Sino-American relations
Encyclopedia
For the article on U.S.-Taiwan
relations, see Republic of China – United States relations.
Sino-American or People's Republic of China–United States relations refers to international relations
between the United States of America (U.S.) and the government of People's Republic of China
(PRC). Most analysts characterize present Sino-American relations as being complex and multi-faceted. The United States and the People's Republic of China are usually neither allies nor enemies; the U.S. government and military establishment do not regard the Chinese as an adversary, but as a competitor in some areas and a partner in others.
Until the 1970s, the United States recognized the Republic of China
on Taiwan
as the legitimate government of mainland China
and did not maintain diplomatic relations with the communist regime
of the People's Republic of China. In midst of the Cold War
, the Sino-Soviet split
provided an opening for the U.S. to establish ties with mainland China and establish it as a counter to the Soviet Union
.
As of 2011, the United States has the world's largest economy and China the second largest, though many in the U.S. believe that China "is the world's leading economic power. China has the world's largest population and the United States has the third largest. The two countries are the two largest consumers of motor vehicles and oil, and the two greatest emitters of greenhouse gases.
Relations between the People's Republic of China and the United States have been generally stable with some periods of tension, most notably after the breakup of the Soviet Union, which removed a common enemy and ushered in a world characterized by American dominance
. There are also concerns relating to human rights in the People's Republic of China
and the political status of Taiwan
.
While there are some tensions in Sino-American relations, there are also many stabilizing factors. The PRC and the United States are major trade partners and have common interests in the prevention and suppression of terrorism
and nuclear proliferation
. China and the US are the largest mutual trading partners, excluding the European Union
. China is also the largest foreign creditor for the United States. China's challenges and difficulties are mainly internal, and there is a desire to maintain stable relations with the United States. The Sino-American relationship has been described by top leaders and academics as the world's most important bilateral relationship of the 21st century.
The first contact between the post-revolutionary Americans and the Chinese occurred during the voyage of the American trader ship Empress of China
, which arrived at Canton
(today's city of Guangzhou) in 1784. Given the Chinese demand for raw goods and the American demand for anything remotely exotic, the voyage of the Empress was a financial windfall for its owners. This was the beginning of the lucrative Sino-American relationship known as the Old China Trade
.
The result was the considerable exportation of specie
, ginseng
, and furs to China, and the much larger influx of tea
, cotton
, silk
, lacquerware
, porcelain
, and furniture
to the United States
. The merchants, who served as middlemen between the Chinese and American consumers, became fabulously wealthy from this trade, eventually giving rise to America's first generation of millionaires. In addition, many Chinese artisans began to notice the American desire for exotic wares and adjusted their practices accordingly, manufacturing goods made specifically for export. These export wares often sported American or European motifs in order to fully capitalize on the consumer demographic.
in 1842 led to the Anglo
-Chinese Treaty of Nanking
, which forced many Chinese ports open to foreign trade. Until then, Sino-American relations had been conducted solely through trade, but this new pact between Britain and China severely threatened further American business in the region. The administration of President John Tyler
secured the 1844 Treaty of Wangxia, which not only put American trade on par with British trade, but also secured for Americans the right of extraterritoriality
. This treaty effectively ended the era of the Old China Trade, giving the United States as many trading privileges as other foreign powers.
After China's defeat in the Second Opium War
, the Xianfeng emperor fled Beijing. His brother Yixin, the Prince Gong, ratified the Treaty of Tianjin in the Convention of Peking
on October 18, 1860. This treaty stipulated, among other things, that along with Britain
, France
, and Russia
, the United States would have the right to station legation
s in Beijing
, a closed city
at the time.
In 1868, the Qing government appointed Anson Burlingame
as their emissary to the United States. Burlingame toured the country to build support for equitable treatment for China and for Chinese emigrants. The 1868 Burlingame Treaty
embodied these principles. In 1871, the Chinese Educational Mission
brought the first of two groups of 120 Chinese boys to study in the United States. They were led by Yung Wing
, the first Chinese man to graduate from an American university.
During the California Gold Rush
and the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad
, large numbers of Chinese emigrated to the US, spurring animosity from American citizens. After being forcibly driven from the mines, most Chinese settled in Chinatown
s in cities such as San Francisco, taking up low-end wage labor, such as restaurant and laundry work. With the post-Civil War economy in decline by the 1870s, anti-Chinese animosity became politicized by labor leader Denis Kearney and his Workingman's Party
, as well as by the California governor John Bigler
. Both blamed Chinese coolies for depressed wage levels.
In the first significant restriction on free immigration in US history, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act on May 6, 1882, following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty. Those revisions allowed the United States to suspend immigration
, and Congress acted quickly to implement the suspension of Chinese immigration and exclude Chinese "skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining" from entering the country for ten years, under penalty of imprisonment and deportation. The ban was renewed a number of times, lasting for over 60 years.
In 1899, a group of Chinese calling themselves the Society of Right and Harmonious Fists started a violent revolt in China, referred to by Westerners as the Boxer Rebellion
, against foreign influence in trade, politics, religion, and technology. The campaigns took place from November 1899 to September 7, 1901, during the final years of Manchu
rule in China
under the Qing Dynasty
.
The uprising began as an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, peasant-based movement in northern China. The insurgents attacked foreigners, who were building railroads and violating Feng shui
, and Christian
s, who were held responsible for the foreign domination of China. In June 1900, the Boxers invaded Beijing
, killing 230 foreign diplomats and foreigners as well as thousands of Chinese Christians, mostly in Shandong
and Shanxi
Provinces. On June 21, Empress Dowager Cixi
declared war against all Western powers. Diplomats, foreign civilians, soldiers, and some Chinese Christians were besieged during the Siege of Beijing Legation Quarter
for 55 days. A coalition called the Eight-Nation Alliance
of Austria-Hungary
, France
, Germany
, Italy
, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom
, and the United States rushed 20,000 troops to their rescue. The multinational forces were initially defeated by a Chinese Muslim army at the Battle of Langfang
, but the second attempt was successful because of internal rivalries among the Chinese forces.
The Chinese government was forced to indemnify the victims and make many additional concessions. Subsequent reforms implemented after the rebellion contributed to the end of the Qing Dynasty
and the establishment of the modern Chinese Republic. The United States played a secondary but significant role in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion, largely due to the presence of US ships and troops deployed in the Philippines
since the US conquest of the Spanish American and Philippine-American War
. Within the United States military, the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion was known as the China Relief Expedition
.
, the United Kingdom
, Germany
, Italy
, Japan
, and Russia
) began carving out spheres of influence for themselves in China, which was then under the Qing Dynasty
. The United States, not having such influence, wanted this practice to end. In 1899, US Secretary of State
John Hay
sent diplomatic letters to these nations, asking them to guarantee the territorial and administrative integrity of China and to not interfere with the free use of treaty ports
within their respective spheres of influence. The major powers evaded commitment, saying they could not agree to anything until the other powers had consented first. Hay took this as acceptance of his proposal, which came to be known as the Open Door Policy
.
While generally respected internationally, the Open Door Policy did suffer serious setbacks. The first issue involved Russian encroachment in Manchuria
in the late 1890s. The US protested Russia's actions, which led to a Russian war with Japan
in 1904. Japan presented a further challenge to the Open Door Policy with its Twenty-One Demands
in 1915 made on the then-Republic of China
. Japan also made secret treaties with the Allies
promising Japan the German territories in China. The biggest setback to the Open Door Policy came in 1931, when Japan invaded and occupied Manchuria, setting up the puppet state of Manchukuo
. The United States, along with other countries, strongly condemned the action but did little at the time to stop it.
The outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War
in 1937 saw aid flow into the Republic of China
, led by Chiang Kai-shek
, from the United States, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt
. A series of Neutrality Acts had been passed in the US with the support of isolationists
who forbade American aid to countries at war. Because the Second Sino-Japanese War was undeclared, however, Roosevelt denied that a state of war existed in China and proceeded to send aid to Chiang.
American public sympathy for the Chinese was aroused by reports from missionaries, novelists such as Pearl Buck, and Time Magazine of Japanese brutality in China, including reports surrounding the Nanking Massacre
. Japanese-American relations were further soured by the USS Panay Incident
during the bombing of Nanjing
. Roosevelt demanded an apology from the Japanese, which was received, but relations between the two countries continued to deteriorate. Edgar Snow
's 1937 book Red Star Over China
reported that Mao Zedong
's Chinese Communist Party
was effective in carrying out reforms and fighting the Japanese. When open war broke out in the summer of 1937, the United States offered moral support but took no effective action.
China formally declared war on Japan in 1941 following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
, which brought the Americans into World War II
. The Roosevelt administration gave massive amounts of aid to Chiang's beleaguered government, now headquartered in Chongqing
. Madame Chiang Kaishek
, who had been educated in the United States, addressed the US Congress and toured the country to rally support for China. Congress amended the Chinese Exclusion Act and Roosevelt moved to end the unequal treaties
. However, the perception that Chiang's government was unable to effectively resist the Japanese or that he preferred to focus more on defeating the Communists grew. China Hands
such as Joseph Stilwell
argued that it was in American interest to establish communication with the Communists to prepare for a land-based counteroffensive invasion of Japan. The Dixie Mission
, which began in 1943, was the first official American contact with the Communists. Other Americans, such as Claire Chennault, argued for air power. In 1944, Generalissimo Chiang acceded to Roosevelt's request that an American general take charge of all forces in the area, but demanded that Stilwell be recalled. General Albert Wedemeyer replaced Stilwell, and Patrick Hurley became ambassador.
Chiang did not like the Americans, and was suspicious of their motives. The American OSS, forerunner of the CIA, showed interest in a plot to seize control of Chiang's regime. Chiang ordered the plotters executed. Chiang felt no friendliness towards the United States, and saw the US as pursuing imperialist motives in China. Chiang did not want to be subordinate to either the United States or the Soviet Union, but jockeyed for position between the two to avoid taking sides and to get the most out of Soviet and American relationships. Chiang predicted that war would come between the Americans and Soviets and that they would both seek China's alliance, which he would use to China's advantage.
Chiang also differed from the Americans in ideology issues. He organized the Kuomintang as a Leninist-style party, oppressed dissent, and banned democracy, claiming it was impossible for China.
Chiang manipulated the Soviets and Americans during the war, at first telling the Americans that they would be welcome in talks between the Soviet Union and China, then secretly telling the Soviets that the Americans were unimportant and their opinions were to be left out. At the same time, Chiang positioned American support and military power in China against the Soviet Union as a factor in the talks, keeping the Soviets from taking advantage of China with the threat of American military action against the Soviets.
