A Ford aide had tipped Dad off about the subject of the meeting, so he was prepared. He told the President that he would like to go to China. Dad was aware that the American representative to China did not have the rank of Ambassador, because the United States did not have full diplomatic relations with the People’s Republic of China. But he wasn’t hung up on titles. He had spent time thinking about China, and he was convinced that America’s relationship with China would be pivotal in the future—an insight that few had at the time. In the fall of 1974, President Ford named him head of the United States Liaison Office in Beijing (then known as Peking).
Looking back on it, Dad’s decision to take the top diplomatic post in China was probably the most surprising career move he had made since he and Mother set out for West Texas in 1948. Just as he didn’t want to pursue the conventional path of an investment banker on Wall Street, he did not want to be stuck attending diplomatic dinners in London or Paris. Like West Texas, China represented the frontier—an exciting place to live, with a distinctive culture and great promise for the future. For someone worn out by the Washington scene, China was a perfect place to escape to.
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LIAISON BUSH ARRIVED in China in October 1974. Before leaving Washington, he had done a lot of homework on his new post. He had met with China experts throughout the U.S. government. On the flight over, he stopped in Japan and consulted with the U.S. Ambassador in Tokyo. He and Mother took Chinese lessons. They certainly didn’t master the language. But they did know how to say hello and thank you—a good start for any diplomat.
Upon arrival, Dad asked for detailed briefings from his deputy, the experienced foreign-service officer John Holdridge, and he befriended everyone in the office from the junior officers to his driver and Chinese interpreter. He peppered his new colleagues with questions about China, their children, their interests, and their backgrounds. He and Mother worked hard to make the Liaison Office and their personal residence less formal and more welcoming. They invited staff members over for dinners, bought a Ping-Pong table, and added other personal touches. George Bush was a team player, and he was building Team China.
Another priority was to develop personal relationships with his fellow diplomats. He attended dozens of receptions at other embassies and frequently entertained his counterparts at the Liaison Office. Some people might have considered those events drudgery. Not George Bush. At every cocktail party and in every receiving line, he saw an opportunity to meet a new person and build a new relationship. In his view, no country was too small to merit his attention. Nothing galled him more than what he liked to call bigshot-itis. His first visitor at the Liaison Office was the head of the delegation from Kuwait, a small Middle Eastern kingdom that would play a major role in his presidency decades later.
Just as he had at the United Nations, George Bush blended his personal life and his diplomacy. He loved to play tennis, so he organized regular matches with his fellow diplomats at the International Club. Dad loved the competition and the exercise. He also recognized that his colleagues were a lot more likely to return his call if they had also returned his serve.
He devoted a lot of attention to Chinese officials. He already knew the foreign minister, Chiao Kuan Hua, who had been the first Ambassador from the People’s Republic to the UN. Even though Dad had opposed the People’s Republic on the Taiwan vote, they had become friends. The foreign minister fondly remembered the lunch that Dad’s mother had hosted for the Chinese delegation in Greenwich, and he was eager to reciprocate the hospitality.
Despite his role as America’s senior diplomat in China, Dad’s policy influence was limited. The major decisions on China came from President Ford and Henry Kissinger. Dad might have been frustrated by the lack of collaboration, but he understood the President’s desire to manage the relationship from the White House. During his time as President, he often dealt directly with foreign leaders like John Major of Great Britain or Brian Mulroney of Canada. I did the same with some of my closest counterparts, such as Tony Blair of Great Britain.
The biggest headline of Dad’s tenure in China came when President Ford made a state visit in 1975, the first since President Nixon’s historic trip three years earlier. Dad accompanied the President to his meeting with Mao Zedong, the revolutionary leader of the Chinese Communist Party. It was fascinating for him to meet Mao, who had grown reclusive as his health failed. In hindsight, it was even more important that Dad got to know the small, smiling Vice Premier who sat at Mao’s side. His name was Deng Xiaoping. Thirteen years later, he and my father would meet again—this time as leaders of their nations.
The new post in China left my parents with more free time than they’d had in years. They explored Beijing on their bikes and walked around the city with C. Fred, their cocker spaniel named for their Houston friend. C. Fred always drew interested looks from the locals, because the Communists had banned dogs. Mother and Dad continued to take Chinese lessons, and on Sundays they worshipped in a local church—one of the few sanctioned by the Chinese government
Mother and Dad encouraged family and friends to visit them in China. One of the first to accept the invitation was my grandmother, who came for Christmas 1974. In typical Dorothy Walker Bush style, she arrived on an exhausting flight from New York and shortly thereafter joined Dad for a bicycle ride to the Forbidden City. It’s safe to say she was the only seventy-three-year-old Western woman pedaling through the December chill that day.
Texas friends made the trek to China as well. Jake Hamon, one of Dad’s buddies from the oil business, visited with his wife, Nancy, in March 1975. Nancy came clad in a sable coat and hat. The outfit had at least one admirer in the house. As my parents chatted with the Hamons, Mother looked over with horror to see C. Fred chewing on a furry object. Years later, when Laura and I invited Nancy to a Valentine’s Day party at the White House, she was still chuckling about her mangled hat.
I visited Mother and Dad in China shortly after I graduated from Harvard Business School in 1975. The Liaison Office was comfortable, but I was taken aback by the primitive conditions elsewhere. Most people traveled by bicycle or horse cart. The summer was hot and dry, and the city was covered with dust blown in from the desert. It reminded me of Midland, Texas. Unlike in Midland, however, there were no signs of capitalism. Everyone wore the same dull gray clothes, rationed out by the Chinese government. Dad had a vision that China would emerge as a world power in the future, and he turned out to be right. In 1975, however, the country had a long way to go.
As part of the trip, I experienced Dad’s personal diplomacy up close. On the Fourth of July, he held a big celebration at the Liaison Office, complete with hamburgers, hot dogs, and American beer. No American official had ever hosted anything like that before, so the event drew a big turnout from the diplomatic corps. I vividly remember a Scandinavian Ambassador exiting the party, somewhat wobbly, with a giant mustard smear on his bright white shirt.
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ON NOVEMBER 2, 1975, Mother and Dad got up early and went for a bike ride through Beijing. They were enjoying a crisp fall morning when Dad spotted a messenger from his office pedaling toward them. He had a telegram from the White House marked: “George Bush. Eyes Only.” Dad was shocked by what he read. President Ford wanted him to leave China and return to the United States to serve as Director of the Central Intelligence Agency.