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Henry Kissinger is Still Brilliant — and Still Wrong About China

◎ The Trump administration is confronting China multidimensionally — on trade, Taiwan, the South China Sea and North Korea — as no predecessor ever did.


By Joseph Bosco

This past week at the Wilson Center’s Kissinger Institute, Henry Kissinger’s former associates met to discuss “Kissinger on Kissinger,” an oral history by the former secretary of State.

The tribute by former China ambassadors Stapleton Roy and Winston Lord was meant to focus on “the brilliance of this man [as] one of the great diplomats in American history.” They proclaimed the tenure of President Nixon’s national security adviser a veritable golden period, a model of foreign policy practice that all diplomats — and presidents — should aspire to follow.

First published in The Hill.

Joseph Bosco served as China country director for the Secretary of Defense from 2005 to 2006 and as Asia-Pacific director of humanitarian assistance and disaster relief from 2009 to 2010. He is a nonresident fellow at the Institute for Corean-American Studies and the Institute for Taiwan-American Studies, and has held nonresident appointments in the Asia-Pacific program at the Atlantic Council and the Southeast Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.

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