Chiang's right hand man, the secret police chief Dai Li
, was both anti-American, and anti-Communist. Dai ordered Kuomintang agents to spy on American officers. Dai had previously been involved with the Blue Shirts Society
, a Fascist-inspired paramilitary group in the Kuomintang that wanted to expel Western and Japanese imperialists, crush the Communists, and eliminate feudalism
. Dai Li was assassinated in a plane crash orchestrated by the American OSS or the Communists.
After World War II ended in 1945, the hostility between the Republic of China and the Communist Party of China exploded into open civil war
. General Douglas MacArthur
directed the military forces under Chiang Kai-shek to go to the island of Taiwan
to accept the surrender of Japanese troops, thus beginning the military occupation of Taiwan. American general George C. Marshall tried to broker a truce between the Republic of China and the Communist Party of China in 1946, but it quickly lost momentum. The Nationalist
cause declined until 1949, when the Communists emerged victorious and drove the Nationalists from the Chinese mainland
onto Taiwan and other islands. Mao Zedong
established the People's Republic of China
(PRC) in mainland China, while the Republic of China remains in Taiwan and other islands to this day.
.
However, the Taiwan-based Republic of China government did not trust the United States. An enemy of the Chiang family, Wu Kuo-chen, was removed from his position as governor of Taiwan by Chiang Ching-kuo
and fled to America in 1953. Chiang Kai-shek
, president of the Republic of China, suspected that the American CIA was engineering a coup with Sun Li-jen
, an American-educated Chinese man who attended the Virginia Military Institute
, with the goal of making Taiwan an independent state. Chiang placed Sun under house arrest in 1955.
Chiang Ching-kuo
, educated in the Soviet Union, initiated Soviet-style military organization in the Republic of China military, reorganizing and Sovietizing the political officer corps and surveillance. Kuomintang party activities were propagated throughout the military. Sun Li-jen opposed this action.
As the People's Liberation Army
moved south to complete the communist conquest of mainland China
in 1949, the American embassy followed Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China government to Taipei
, while US consular officials remained in mainland China. However, the new PRC government was hostile to this official American presence, and all US personnel were withdrawn from mainland China in early 1950. In December 1950, the PRC seized all American assets and properties, totaling $196.8 million, after the US had frozen Chinese assets in America following China's entry into the Korean War in November.
Any remaining hope of normalizing relations ended when US and PRC forces began fighting against each other in the Korean War
on November 1, 1950. In response to the Soviet-backed North Korean invasion of South Korea, the United Nations Security Council
was convened and passed UNSC Resolution 82
, condemning the North Korean aggression unanimously. The resolution was adopted mainly because the Soviet Union, a veto-wielding power
, had been boycotting UN proceedings since January, protesting that the Republic of China
and not the People's Republic of China
held a permanent seat on the council.
The American-led UN forces pushed the invading North Korean Army back into North Korea, past the North-South border at the 38th parallel
and began to approach the Amnok river (Yalu river
) on the Sino-Korean border. As a result, the PRC undertook a massive intervention into the conflict on the side of the Communists. The Chinese struck in the west along the Chongchon River and completely overran several South Korean divisions, successfully landing a heavy blow to the flank of the remaining UN forces. The defeat of the US Eighth Army
resulted in the longest retreat of any American military unit in history. Both sides sustained heavy casualties before the UN forces were able to push the PRC back, near the original division. In late March 1951, after the Chinese had moved large numbers of new forces near the Korean border, US bomb loading pits at Kadena Air Base
in Okinawa were made operational. Bombs assembled there were "lacking only the essential nuclear cores." On April 5, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff
released orders for immediate retaliatory attacks using atomic weapons against Manchurian bases to prevent new Chinese troops from entering the battles or bombing attacks originating from those bases. On the same day, Truman gave his approval for transfer of nine Mark IV nuclear capsules "to the Air Force's
Ninth Bomb Group, the designated carrier of the weapons," signing an order to "use them against Chinese and Korean targets." Two years of continued fighting ended in a stalemate that lasted while negotiations dragged on, until the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed on July 27, 1953. Since then, the Division of Korea
has had an important role in Sino-American relations. The entry of the Chinese in the Korean War caused a shift in US policy from marginal support of Chiang Kai-Shek
's Nationalist government on Taiwan
to full-blown defense of Taiwan from the PRC.
provided material and technical support to the Vietnamese communists. In the summer of 1962, Mao Zedong
agreed to supply Hanoi with 90,000 rifles and guns free of charge. After the launch of the American "Rolling Thunder" mission, China sent anti-aircraft units and engineering battalions to North Vietnam to repair the damage caused by American bombing, rebuild roads and railroads, and perform other engineering work, freeing North Vietnamese army units for combat in the South. Between 1965 and 1970, over 320,000 Chinese soldiers fought the Americans alongside the North Vietnamese Army, reaching a peak in 1967, when 170,000 troops served in combat. China lost 1,446 troops in the Vietnam War. The US lost 58,159 in combat against the NVA, Vietcong, and their allied forces, including the Chinese.
and encouraged its allies not to deal with the PRC. The United States placed an embargo on trading with the PRC, and encouraged allies to follow it. The PRC developed nuclear weapons in 1964 and, as later declassified documents revealed, President Johnson considered preemptive attacks to halt its nuclear program. He ultimately decided the measure carried too much risk and it was abandoned.
Despite this official non-recognition, the United States and the People's Republic of China held 136 meetings at the ambassadorial level beginning in 1954 and continuing until 1970, first in Geneva
and later in Warsaw
.
Beginning in 1967, the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission
established the China Claims Program, in which American citizens could denominate the sum total of their lost assets and property following the Communist seizure of foreign property in 1950. In the program's scope were “(1) losses resulting from the nationalization, expropriation, intervention, or other taking of, or special measures directed against, property or nationals of the United States; and (2) disability or death, resulting from actions taken by or under the authority of the Chinese Communist regime.” Any American citizen who had lost property in China following the declaration of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, was entitled to file a claim with the Commission. Claimants included the Chinese Medical Board of New York, which operated the Peking Union Medical College, Esso Standard (the predecessor of Exxon Mobil), which owned the Shanghai Power Company, and American Express, which fled China in September 1949 amid Civil War and hyperinflation. In retaliation for unsettled accounts with Chinese citizens, the PRC refused to grant an exit visa to an American Express employee, who remained in China for five years. Because of the expropriation of assets, American companies would remain hesitant to reinvest in China despite (future Chairman) Deng Xiaoping's reassurances of a stable business environment.
of 1969. The PRC was diplomatically isolated and the leadership came to believe that improved relations with the United States would be a useful counterbalance to the Soviet threat. Zhou Enlai
, the PRC premier foreign minister, was at the forefront of this effort with the committed backing of Mao Zedong.
In the United States, academics such as John K. Fairbank
and A. Doak Barnett pointed to the need to deal realistically with the Beijing government, while organizations such as the National Committee on United States-China Relations
sponsored debates to promote public awareness. Many saw the specter of Communist China behind Communist movements in Vietnam
, Cambodia
, and Laos
, but a growing number concluded that if the PRC would align with the US it would mean a major redistribution of global power against the Soviets. Mainland China's market of nearly one billion consumers appealed to American business. Senator William Fulbright, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, held a series of hearings on the matter.
Mike Mansfield
, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader was indirectly approached by the PRC and passed a note on to the State Department and President Richard Nixon
.
Nixon believed it necessary to forge a relationship with China, even though there were enormous differences between the two countries. He was assisted in this by his National Security Advisor
Henry Kissinger
. Domestic political concerns also entered into Nixon's thinking, as the boost from a successful courting of the PRC could help him greatly in the 1972 American presidential election. He also worried immensely that one of the Democrats would preempt him and go to the PRC before he had the opportunity.
Communication between PRC and American leaders were conducted with Pakistan
and Romania
as intermediaries.
In 1969, the United States initiated measures to relax trade restrictions and other impediments to bilateral contact, to which China responded. However, this rapprochement process was stalled by US actions in Indochina.
On April 6, 1971, the young American ping pong player Glenn Cowan
missed his US team bus and was waved by a Chinese table tennis player onto the bus of the Chinese team at the 31st World Table Tennis Championship in Nagoya, Japan
. Cowan spoke with the Chinese players in a friendly fashion, and the Chinese player, Zhuang Zedong, a three-time World Men's Singles Champion, presented him with a silk-screen portrait of the famous Huangshan Mountains
. While this had been a purely spontaneous gesture of friendship between two athletes, the PRC chose to treat it as an officially sanctioned outreach. Henry Kissinger also believed that it was planned. Zhuang Zedong spoke about the incident in a 2007 talk at the USC US-China Institute. According to sources from the PRC, the friendly contact between Zhuang Zedong and Glenn Cowan, as well as the photograph of the two players in Dacankao, had an impact on Mao's decision making. He had earlier decided not to invite the US team to tour mainland China along with teams of other western countries, but in a move later known as Ping Pong Diplomacy
, Mao and the PRC invited the American ping pong team to tour after all. The Americans agreed and on April 10, 1971 the athletes became the first Americans to officially visit China
since the communist revolution in 1949.
In July 1971, Henry Kissinger feigned illness while on a trip to Pakistan
and did not appear in public for a day. He was actually on a top-secret mission to Beijing
to open relations with the government of the PRC. On July 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon
revealed the mission to the world and that he had accepted an invitation to visit the PRC.
This announcement caused immediate shock around the world. In the United States, some of the most hardline anti-communists
spoke against the decision, but public opinion supported the move and Nixon saw the jump in the polls he had been hoping for. Since Nixon had sterling anti-communist credentials he was all but immune to being called "soft on communism."
Within the PRC there was also opposition from left-wing elements. This effort was allegedly led by Lin Biao
, head of the military, who died in a mysterious plane crash over Mongolia
while trying to defect to the Soviet Union. His death silenced most internal dissent over the visit.
Internationally, reactions varied. The Soviets were very concerned that two major enemies seemed to have resolved their differences, and the new world alignment contributed significantly to the policy of détente
.
America's Europe
an allies and Canada
were pleased by the initiative, especially since many of them had already recognized the PRC. In Asia
, the reaction was far more mixed. Japan
was annoyed that it had not been told of the announcement until fifteen minutes before it had been made, and feared that the Americans were abandoning them in favor of the PRC. A short time later, Japan also recognized the PRC and committed to substantial trade with the continental power. South Korea
and South Vietnam
were both concerned that peace between the United States and the PRC could mean an end to American support for them against their Communist enemies. Throughout the period of rapprochement, both countries had to be regularly assured that they would not be abandoned.
