(June 5, 1973)




Chairman Mao: To speak frankly, the peoples of the entire world—including the Chinese people and the Chinese Communist Party—owe you a debt of gratitude. You have defeated the United States.

Le Duan: Just now I was telling Comrade Zhou Enlai that it was the Chinese People’s Volunteers and the Korean People’s Army who first defeated the Americans in Asia. Kennedy once remarked that he had not anticipated China would send troops to Korea. Once you went in, they were routed and had no choice but to withdraw. That is why today the U.S. has been forced to leave South Vietnam. History is a long process, yet it unfolds as a single, continuous line.

Chairman Mao: More or less, more or less.

Le Duan: Comrade Zhou Enlai also added that China’s earlier defeat of Chiang Kai-shek effectively meant defeating U.S. aggression as well.

Chairman Mao: We defeated its lackey. (laughter) We first vanquished its “Nguyen Van Thieu” and drove him all the way to Taiwan. (laughter among the attendees)

Pham Van Dong: Now “Nguyen Van Thieu” has ended up in South Vietnam.

Chairman Mao: You defeated the U.S. first, then “Chiang Kai-shek.”

We, on the other hand, first defeated “Nguyen Van Thieu,” and only afterward dealt with the U.S. Apart from Korea, we never engaged the U.S. in direct combat.

Le Duan: After such a clash, they dared not come near China again.

Chairman Mao: (laughing) They would think twice about it.

Just consider: Why did Nixon come running to Beijing? If you hadn’t won your victories, he wouldn’t have come either. Moreover, he could see that Dulles’s policy was not working. Dulles used to tout the slogan that the Chinese were even worse than Hitler. Now Nixon and his colleagues are saying that the Chinese are at least a little better than Hitler. (laughter among the attendees)



Thanks to Sakura Ayana for collecting, transcribing, and proofreading.