Kissinger, meanwhile, opted for the mystical Oriental approach. The relationship was difficult, he said, because the inscrutable Chinese do not think like Americans. The Chinese encouraged Kissinger’s view. “It’s not that Americans have misconceptions about China,” argued Vice Premier Wang Qishan in a May 2011 interview with Charlie Rose. “At root, they don’t understand it.… China is an ancient civilization. We are an Oriental culture.” Compared to the Chinese, Wang declared, “Americans are very simple people.”