From February 21 to February 28, 1972, President Nixon traveled to Beijing
, Hangzhou
, and Shanghai
. At the conclusion of his trip, the US and the PRC issued the Shanghai Communiqué
, a statement of their respective foreign policy views. In the Communiqué, both nations pledged to work toward the full normalization of diplomatic relations. The US acknowledged the PRC position that all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait
maintain that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of China. The statement enabled the US and PRC to temporarily set aside the issue of Taiwan and open trade and communication.
The rapprochement with the United States benefited the PRC immensely and greatly increased its security for the rest of the Cold War
. It has been argued that the United States, on the other hand, saw fewer benefits than it had hoped for. The PRC continued to heavily support North Vietnam
in the Vietnam War and also backed the Khmer Rouge
in Cambodia
. Eventually, however, the PRC's suspicion of Vietnam's motives led to a break in Sino-Vietnamese cooperation and, upon the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1979, the Sino-Vietnamese War
. Both China and the United States backed combatants in Africa
against Soviet and Cuba
n-supported movements. The economic benefits of normalization were slow as it would take decades for American products to penetrate the vast Chinese market. While Nixon's China policy is regarded by many as the highlight of his presidency, others such as William Bundy
have argued that it provided very little benefit to the United States.
, George H. W. Bush
, Thomas S. Gates, and Leonard Woodcock
served as chiefs of the USLO with the personal rank of Ambassador.
President Gerald Ford
visited the PRC in 1975 and reaffirmed American interest in normalizing relations with Beijing. Shortly after taking office in 1977, President Jimmy Carter
again reaffirmed the goals of the Shanghai Communiqué. Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski
and senior staff member of the National Security Council Michel Oksenberg
encouraged Carter to seek full diplomatic and trade relations with China. Brzezinkski and Oksenberg traveled to Beijing in early 1978 to work with Leonard Woodcock
, then head of the liaison office, to lay the groundwork to do so. The United States and the People's Republic of China announced on December 15, 1978 that the two governments would establish diplomatic relations on January 1, 1979.
, dated January 1, 1979, the United States transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The US reiterated the Shanghai Communiqué's acknowledgment of the Chinese position that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China; Beijing acknowledged that the American people would continue to carry on commercial, cultural, and other unofficial contacts with the people of Taiwan. The Taiwan Relations Act
(text) made the necessary changes in US domestic law to permit such unofficial relations with Taiwan to flourish.
Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping
's January 1979 visit to Washington, DC initiated a series of important, high-level exchanges which continued until the spring of 1989. This resulted in many bilateral agreements, especially in the fields of scientific, technological, and cultural interchange, as well as trade relations. Since early 1979, the United States and the PRC have initiated hundreds of joint research projects and cooperative programs under the Agreement on Cooperation in Science and Technology, the largest bilateral program.
On March 1, 1979, the United States and the People's Republic of China formally established embassies in Beijing and Washington, DC. In 1979, outstanding private claims were resolved and a bilateral trade agreement was completed. Vice President
Walter Mondale
reciprocated Vice Premier Deng's visit with an August 1979 trip to China. This visit led to agreements in September 1980 on maritime affairs, civil aviation links, and textile matters, as well as a bilateral consular convention.
As a consequence of high-level and working-level contacts initiated in 1980, US dialogue with the PRC broadened to cover a wide range of issues, including global and regional strategic problems, political-military questions, including arms control, UN
, and other multilateral organization affairs, and international narcotic
s matters.
The expanding relationship that followed normalization was threatened in 1981 by PRC objections to the level of US arms sales to the Republic of China on Taiwan. Secretary of State Alexander Haig
visited China in June 1981 in an effort to resolve Chinese concerns about America's unofficial relations with Taiwan. Vice President Bush visited the PRC in May 1982. Eight months of negotiations produced the US-PRC Joint Communiqué of August 17, 1982. In this third communiqué, the US stated its intention to gradually reduce the level of arms sales to the Republic of China, and the PRC described as a fundamental policy their effort to strive for a peaceful resolution to the Taiwan question
.
High-level exchanges continued to be a significant means for developing US-PRC relations in the 1980s. President Ronald Reagan
and Premier Zhao Ziyang
made reciprocal visits in 1984. In July 1985, President Li Xiannian
traveled to the United States, the first such visit by a PRC head of state. Vice President Bush visited the PRC in October 1985 and opened the US Consulate General in Chengdu
, the US's fourth consular post in the PRC. Further exchanges of cabinet-level officials occurred between 1985 and 1989, capped by President Bush's visit to Beijing in February 1989.
In the period before the June 3–4, 1989 crackdown
, a growing number of cultural exchange activities gave the American and Chinese peoples broad exposure to each other's cultural, artistic, and educational achievements. Numerous mainland Chinese professional and official delegations visited the United States each month. Many of these exchanges continued after the suppression of the Tiananmen protests.
Following the PRC's violent suppression of demonstrators in June 1989, the US and other governments enacted a number of measures to express their condemnation of the PRC's violation of human rights
. The US suspended high-level official exchanges with the PRC and weapons exports from the US to the PRC. The US also imposed a number of economic sanctions. In the summer of 1990, at the G7 Houston summit, Western nations called for renewed political and economic reforms in mainland China, particularly in the field of human rights.
Tian'anmen disrupted the US-PRC trade relationship, and US investors' interest in mainland China dropped dramatically. The US government responded to the political repression
by suspending certain trade and investment programs on June 5 and 20, 1989. Some sanctions were legislated while others were executive actions. Examples include:
In 1996, the PRC conducted military exercises in the Taiwan Strait
in an apparent effort to intimidate the Republic of China electorate before the pending presidential elections, triggering the Third Taiwan Straits Crisis. The United States dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region. Subsequently, tensions in the Taiwan Strait diminished and relations between the US and the PRC improved, with increased high-level exchanges and progress on numerous bilateral issues, including human rights, nonproliferation, and trade. President Jiang Zemin
visited the United States in the fall of 1997, the first state visit to the US by a PRC president
since 1985. In connection with that visit, the two sides came to a consensus on implementation of their 1985 agreement on Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation, as well as a number of other issues. President Clinton visited the PRC in June 1998. He traveled extensively in mainland China, and had direct interaction with the Chinese people, including live speeches and a radio show which allowed the President to convey a sense of American ideals and values. President Clinton was criticized by some, however, for failing to pay adequate attention to human rights abuses in mainland China.
Relations between the US and the PRC were severely strained for a time by the NATO Bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade
in May 1999, which was blamed on an intelligence error but which some Chinese believed to be deliberate. By the end of 1999, relations began to gradually improve. In October 1999, the two sides reached an agreement on humanitarian payments for families of those who were injured or killed, as well as payments for damages to respective diplomatic properties in Belgrade
and China.
In April 2001, a PRC J-8 fighter jet
collided with a US EP-3
reconnaissance aircraft flying south of the PRC in what became known as the Hainan Island incident
. The EP-3 was able to make an emergency landing on PRC's Hainan Island
despite extensive damage; the PRC aircraft crashed with the loss of its pilot, Wang Wei. It was widely believed that the EP-3 recon aircraft was conducting a spying mission on the Chinese Armed Forces before the collision. Following extensive negotiations resulting in the "letter of the two sorries," the crew of the EP-3 was released from imprisonment and allowed to leave the PRC 11 days later. The US aircraft was not permitted to depart Chinese soil for another three months, after which the relationship between the US and the PRC gradually improved once more.
Sino-American relations changed radically following the September 11, 2001 attacks
. Many PRC citizens died in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center
, and mainland Chinese companies and individuals sent expressions of condolences to their US counterparts. The PRC offered strong public support for the war on terror
ism. The PRC voted in favor of UNSCR 1373
, publicly supported the coalition campaign in Afghanistan
, and contributed $150 million of bilateral assistance to Afghan reconstruction following the defeat of the Taliban. Shortly after 9/11, the US and PRC also commenced a counterterrorism dialogue. The third round of that dialogue was held in Beijing in February 2003.
In the United States, the terrorist attacks greatly changed the nature of discourse. It was no longer plausible to argue, as the Blue Team had earlier asserted, that the PRC was the primary security threat to the United States, and the need to focus on the Middle East
and the War on Terror
made the avoidance of potential distractions in East Asia a priority for the United States.
There were initial fears among the PRC leadership that the war on terrorism would lead to an anti-PRC effort by the US, especially as the US began establishing bases in Central Asia
n countries like Uzbekistan
and Tajikistan
and renewed efforts against Iraq
. Because of setbacks in America's Iraq campaign, these fears have largely subsided. The application of American power in Iraq and continuing efforts by the United States to cooperate with the PRC has significantly reduced the popular anti-Americanism that had developed in the mid-1990s.
The PRC and the US have also worked closely on regional issues, including those pertaining to North Korea
and its nuclear weapons program
. The People's Republic of China has stressed its opposition to North Korea's decision to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
, its concerns over North Korea's nuclear capabilities, and its desire for a non-nuclear Korean peninsula
. It also voted to refer North Korea's noncompliance with its International Atomic Energy Agency
obligations to the UN Security Council.
Taiwan remains a volatile issue, but one that remains under control. The United States policy toward Taiwan has involved emphasizing the Four Noes and One Without
. On occasion the United States has rebuked Republic of China President Chen Shui-bian for provocative pro-independence rhetoric. However, in 2005, the PRC passed an anti-secession law
which stated that the PRC would be prepared to resort to "non-peaceful means" if Taiwan declared formal independence. Many critics of the PRC, such as the Blue Team, argue that the PRC was trying to take advantage of the US war in Iraq to assert its claims on Republic of China's territory. In 2008, Taiwan voters elected Ma Ying-jeou. Ma, representing the Kuomintang, campaigned on a platform that included rapprochement with mainland China. His election has significant implications for the future of cross-strait relations.
China's president Hu Jintao visited the United States in April 2006.
Clark Randt, U.S. Ambassador to China from 2001 to 2008 examined "The State of U.S.-China Relations in a 2008 lecture at the USC U.S.-China Institute.
and John McCain
also spoke extensively regarding US policy toward China. Both favored cooperation with China on major issues, but they differed with regard to trade policy. Obama expressed concern that the value of China's currency was being deliberately set low to benefit China's exporters. McCain argued that free trade was crucial and was having a transformative effect in China. Still, McCain noted that while China might have shared interests with the US, it did not share American values.
Barack Obama
's presidency has fostered hopes for increased co-operation and heightened levels of friendship between the two nations. On November 8, 2008, Hu Jintao
and Barack Obama shared a phone conversation in which the Chinese President congratulated Obama on his election victory. During the conversation both parties agreed that the development of US-China relations is not only in the interest of both nations, but also in the interests of the world.
