管如何,我们把中国当作一个国家来相处,我们不为它的道德取向背书。所有欧洲盟国及日本都赞赏我们的进程。
SPIEGEL: Is it a choice you chose because your foreign policy considerations trumped moral ones?
明镜:这是否说明,你之所以作出这个选择,是你的外交政策考虑战胜了你的道德考虑?