Certainly nothing is easier than to rewrite history. If we had made Taiwan a separate state, it would have led to a fundamental conflict with China, and probably to war. Certainly in the long term, it would have led to war.
Henry A. KissingerThe Russian empire under czars and commissars has been hard to deal with for other countries.
Henry A. KissingerThe task of the leader is to get his people from where they are to where they have not been.
Henry A. KissingerWe first became conscious of the plane publicly on a Monday. I thought then by the weekend it would be done. But then the Chinese military, the defense minister made a statement saying that if there was no apology from the United States, the Chinese military and the Chinese people would never understand. No reference to the government or the Communist Party, and that obviously presented an internal problem to the Chinese leadership, which was travelling at that moment.
Henry A. Kissinger