Other organizations within China also held positive reactions to the election of Barack Obama, particularly with his commitment to revising American climate change
policy. Greenpeace
published an article detailing how Obama's victory would spell positive change for investment in the green jobs sector as part of a response to the financial crisis gripping the world at the time of Obama's inauguration. A number of organizations, including the US Departments of Energy and Commerce, NGOs such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, and universities, have been working with Chinese counterparts to discuss ways to address climate change. Both US and Chinese governments have addressed the economic downturn with massive stimulus initiatives. The Chinese have expressed concern that "Buy American" components of the US plan discriminate against foreign producers, including those in China.
As the two most influential and powerful countries in the world, there have been increasingly strong suggestions within American political circles of creating a G-2
(Chimerica) relationship for the United States and China to work out solutions to global problems together.
The Strategic Economic Dialogue initiated by then-US President Bush and Chinese President Hu and led by US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson
and Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi
in 2006 has been broadened by the Obama administration. Now called the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue it is led by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner for the United States and Vice Premier Wang Qishan
and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo
for China. The focus of the first set of meetings in July 2009 was in response to the economic crisis, finding ways to cooperate to stem global warming and addressing issues such as the proliferation of nuclear weapons and humanitarian crises.
US President Barack Obama visited China on November 15–18, 2009 to discuss economic worries, concerns over nuclear weapon proliferation, and the need for action against climate change. The USC US-China Institute produced a digest of press comments on this visit and on earlier presidential trips.
In January 2010, the US proposed a $6.4 billion arms sale to the Republic of China
. In response, the PRC threatened to impose sanctions on US companies supplying arms to Taiwan and suspend cooperation on certain regional and international issues.
On February 19, 2010, President Obama met with the Dalai Lama, who China accuses of "fomenting unrest in Tibet." After the meeting, China summoned the US ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman
, but Time
has described the Chinese reaction as "muted," speculating that it could be because "the meeting came during the Chinese New Year
... when most officials are on leave." Some activists criticized Obama for the relatively low profile of the visit.
is often mentioned as a threat by many, including the Blue Team in the United States
. The PRC's investment in its military is growing rapidly. The United States, along with independent analysts, remains convinced that the PRC conceals the real extent of its military spending. According to the PRC government, China spent $45 billion on defense in 2007. In contrast, the United States had a $623-billion budget for the military in 2008, $123 billion more than the combined military budgets of all other countries in the world. Some very broad US estimates maintain that the PRC military spends between $85 billion and $125 billion. According to official figures, the PRC spent $123 million on defense per day in 2007. In comparison, the US spent $1.7 billion ($1,660 million) per day that year.
The concerns over the Chinese military budget may come from US worries that the PRC is attempting to threaten its neighbors or challenge the United States. Concerns have been raised that China is developing a large naval base near the South China Sea and has diverted resources from the People's Liberation Army Ground Force
to the Peoples Liberation Army Navy and to air force and missile development. Even still, China's military spending is only a fourth of US spending.
Andrew Scobell wrote that under President Hu, objective civilian control and oversight of the PLA appears to be weakly applied.
On October 27, 2009, American Defense Secretary Robert Gates praised the steps China has taken to increase transparency of defense spending. In June 2010, however, he said that the Chinese military was resisting efforts to improve military-to-military relations with the United States. Gates has also said that the United States will "assert freedom of navigation" in response to Chinese complaints about United States Navy deployments in international waters near China. Admiral Mike Mullen has said that the United States seeks closer military ties to China, but will continue to operate in the western Pacific.
A recent report stated that five of six US Air Force bases in the area are potentially vulnerable to Chinese missiles and called for increased defenses.
Meanwhile, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
wrote in a 2010 report that the Chinese continue to invest in modernization of their nuclear forces because they perceive that their deterrent force is vulnerable to American capabilities and that further improvement in American missile defenses will drive further Chinese spending in this area.
Chinese defense minister Liang Guanglie has said that China is 20 years behind the United States in military technology.
remains a source of tension in relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China
. Although the PRC has never governed Taiwan, the PRC claims Taiwan as a 23rd province and has repeatedly threatened to take it by force. The United States exports large amounts of weaponry to the Republic of China and there is a great deal of sympathy for Taiwan partly because it, unlike the PRC, has transformed into a pluralistic, liberal democracy
and because of residual sympathy over the Republic of China's anti-communism during the Cold War. Any accession to the PRC may also change the balance of power in that region in both political and military terms. This potentiality has been of increasing concern to Japan, a traditional ally of Taiwan and an ally of the Republic of China since its relocation to Taipei.
Officially, US policy is governed by the Taiwan Relations Act
(text), the Six Assurances
, and the Three Communiques
. It has stated a commitment to a One China Policy in which it acknowledges the PRC's position that Taiwan is part of China, but does not indicate whether it agrees with that position. The strength of that commitment and the relationship between these policies, which may seem contradictory, changes from administration to administration.
In Taiwan, there is a general public consensus in favor of the status quo. However, some supporters of Taiwan independence
, such as Lee Teng-hui
, have expressed the idea that Taiwan must act quickly to formally declare independence because the long-term trends favor increased Chinese economic and military power. Given the PRC's threats to invade if Taiwan formally declares independence, and the United States' commitments to Taiwan in the Taiwan Relations Act, such a declaration would put the US in a difficult position. In several cases in which the administration of Chen Shui-bian
appeared to be moving away from the status-quo and toward de jure independence, the United States asked for and received assurances that the Republic of China remains committed to the "Four Noes and One Without
" policy.
In the last months of the Bush administration, Taipei reversed the secular trend of declining defense spending at a time when most Asian countries continued to reduce their military expenditures. It also decided to modernize both defensive and offensive capabilities. Taipei still keeps a large military apparatus relative to the island’s population: defense expenditures for 2008 were NTD 334 billion (approximately US $10.5 billion), which accounted for 2.94% of the GDP.
On January 30, 2010, the Obama administration announced it intended to sell $6.4 billion worth of antimissile systems, helicopters, and other military hardware to Taiwan. This move, expected under the American Taiwan Relations Act, drew a forceful reaction from Beijing. In retaliation, China warned the United States that their cooperation on international and regional issues could suffer over the administration's decision to sell arms to Taiwan. China further announced that it might penalize some of the companies involved in building the hardware for Taiwan, including Boeing
, Lockheed Martin
, and Raytheon
.
, there was still serious backsliding. The PRC government has acknowledged in principle the importance of protection of human rights in mainland China and has claimed to have taken steps to bring its human rights practices into conformity with international norms. Among these steps are the signing of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in October 1997, ratified in March 2001, and signing of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
in October 1998, which has not yet been ratified. In 2002, the PRC released a significant number of political and religious prisoners and agreed to interact with United Nations experts on torture, arbitrary detention, and religion. However, international human rights groups assert that there has been virtually no movement on these promises, with more people being arrested for similar offences since. Such groups maintain that the PRC still has a long way to go in instituting the kind of fundamental systemic change that will protect the rights and liberties of all its citizens in mainland China. The US State Department publishes an annual report on human rights around the world, which includes an evaluation of China's human rights record. In 2008, the State Department still found much to criticize about the Chinese government's human rights record, but dropped China from its list of states with the greatest human rights violations.
To counter this, China has published a White Paper
annually since 1998 detailing the human rights abuses by the United States, as well as its own progress in this area.
Since October 19, 2005 the PRC government has also published a White Paper on its own democratic progress. In November 2007, the Chinese government published a White Paper on the role of Communism and other parties in China.
s. US companies have entered agreements establishing more than 20,000 equity joint venture
s, contractual joint ventures, and wholly foreign-owned enterprises in mainland China. More than 100 US-based multinationals have projects in mainland China, some with multiple investments. Cumulative US investment in mainland China is valued at $48 billion. The US trade deficit with mainland China exceeded $350 billion in 2006 and was the United States' largest bilateral trade deficit. Some of the factors that influence the U.S. trade deficit with mainland China include:
Beginning in 2009, the US and China agreed to hold regular high-level talks about economic issues and other mutual concerns by establishing the China-US strategic economic dialogue
, which meets biannually. Five meetings have been held, the most recent in December 2008. Economic nationalism seems to be rising in both countries, a point the leaders of the two delegations noted in their opening presentations. The United States and China have also established the high-level US-China Senior Dialogue
to discuss international political issues and work out resolutions.
In September 2009 a trade dispute emerged between China and the United States, which came after the US imposed tariffs of 35 percent on Chinese tire imports. The Chinese commerce minister accused the United States of a "grave act of trade protectionism
," while a USTR
spokesperson said the tariff "was taken precisely in accordance with the law and our international trade agreements." Additional issues were raised by both sides in subsequent months.
argues that China raising the value of their currency would have a large effect on the trade balance between the two countries.
Domestic leaders within the United States have pressured the Obama Administration to take a hard line against China and compel them to raise the value of their currency. The United States Congress currently has before it a bill which would call on the President to impose tariffs on Chinese imports until China properly values its currency. Many Congressional members from states with large manufacturing sectors are leading the push to retaliate against China. The Chinese state newspaper has criticized the United States for unfair monetary policies as well. Both countries have sought out other international partners to side with them.
by North Korea, "Washington is moving to redefine its relationship with South Korea and Japan, potentially creating an anti-China bloc in Northeast Asia that officials say they don't want but may need." For its part, the Chinese government fears a US Encirclement Conspiracy.
In response to the increased American attacks on Pakistan during the Obama administration, the PRC has offered additional fighter jets to Pakistan.
South East Asian nations have responded to Chinese claims for sea areas by seeking closer relations with the United States. American Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said that in spite of budget pressures, the United States will expand its influence in the region, in order to counter China's military buildup.
China also rejected a $2.4 billion bid from the The Coca-Cola Company
for the Huiyuan Juice Group on the grounds that it would be a virtual monopoly, though nationalism
was also thought to be a reason for aborting the deal.
History
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
relations, see Republic of China – United States relations.
Sino-American or People's Republic of China–United States relations refers to international relations
International relations
International relations is the study of relationships between countries, including the roles of states, inter-governmental organizations , international nongovernmental organizations , non-governmental organizations and multinational corporations...
between the United States of America (U.S.) and the government of People's Republic of China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
(PRC). Most analysts characterize present Sino-American relations as being complex and multi-faceted. The United States and the People's Republic of China are usually neither allies nor enemies; the U.S. government and military establishment do not regard the Chinese as an adversary, but as a competitor in some areas and a partner in others.
