Well it did not make excessive sense to say that 20 million people are the recognized government of a billion people that have their own institutions. We did not change it in the sense that we said this has to end, but there was a U.N. vote that transferred the legitimacy of China from Taiwan to Beijing. Beijing was recognized as the government of all of China. Then, under President Carter, we followed what the U.N. had already done eight years earlier.
Henry A. KissingerIn my particular case foreign policy happens to be my hobby, my consuming interest. I had spent decades studying it.
Henry A. KissingerI want to thank you for stopping the applause. It is impossible for me to look humble for any period of time.
Henry A. KissingerRevolutionaries are rarely motivated primarily by material considerations-though the illusion that they are persists in the West.
Henry A. KissingerIn the period after the Second World War, there were still leaders in Europe who represented weak countries, but possessed a sense of global foreign policy. Nowadays, on the other hand, there are politicians who represent pretty powerful countries, but whose citizens are not prepared to sacrifice themselves for the state.
Henry A. KissingerIn 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.
Henry A. KissingerCreate the impression of endless willingness to compromise and you almost invite deadlines. That's the challenge we now have in North Korea and have had in North Korea for 10 years. In this sense, diplomacy and foreign policy and other elements of political activity have to be closely linked and have to be understood by the negotiators
Henry A. Kissinger