The important thing is to do the right thing. Then credibility will follow.

What China would do, I cannot predict. China has all but given up the claim to the use of force, except in the circumstance of Taiwan declaring its independence. That is a huge step forward over what the situation was many years ago.

It is steady, reliable, tough. It never yields to panic. It is never defeated one-sidedly. It achieves everything attainable by character and tenacity.

In the short term, it would not have made it possible to resume relations, because in the Chinese mind, the humiliation of China started with the annexation of Taiwan by Japan. If the United States had suddenly declared Taiwan as a separate state - for which we would have had no support among other nations - the consequences would have been giving up our relationship with China and committing ourselves to a long-term conflict with China.

Blessed are the people whose leaders can look destiny in the eye without flinching but also without attempting to play God.

Left to its own devices, the State Department machinery tends toward inertia rather than creativity; it is always on the verge of turning itself into an enormous cable machine.

In crises the most daring course is often safest.