Until the 1970s, the United States recognized the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
on Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
as the legitimate government of mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
and did not maintain diplomatic relations with the communist regime
Communist China
Communist China refers to:*Chinese Soviet Republic*People's Republic of China...
of the People's Republic of China. In midst of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
, the Sino-Soviet split
Sino-Soviet split
In political science, the term Sino–Soviet split denotes the worsening of political and ideologic relations between the People's Republic of China and the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics during the Cold War...
provided an opening for the U.S. to establish ties with mainland China and establish it as a counter to the Soviet Union
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
.
As of 2011, the United States has the world's largest economy and China the second largest, though many in the U.S. believe that China "is the world's leading economic power. China has the world's largest population and the United States has the third largest. The two countries are the two largest consumers of motor vehicles and oil, and the two greatest emitters of greenhouse gases.
Relations between the People's Republic of China and the United States have been generally stable with some periods of tension, most notably after the breakup of the Soviet Union, which removed a common enemy and ushered in a world characterized by American dominance
Superpower
A superpower is a state with a dominant position in the international system which has the ability to influence events and its own interests and project power on a worldwide scale to protect those interests...
. There are also concerns relating to human rights in the People's Republic of China
Human rights in the People's Republic of China
Human rights in the People's Republic of China are a matter of dispute between the Chinese government, other countries, international NGOs, and dissidents inside the country. Organizations such as the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have accused the Chinese...
and the political status of Taiwan
Political status of Taiwan
The controversy regarding the political status of Taiwan hinges on whether Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu should remain effectively independent as territory of the Republic of China , become unified with the territories now governed by the People's Republic of China , or formally declare...
.
While there are some tensions in Sino-American relations, there are also many stabilizing factors. The PRC and the United States are major trade partners and have common interests in the prevention and suppression of terrorism
Terrorism
Terrorism is the systematic use of terror, especially as a means of coercion. In the international community, however, terrorism has no universally agreed, legally binding, criminal law definition...
and nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation
Nuclear proliferation is a term now used to describe the spread of nuclear weapons, fissile material, and weapons-applicable nuclear technology and information, to nations which are not recognized as "Nuclear Weapon States" by the Treaty on the Nonproliferation of Nuclear Weapons, also known as the...
. China and the US are the largest mutual trading partners, excluding the European Union
European Union
The European Union is an economic and political union of 27 independent member states which are located primarily in Europe. The EU traces its origins from the European Coal and Steel Community and the European Economic Community , formed by six countries in 1958...
. China is also the largest foreign creditor for the United States. China's challenges and difficulties are mainly internal, and there is a desire to maintain stable relations with the United States. The Sino-American relationship has been described by top leaders and academics as the world's most important bilateral relationship of the 21st century.
Old China Trade
The first contact between the post-revolutionary Americans and the Chinese occurred during the voyage of the American trader ship Empress of China
Empress of China (1783)
The Empress of China was a three-masted, square-rigged sailing ship, initially built in 1783 for service as a privateer. After the Treaty of Paris brought a formal end to the American Revolutionary War, the vessel was refitted for commercial purposes...
, which arrived at Canton
Guangzhou
Guangzhou , known historically as Canton or Kwangchow, is the capital and largest city of the Guangdong province in the People's Republic of China. Located in southern China on the Pearl River, about north-northwest of Hong Kong, Guangzhou is a key national transportation hub and trading port...
(today's city of Guangzhou) in 1784. Given the Chinese demand for raw goods and the American demand for anything remotely exotic, the voyage of the Empress was a financial windfall for its owners. This was the beginning of the lucrative Sino-American relationship known as the Old China Trade
Old China Trade
The Old China Trade was the name given to the early commerce between the Qing Empire and the United States under the Canton System, spanning from shortly after the end of the American Revolutionary War in 1783 to the Treaty of Wanghsia in 1844...
.
The result was the considerable exportation of specie
Coin
A coin is a piece of hard material that is standardized in weight, is produced in large quantities in order to facilitate trade, and primarily can be used as a legal tender token for commerce in the designated country, region, or territory....
, ginseng
Ginseng
Ginseng is any one of eleven species of slow-growing perennial plants with fleshy roots, belonging to the genus Panax of the family Araliaceae....
, and furs to China, and the much larger influx of tea
Tea
Tea is an aromatic beverage prepared by adding cured leaves of the Camellia sinensis plant to hot water. The term also refers to the plant itself. After water, tea is the most widely consumed beverage in the world...
, cotton
Cotton
Cotton is a soft, fluffy staple fiber that grows in a boll, or protective capsule, around the seeds of cotton plants of the genus Gossypium. The fiber is almost pure cellulose. The botanical purpose of cotton fiber is to aid in seed dispersal....
, silk
Silk
Silk is a natural protein fiber, some forms of which can be woven into textiles. The best-known type of silk is obtained from the cocoons of the larvae of the mulberry silkworm Bombyx mori reared in captivity...
, lacquerware
Lacquerware
Lacquerware are objects decoratively covered with lacquer. The lacquer is sometimes inlaid or carved. Lacquerware includes boxes, tableware, buttons and even coffins painted with lacquer in cultures mostly in the Eastern Hemisphere.-History:...
, porcelain
Chinese export porcelain
Chinese export porcelain concerns a wide range of porcelain that was made and decorated in China exclusively for export to Europe and later to North America between the 16th and the 20th century.-Early China porcelain trade:...
, and furniture
Furniture
Furniture is the mass noun for the movable objects intended to support various human activities such as seating and sleeping in beds, to hold objects at a convenient height for work using horizontal surfaces above the ground, or to store things...
to the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The merchants, who served as middlemen between the Chinese and American consumers, became fabulously wealthy from this trade, eventually giving rise to America's first generation of millionaires. In addition, many Chinese artisans began to notice the American desire for exotic wares and adjusted their practices accordingly, manufacturing goods made specifically for export. These export wares often sported American or European motifs in order to fully capitalize on the consumer demographic.
Opium Wars
The end of the First Opium WarFirst Opium War
The First Anglo-Chinese War , known popularly as the First Opium War or simply the Opium War, was fought between the United Kingdom and the Qing Dynasty of China over their conflicting viewpoints on diplomatic relations, trade, and the administration of justice...
in 1842 led to the Anglo
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
-Chinese Treaty of Nanking
Treaty of Nanking
The Treaty of Nanking was signed on 29 August 1842 to mark the end of the First Opium War between the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and the Qing Dynasty of China...
, which forced many Chinese ports open to foreign trade. Until then, Sino-American relations had been conducted solely through trade, but this new pact between Britain and China severely threatened further American business in the region. The administration of President John Tyler
John Tyler
John Tyler was the tenth President of the United States . A native of Virginia, Tyler served as a state legislator, governor, U.S. representative, and U.S. senator before being elected Vice President . He was the first to succeed to the office of President following the death of a predecessor...
secured the 1844 Treaty of Wangxia, which not only put American trade on par with British trade, but also secured for Americans the right of extraterritoriality
Extraterritoriality
Extraterritoriality is the state of being exempt from the jurisdiction of local law, usually as the result of diplomatic negotiations. Extraterritoriality can also be applied to physical places, such as military bases of foreign countries, or offices of the United Nations...
. This treaty effectively ended the era of the Old China Trade, giving the United States as many trading privileges as other foreign powers.
After China's defeat in the Second Opium War
Second Opium War
The Second Opium War, the Second Anglo-Chinese War, the Second China War, the Arrow War, or the Anglo-French expedition to China, was a war pitting the British Empire and the Second French Empire against the Qing Dynasty of China, lasting from 1856 to 1860...
, the Xianfeng emperor fled Beijing. His brother Yixin, the Prince Gong, ratified the Treaty of Tianjin in the Convention of Peking
Convention of Peking
The Convention of Peking or the First Convention of Peking is the name used for three different unequal treaties, which were concluded between Qing China and the United Kingdom, France, and Russia.-Background:...
on October 18, 1860. This treaty stipulated, among other things, that along with Britain
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, France
France
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
, the United States would have the right to station legation
Legation
A legation was the term used in diplomacy to denote a diplomatic representative office lower than an embassy. Where an embassy was headed by an Ambassador, a legation was headed by a Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary....
s in Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
, a closed city
Closed city
A closed city or closed town is a settlement with travel and residency restrictions in the Soviet Union and some of its successor countries. In modern Russia, such places are officially known as "closed administrative-territorial formations" ....
at the time.
The Burlingame Treaty and the Chinese Exclusion Act
Anson Burlingame
Anson Burlingame wasan American lawyer, legislator, and diplomat, born in New Berlin, Chenango County, New York. In 1823 his parents took him to Ohio, and about ten years afterwards to Michigan...
as their emissary to the United States. Burlingame toured the country to build support for equitable treatment for China and for Chinese emigrants. The 1868 Burlingame Treaty
Burlingame Treaty
The Burlingame Treaty, also known as the Burlingame-Seward Treaty of 1868, between the United States and China, amended the Treaty of Tientsin of 1858 and established formal friendly relations between the two countries, with the United States granting China most favored nation status...
embodied these principles. In 1871, the Chinese Educational Mission
Chinese Educational Mission
The Chinese Educational Mission was the pioneering but frustrated attempt to educate a group of 120 Chinese students in the United States....
brought the first of two groups of 120 Chinese boys to study in the United States. They were led by Yung Wing
Yung Wing
Yung Wing . Born in Zhuhai in Guangdong province, he studied in Robert Morrison's missionary schools as a boy where Tong King-sing was a classmate.-Biography:...
, the first Chinese man to graduate from an American university.
During the California Gold Rush
California Gold Rush
The California Gold Rush began on January 24, 1848, when gold was found by James W. Marshall at Sutter's Mill in Coloma, California. The first to hear confirmed information of the gold rush were the people in Oregon, the Sandwich Islands , and Latin America, who were the first to start flocking to...
and the construction of the Transcontinental Railroad
Transcontinental railroad
A transcontinental railroad is a contiguous network of railroad trackage that crosses a continental land mass with terminals at different oceans or continental borders. Such networks can be via the tracks of either a single railroad, or over those owned or controlled by multiple railway companies...
, large numbers of Chinese emigrated to the US, spurring animosity from American citizens. After being forcibly driven from the mines, most Chinese settled in Chinatown
Chinatown
A Chinatown is an ethnic enclave of overseas Chinese people, although it is often generalized to include various Southeast Asian people. Chinatowns exist throughout the world, including East Asia, Southeast Asia, the Americas, Australasia, and Europe. Binondo's Chinatown located in Manila,...
s in cities such as San Francisco, taking up low-end wage labor, such as restaurant and laundry work. With the post-Civil War economy in decline by the 1870s, anti-Chinese animosity became politicized by labor leader Denis Kearney and his Workingman's Party
Workingman's Party
The Workingman's Party was a California labor organization led by Denis Kearney in the 1870s. The party took particular aim against Chinese immigrant labor and the Central Pacific Railroad which employed them. Its famous slogan was "The Chinese must go!" They held large Sunday afternoon rallies...
, as well as by the California governor John Bigler
John Bigler
John Bigler was an American lawyer, politician and diplomat. A Democrat, he served as the third Governor of California from 1852 to 1856 and was the first California governor to complete an entire term in office successfully, as well as the first to win re-election...
. Both blamed Chinese coolies for depressed wage levels.
In the first significant restriction on free immigration in US history, Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act on May 6, 1882, following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty. Those revisions allowed the United States to suspend immigration
Immigration to the United States
Immigration to the United States has been a major source of population growth and cultural change throughout much of the history of the United States. The economic, social, and political aspects of immigration have caused controversy regarding ethnicity, economic benefits, jobs for non-immigrants,...
, and Congress acted quickly to implement the suspension of Chinese immigration and exclude Chinese "skilled and unskilled laborers and Chinese employed in mining" from entering the country for ten years, under penalty of imprisonment and deportation. The ban was renewed a number of times, lasting for over 60 years.
The Boxer Rebellion
Boxer Rebellion
The Boxer Rebellion, also called the Boxer Uprising by some historians or the Righteous Harmony Society Movement in northern China, was a proto-nationalist movement by the "Righteous Harmony Society" , or "Righteous Fists of Harmony" or "Society of Righteous and Harmonious Fists" , in China between...
, against foreign influence in trade, politics, religion, and technology. The campaigns took place from November 1899 to September 7, 1901, during the final years of Manchu
Manchu
The Manchu people or Man are an ethnic minority of China who originated in Manchuria . During their rise in the 17th century, with the help of the Ming dynasty rebels , they came to power in China and founded the Qing Dynasty, which ruled China until the Xinhai Revolution of 1911, which...
rule in China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
under the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
.
The uprising began as an anti-foreign, anti-imperialist, peasant-based movement in northern China. The insurgents attacked foreigners, who were building railroads and violating Feng shui
Feng shui
Feng shui ' is a Chinese system of geomancy believed to use the laws of both Heaven and Earth to help one improve life by receiving positive qi. The original designation for the discipline is Kan Yu ....
, and Christian
Christian
A Christian is a person who adheres to Christianity, an Abrahamic, monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth as recorded in the Canonical gospels and the letters of the New Testament...
s, who were held responsible for the foreign domination of China. In June 1900, the Boxers invaded Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
, killing 230 foreign diplomats and foreigners as well as thousands of Chinese Christians, mostly in Shandong
Shandong
' is a Province located on the eastern coast of the People's Republic of China. Shandong has played a major role in Chinese history from the beginning of Chinese civilization along the lower reaches of the Yellow River and served as a pivotal cultural and religious site for Taoism, Chinese...
and Shanxi
Shanxi
' is a province in Northern China. Its one-character abbreviation is "晋" , after the state of Jin that existed here during the Spring and Autumn Period....
Provinces. On June 21, Empress Dowager Cixi
Empress Dowager Cixi
Empress Dowager Cixi1 , of the Manchu Yehenara clan, was a powerful and charismatic figure who became the de facto ruler of the Manchu Qing Dynasty in China for 47 years from 1861 to her death in 1908....
declared war against all Western powers. Diplomats, foreign civilians, soldiers, and some Chinese Christians were besieged during the Siege of Beijing Legation Quarter
Siege of Beijing Legation Quarter
The Siege of the International Legations occurred during the Boxer Rebellion in the Chinese city of Beijing . Nine hundred military personnel and civilians, largely from Europe, Japan, and the United States, and about 2,800 Chinese Christians took refuge in the Beijing Legation Quarter and survived...
for 55 days. A coalition called the Eight-Nation Alliance
Eight-Nation Alliance
The Eight-Nation Alliance was an alliance of Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom, and the United States whose military forces intervened in China to suppress the anti-foreign Boxers and relieve the siege of the diplomatic legations in Beijing .- Events :The...
of Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary
Austria-Hungary , more formally known as the Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen, was a constitutional monarchic union between the crowns of the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Hungary in...
, France
French Third Republic
The French Third Republic was the republican government of France from 1870, when the Second French Empire collapsed due to the French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, to 1940, when France was overrun by Nazi Germany during World War II, resulting in the German and Italian occupations of France...
, Germany
German Empire
The German Empire refers to Germany during the "Second Reich" period from the unification of Germany and proclamation of Wilhelm I as German Emperor on 18 January 1871, to 1918, when it became a federal republic after defeat in World War I and the abdication of the Emperor, Wilhelm II.The German...
, Italy
Kingdom of Italy (1861–1946)
The Kingdom of Italy was a state forged in 1861 by the unification of Italy under the influence of the Kingdom of Sardinia, which was its legal predecessor state...
, Japan, Russia, the United Kingdom
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
, and the United States rushed 20,000 troops to their rescue. The multinational forces were initially defeated by a Chinese Muslim army at the Battle of Langfang
Battle of Langfang
The Seymour Expedition, also known as the First Intervention, was an attempt by a multi-national military force to march to Beijing and protect the diplomatic legations and foreign nationals in the city from attacks by Boxers in 1900...
, but the second attempt was successful because of internal rivalries among the Chinese forces.
The Chinese government was forced to indemnify the victims and make many additional concessions. Subsequent reforms implemented after the rebellion contributed to the end of the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
and the establishment of the modern Chinese Republic. The United States played a secondary but significant role in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion, largely due to the presence of US ships and troops deployed in the Philippines
Philippines
The Philippines , officially known as the Republic of the Philippines , is a country in Southeast Asia in the western Pacific Ocean. To its north across the Luzon Strait lies Taiwan. West across the South China Sea sits Vietnam...
since the US conquest of the Spanish American and Philippine-American War
Philippine-American War
The Philippine–American War, also known as the Philippine War of Independence or the Philippine Insurrection , was an armed conflict between a group of Filipino revolutionaries and the United States which arose from the struggle of the First Philippine Republic to gain independence following...
. Within the United States military, the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion was known as the China Relief Expedition
China Relief Expedition
The China Relief Expedition was the name of an expedition in China undertaken by the United States Armed Forces to the rescue of United States citizens, European nationals, and other foreign nationals during the latter years of the Boxer Rebellion, which lasted from between 1898 and 1901...
.
Open Door Policy
In the late 19th century the major world powers (FranceFrance
The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...
, the United Kingdom
Great Britain
Great Britain or Britain is an island situated to the northwest of Continental Europe. It is the ninth largest island in the world, and the largest European island, as well as the largest of the British Isles...
, Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, Italy
Italy
Italy , officially the Italian Republic languages]] under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages. In each of these, Italy's official name is as follows:;;;;;;;;), is a unitary parliamentary republic in South-Central Europe. To the north it borders France, Switzerland, Austria and...
, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
, and Russia
Russia
Russia or , officially known as both Russia and the Russian Federation , is a country in northern Eurasia. It is a federal semi-presidential republic, comprising 83 federal subjects...
) began carving out spheres of influence for themselves in China, which was then under the Qing Dynasty
Qing Dynasty
The Qing Dynasty was the last dynasty of China, ruling from 1644 to 1912 with a brief, abortive restoration in 1917. It was preceded by the Ming Dynasty and followed by the Republic of China....
. The United States, not having such influence, wanted this practice to end. In 1899, US Secretary of State
United States Secretary of State
The United States Secretary of State is the head of the United States Department of State, concerned with foreign affairs. The Secretary is a member of the Cabinet and the highest-ranking cabinet secretary both in line of succession and order of precedence...
John Hay
John Hay
John Milton Hay was an American statesman, diplomat, author, journalist, and private secretary and assistant to Abraham Lincoln.-Early life:...
sent diplomatic letters to these nations, asking them to guarantee the territorial and administrative integrity of China and to not interfere with the free use of treaty ports
Treaty ports
The treaty ports was the name given to the port cities in China, Japan, and Korea that were opened to foreign trade by the Unequal Treaties.-Chinese treaty ports:...
within their respective spheres of influence. The major powers evaded commitment, saying they could not agree to anything until the other powers had consented first. Hay took this as acceptance of his proposal, which came to be known as the Open Door Policy
Open Door Policy
The Open Door Policy is a concept in foreign affairs, which usually refers to the policy in 1899 allowing multiple Imperial powers access to China, with none of them in control of that country. As a theory, the Open Door Policy originates with British commercial practice, as was reflected in...
.
While generally respected internationally, the Open Door Policy did suffer serious setbacks. The first issue involved Russian encroachment in Manchuria
Manchuria
Manchuria is a historical name given to a large geographic region in northeast Asia. Depending on the definition of its extent, Manchuria usually falls entirely within the People's Republic of China, or is sometimes divided between China and Russia. The region is commonly referred to as Northeast...
in the late 1890s. The US protested Russia's actions, which led to a Russian war with Japan
Russo-Japanese War
The Russo-Japanese War was "the first great war of the 20th century." It grew out of rival imperial ambitions of the Russian Empire and Japanese Empire over Manchuria and Korea...
in 1904. Japan presented a further challenge to the Open Door Policy with its Twenty-One Demands
Twenty-One Demands
The ' were a set of demands made by the Empire of Japan under Prime Minister Ōkuma Shigenobu sent to the nominal government of the Republic of China on January 18, 1915, resulting in two treaties with Japan on May 25, 1915.- Background :...
in 1915 made on the then-Republic of China
Republic of China (1912–1949)
In 1911, after over two thousand years of imperial rule, a republic was established in China and the monarchy overthrown by a group of revolutionaries. The Qing Dynasty, having just experienced a century of instability, suffered from both internal rebellion and foreign imperialism...
. Japan also made secret treaties with the Allies
Allies
In everyday English usage, allies are people, groups, or nations that have joined together in an association for mutual benefit or to achieve some common purpose, whether or not explicit agreement has been worked out between them...
promising Japan the German territories in China. The biggest setback to the Open Door Policy came in 1931, when Japan invaded and occupied Manchuria, setting up the puppet state of Manchukuo
Manchukuo
Manchukuo or Manshū-koku was a puppet state in Manchuria and eastern Inner Mongolia, governed under a form of constitutional monarchy. The region was the historical homeland of the Manchus, who founded the Qing Empire in China...
. The United States, along with other countries, strongly condemned the action but did little at the time to stop it.
World War II
Second Sino-Japanese War
The Second Sino-Japanese War was a military conflict fought primarily between the Republic of China and the Empire of Japan. From 1937 to 1941, China fought Japan with some economic help from Germany , the Soviet Union and the United States...
in 1937 saw aid flow into the Republic of China
Republic of China (1912–1949)
In 1911, after over two thousand years of imperial rule, a republic was established in China and the monarchy overthrown by a group of revolutionaries. The Qing Dynasty, having just experienced a century of instability, suffered from both internal rebellion and foreign imperialism...
, led by Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
, from the United States, under President Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin D. Roosevelt
Franklin Delano Roosevelt , also known by his initials, FDR, was the 32nd President of the United States and a central figure in world events during the mid-20th century, leading the United States during a time of worldwide economic crisis and world war...
. A series of Neutrality Acts had been passed in the US with the support of isolationists
Isolationism
Isolationism is the policy or doctrine of isolating one's country from the affairs of other nations by declining to enter into alliances, foreign economic commitments, international agreements, etc., seeking to devote the entire efforts of one's country to its own advancement and remain at peace by...
who forbade American aid to countries at war. Because the Second Sino-Japanese War was undeclared, however, Roosevelt denied that a state of war existed in China and proceeded to send aid to Chiang.
American public sympathy for the Chinese was aroused by reports from missionaries, novelists such as Pearl Buck, and Time Magazine of Japanese brutality in China, including reports surrounding the Nanking Massacre
Nanking Massacre
The Nanking Massacre or Nanjing Massacre, also known as the Rape of Nanking, was a mass murder, genocide and war rape that occurred during the six-week period following the Japanese capture of the city of Nanjing , the former capital of the Republic of China, on December 13, 1937 during the Second...
. Japanese-American relations were further soured by the USS Panay Incident
Panay incident
The USS Panay Incident was a Japanese attack on the American gunboat while she was anchored in the Yangtze River outside Nanking , China on December 12, 1937. Japan and the United States were not at war at the time. The Japanese claimed that they did not see the American flags painted on the deck...
during the bombing of Nanjing
Nanjing
' is the capital of Jiangsu province in China and has a prominent place in Chinese history and culture, having been the capital of China on several occasions...
. Roosevelt demanded an apology from the Japanese, which was received, but relations between the two countries continued to deteriorate. Edgar Snow
Edgar Snow
Edgar P. Snow was an American journalist known for his books and articles on Communism in China and the Chinese Communist revolution...
's 1937 book Red Star Over China
Red Star Over China
Red Star Over China, a book by Edgar Snow, is an account of the Communist Party of China written when they were a guerrilla army still obscure to Westerners. Along with Pearl Buck's The Good Earth, it was the most influential book on Western understanding and sympathy for China in the 1930s...
reported that Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
's Chinese Communist Party
Communist Movement
Communist Movement was a political party in Spain...
was effective in carrying out reforms and fighting the Japanese. When open war broke out in the summer of 1937, the United States offered moral support but took no effective action.
China formally declared war on Japan in 1941 following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor
Attack on Pearl Harbor
The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...
, which brought the Americans into World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
. The Roosevelt administration gave massive amounts of aid to Chiang's beleaguered government, now headquartered in Chongqing
Chongqing
Chongqing is a major city in Southwest China and one of the five national central cities of China. Administratively, it is one of the PRC's four direct-controlled municipalities , and the only such municipality in inland China.The municipality was created on 14 March 1997, succeeding the...
. Madame Chiang Kaishek
Soong May-ling
Soong May-ling or Soong Mei-ling, also known as Madame Chiang Kai-shek or Madame Chiang was a First Lady of the Republic of China , the wife of Generalissimo and President Chiang Kai-shek. She was a politician and painter...
, who had been educated in the United States, addressed the US Congress and toured the country to rally support for China. Congress amended the Chinese Exclusion Act and Roosevelt moved to end the unequal treaties
Unequal Treaties
“Unequal treaty” is a term used in specific reference to a number of treaties imposed by Western powers, during the 19th and early 20th centuries, on Qing Dynasty China and late Tokugawa Japan...
. However, the perception that Chiang's government was unable to effectively resist the Japanese or that he preferred to focus more on defeating the Communists grew. China Hands
China Hands
The term China Hand originally referred to 19th-century merchants in the treaty ports of China, but evolved to reflect anyone with expert knowledge of the language, culture, and people of China...
such as Joseph Stilwell
Joseph Stilwell
General Joseph Warren Stilwell was a United States Army four-star General known for service in the China Burma India Theater. His caustic personality was reflected in the nickname "Vinegar Joe"...
argued that it was in American interest to establish communication with the Communists to prepare for a land-based counteroffensive invasion of Japan. The Dixie Mission
Dixie Mission
The United States Army Observation Group, commonly known as the Dixie Mission, was the first U.S. effort to establish official relations with the Communist Party of China and the People's Liberation Army, then headquartered in the mountainous city of Yan'an...
, which began in 1943, was the first official American contact with the Communists. Other Americans, such as Claire Chennault, argued for air power. In 1944, Generalissimo Chiang acceded to Roosevelt's request that an American general take charge of all forces in the area, but demanded that Stilwell be recalled. General Albert Wedemeyer replaced Stilwell, and Patrick Hurley became ambassador.
Chiang did not like the Americans, and was suspicious of their motives. The American OSS, forerunner of the CIA, showed interest in a plot to seize control of Chiang's regime. Chiang ordered the plotters executed. Chiang felt no friendliness towards the United States, and saw the US as pursuing imperialist motives in China. Chiang did not want to be subordinate to either the United States or the Soviet Union, but jockeyed for position between the two to avoid taking sides and to get the most out of Soviet and American relationships. Chiang predicted that war would come between the Americans and Soviets and that they would both seek China's alliance, which he would use to China's advantage.
Chiang also differed from the Americans in ideology issues. He organized the Kuomintang as a Leninist-style party, oppressed dissent, and banned democracy, claiming it was impossible for China.
Chiang manipulated the Soviets and Americans during the war, at first telling the Americans that they would be welcome in talks between the Soviet Union and China, then secretly telling the Soviets that the Americans were unimportant and their opinions were to be left out. At the same time, Chiang positioned American support and military power in China against the Soviet Union as a factor in the talks, keeping the Soviets from taking advantage of China with the threat of American military action against the Soviets.
Chiang's right hand man, the secret police chief Dai Li
Dai Li
Major General Dai Li was born Dai Chunfeng with the courtesy name of Yunong in Baoan, Jiangshan, Zhejiang, China. He studied at the Whampoa Military Academy, where Chiang served as Chief Commandant, and later became head of Chiang's Military Intelligence Service.-Early life:At age four, his...
, was both anti-American, and anti-Communist. Dai ordered Kuomintang agents to spy on American officers. Dai had previously been involved with the Blue Shirts Society
Blue Shirts Society
The Blue Shirts Society also known as the Society of Practice of the Three Principles of the People , the Spirit Encouragement Society and the China Reconstruction Society , was a secret clique in the...
, a Fascist-inspired paramilitary group in the Kuomintang that wanted to expel Western and Japanese imperialists, crush the Communists, and eliminate feudalism
Feudalism
Feudalism was a set of legal and military customs in medieval Europe that flourished between the 9th and 15th centuries, which, broadly defined, was a system for ordering society around relationships derived from the holding of land in exchange for service or labour.Although derived from the...
. Dai Li was assassinated in a plane crash orchestrated by the American OSS or the Communists.
After World War II ended in 1945, the hostility between the Republic of China and the Communist Party of China exploded into open civil war
Chinese Civil War
The Chinese Civil War was a civil war fought between the Kuomintang , the governing party of the Republic of China, and the Communist Party of China , for the control of China which eventually led to China's division into two Chinas, Republic of China and People's Republic of...
. General Douglas MacArthur
Douglas MacArthur
General of the Army Douglas MacArthur was an American general and field marshal of the Philippine Army. He was a Chief of Staff of the United States Army during the 1930s and played a prominent role in the Pacific theater during World War II. He received the Medal of Honor for his service in the...
directed the military forces under Chiang Kai-shek to go to the island of Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
to accept the surrender of Japanese troops, thus beginning the military occupation of Taiwan. American general George C. Marshall tried to broker a truce between the Republic of China and the Communist Party of China in 1946, but it quickly lost momentum. The Nationalist
Kuomintang
The Kuomintang of China , sometimes romanized as Guomindang via the Pinyin transcription system or GMD for short, and translated as the Chinese Nationalist Party is a founding and ruling political party of the Republic of China . Its guiding ideology is the Three Principles of the People, espoused...
cause declined until 1949, when the Communists emerged victorious and drove the Nationalists from the Chinese mainland
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
onto Taiwan and other islands. Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
established the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
(PRC) in mainland China, while the Republic of China remains in Taiwan and other islands to this day.
People's Republic of China
The United States did not formally recognize the People's Republic of China (PRC) for 30 years after its founding. Instead, the US maintained diplomatic relations with the Republic of China government on Taiwan, recognizing it as the sole legitimate government of ChinaChina
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
.
However, the Taiwan-based Republic of China government did not trust the United States. An enemy of the Chiang family, Wu Kuo-chen, was removed from his position as governor of Taiwan by Chiang Ching-kuo
Chiang Ching-kuo
Chiang Ching-kuo , Kuomintang politician and leader, was the son of President Chiang Kai-shek and held numerous posts in the government of the Republic of China...
and fled to America in 1953. Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
, president of the Republic of China, suspected that the American CIA was engineering a coup with Sun Li-jen
Sun Li-jen
Sun Li-jen was a Kuomintang General, best known for his leadership in the Second Sino-Japanese War and the Chinese Civil War. His achievements earned him the laudatory nickname "Rommel of the East". His New 1st Army was reputed as the "1st [Best] Army under heaven" and credited with defeating...
, an American-educated Chinese man who attended the Virginia Military Institute
Virginia Military Institute
The Virginia Military Institute , located in Lexington, Virginia, is the oldest state-supported military college and one of six senior military colleges in the United States. Unlike any other military college in the United States—and in keeping with its founding principles—all VMI students are...
, with the goal of making Taiwan an independent state. Chiang placed Sun under house arrest in 1955.
Chiang Ching-kuo
Chiang Ching-kuo
Chiang Ching-kuo , Kuomintang politician and leader, was the son of President Chiang Kai-shek and held numerous posts in the government of the Republic of China...
, educated in the Soviet Union, initiated Soviet-style military organization in the Republic of China military, reorganizing and Sovietizing the political officer corps and surveillance. Kuomintang party activities were propagated throughout the military. Sun Li-jen opposed this action.
As the People's Liberation Army
People's Liberation Army
The People's Liberation Army is the unified military organization of all land, sea, strategic missile and air forces of the People's Republic of China. The PLA was established on August 1, 1927 — celebrated annually as "PLA Day" — as the military arm of the Communist Party of China...
moved south to complete the communist conquest of mainland China
Mainland China
Mainland China, the Chinese mainland or simply the mainland, is a geopolitical term that refers to the area under the jurisdiction of the People's Republic of China . According to the Taipei-based Mainland Affairs Council, the term excludes the PRC Special Administrative Regions of Hong Kong and...
in 1949, the American embassy followed Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China government to Taipei
Taipei
Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...
, while US consular officials remained in mainland China. However, the new PRC government was hostile to this official American presence, and all US personnel were withdrawn from mainland China in early 1950. In December 1950, the PRC seized all American assets and properties, totaling $196.8 million, after the US had frozen Chinese assets in America following China's entry into the Korean War in November.
Korean War
Korean War
The Korean War was a conventional war between South Korea, supported by the United Nations, and North Korea, supported by the People's Republic of China , with military material aid from the Soviet Union...
on November 1, 1950. In response to the Soviet-backed North Korean invasion of South Korea, the United Nations Security Council
United Nations Security Council
The United Nations Security Council is one of the principal organs of the United Nations and is charged with the maintenance of international peace and security. Its powers, outlined in the United Nations Charter, include the establishment of peacekeeping operations, the establishment of...
was convened and passed UNSC Resolution 82
United Nations Security Council Resolution 82
United Nations Security Council Resolution 82 was a measure adopted by the United Nations Security Council on June 25, 1950. The resolution demanded North Korea immediately end its invasion of South Korea, the catalyst for the beginning of the Korean War...
, condemning the North Korean aggression unanimously. The resolution was adopted mainly because the Soviet Union, a veto-wielding power
United Nations Security Council veto power
The United Nations Security Council "power of veto" refers to the veto power wielded solely by the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council , enabling them to prevent the adoption of any "substantive" draft Council resolution, regardless of the level of international support...
, had been boycotting UN proceedings since January, protesting that the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
and not the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
held a permanent seat on the council.
The American-led UN forces pushed the invading North Korean Army back into North Korea, past the North-South border at the 38th parallel
38th parallel north
The 38th parallel north is a circle of latitude that is 38 degrees north of the Earth's equatorial plane. It crosses Europe, the Mediterranean Sea, Asia, the Pacific Ocean, North America, and the Atlantic Ocean...
and began to approach the Amnok river (Yalu river
Yalu River
The Yalu River or the Amnok River is a river on the border between North Korea and the People's Republic of China....
) on the Sino-Korean border. As a result, the PRC undertook a massive intervention into the conflict on the side of the Communists. The Chinese struck in the west along the Chongchon River and completely overran several South Korean divisions, successfully landing a heavy blow to the flank of the remaining UN forces. The defeat of the US Eighth Army
U.S. Eighth Army
The Eighth United States Army – often unofficially abbreviated EUSA – is the commanding formation of all US Army troops in South Korea.-World War II:...
resulted in the longest retreat of any American military unit in history. Both sides sustained heavy casualties before the UN forces were able to push the PRC back, near the original division. In late March 1951, after the Chinese had moved large numbers of new forces near the Korean border, US bomb loading pits at Kadena Air Base
Kadena Air Base
, is a United States Air Force base in the towns of Kadena and Chatan and the city of Okinawa, in Okinawa Prefecture, Japan. Kadena Air Base is the hub of U.S. airpower in the Pacific, and home to the USAF's 18th Wing and a variety of associate units.-Units:The 18th Wing is the host unit at Kadena...
in Okinawa were made operational. Bombs assembled there were "lacking only the essential nuclear cores." On April 5, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff
Joint Chiefs of Staff
The Joint Chiefs of Staff is a body of senior uniformed leaders in the United States Department of Defense who advise the Secretary of Defense, the Homeland Security Council, the National Security Council and the President on military matters...
released orders for immediate retaliatory attacks using atomic weapons against Manchurian bases to prevent new Chinese troops from entering the battles or bombing attacks originating from those bases. On the same day, Truman gave his approval for transfer of nine Mark IV nuclear capsules "to the Air Force's
United States Air Force
The United States Air Force is the aerial warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the American uniformed services. Initially part of the United States Army, the USAF was formed as a separate branch of the military on September 18, 1947 under the National Security Act of...
Ninth Bomb Group, the designated carrier of the weapons," signing an order to "use them against Chinese and Korean targets." Two years of continued fighting ended in a stalemate that lasted while negotiations dragged on, until the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed on July 27, 1953. Since then, the Division of Korea
Division of Korea
The division of Korea into North Korea and South Korea stems from the 1945 Allied victory in World War II, ending Japan's 35-year colonial rule of Korea. In a proposal opposed by nearly all Koreans, the United States and the Soviet Union agreed to temporarily occupy the country as a trusteeship...
has had an important role in Sino-American relations. The entry of the Chinese in the Korean War caused a shift in US policy from marginal support of Chiang Kai-Shek
Chiang Kai-shek
Chiang Kai-shek was a political and military leader of 20th century China. He is known as Jiǎng Jièshí or Jiǎng Zhōngzhèng in Mandarin....
's Nationalist government on Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
to full-blown defense of Taiwan from the PRC.
Vietnam War
The PRC's involvement in the Vietnam War began in 1949, when China was reunified under communist rule. The Communist Party of ChinaCommunist Party of China
The Communist Party of China , also known as the Chinese Communist Party , is the founding and ruling political party of the People's Republic of China...
provided material and technical support to the Vietnamese communists. In the summer of 1962, Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong
Mao Zedong, also transliterated as Mao Tse-tung , and commonly referred to as Chairman Mao , was a Chinese Communist revolutionary, guerrilla warfare strategist, Marxist political philosopher, and leader of the Chinese Revolution...
agreed to supply Hanoi with 90,000 rifles and guns free of charge. After the launch of the American "Rolling Thunder" mission, China sent anti-aircraft units and engineering battalions to North Vietnam to repair the damage caused by American bombing, rebuild roads and railroads, and perform other engineering work, freeing North Vietnamese army units for combat in the South. Between 1965 and 1970, over 320,000 Chinese soldiers fought the Americans alongside the North Vietnamese Army, reaching a peak in 1967, when 170,000 troops served in combat. China lost 1,446 troops in the Vietnam War. The US lost 58,159 in combat against the NVA, Vietcong, and their allied forces, including the Chinese.
Relations frozen
The United States continued to work to prevent the PRC from taking China's seat in the United NationsUnited Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
and encouraged its allies not to deal with the PRC. The United States placed an embargo on trading with the PRC, and encouraged allies to follow it. The PRC developed nuclear weapons in 1964 and, as later declassified documents revealed, President Johnson considered preemptive attacks to halt its nuclear program. He ultimately decided the measure carried too much risk and it was abandoned.
Despite this official non-recognition, the United States and the People's Republic of China held 136 meetings at the ambassadorial level beginning in 1954 and continuing until 1970, first in Geneva
Geneva
Geneva In the national languages of Switzerland the city is known as Genf , Ginevra and Genevra is the second-most-populous city in Switzerland and is the most populous city of Romandie, the French-speaking part of Switzerland...
and later in Warsaw
Warsaw
Warsaw is the capital and largest city of Poland. It is located on the Vistula River, roughly from the Baltic Sea and from the Carpathian Mountains. Its population in 2010 was estimated at 1,716,855 residents with a greater metropolitan area of 2,631,902 residents, making Warsaw the 10th most...
.
Beginning in 1967, the Foreign Claims Settlement Commission
Foreign Claims Settlement Commission
The Foreign Claims Settlement Commission of the United States is a quasi-judicial, independent agency within the U.S. Department of Justice which adjudicates claims of U.S. nationals against foreign governments, either under specific jurisdiction conferred by Congress or pursuant to international...
established the China Claims Program, in which American citizens could denominate the sum total of their lost assets and property following the Communist seizure of foreign property in 1950. In the program's scope were “(1) losses resulting from the nationalization, expropriation, intervention, or other taking of, or special measures directed against, property or nationals of the United States; and (2) disability or death, resulting from actions taken by or under the authority of the Chinese Communist regime.” Any American citizen who had lost property in China following the declaration of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949, was entitled to file a claim with the Commission. Claimants included the Chinese Medical Board of New York, which operated the Peking Union Medical College, Esso Standard (the predecessor of Exxon Mobil), which owned the Shanghai Power Company, and American Express, which fled China in September 1949 amid Civil War and hyperinflation. In retaliation for unsettled accounts with Chinese citizens, the PRC refused to grant an exit visa to an American Express employee, who remained in China for five years. Because of the expropriation of assets, American companies would remain hesitant to reinvest in China despite (future Chairman) Deng Xiaoping's reassurances of a stable business environment.
Rapprochement
Both the PRC and the US made efforts to try to improve relations between the two major powers. This became an especially important concern for the People's Republic of China after the Sino-Soviet border clashesSino-Soviet border conflict
The Sino–Soviet border conflict was a seven-month military conflict between the Soviet Union and China at the height of the Sino–Soviet split in 1969. The most serious of these border clashes occurred in March 1969 in the vicinity of Zhenbao Island on the Ussuri River, also known as Damanskii...
of 1969. The PRC was diplomatically isolated and the leadership came to believe that improved relations with the United States would be a useful counterbalance to the Soviet threat. Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai
Zhou Enlai was the first Premier of the People's Republic of China, serving from October 1949 until his death in January 1976...
, the PRC premier foreign minister, was at the forefront of this effort with the committed backing of Mao Zedong.
John K. Fairbank
John King Fairbank , was a prominent American academic and historian of China.-Education and early career:...
and A. Doak Barnett pointed to the need to deal realistically with the Beijing government, while organizations such as the National Committee on United States-China Relations
National Committee on United States-China Relations
The National Committee on United States China Relations is a nonprofit organization that encourages understanding and cooperation between the United States and Greater China in the belief that sound and productive Sino-American relations serve vital American and world interests.-Mission:For more...
sponsored debates to promote public awareness. Many saw the specter of Communist China behind Communist movements in Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
, Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
, and Laos
Laos
Laos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
, but a growing number concluded that if the PRC would align with the US it would mean a major redistribution of global power against the Soviets. Mainland China's market of nearly one billion consumers appealed to American business. Senator William Fulbright, Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, held a series of hearings on the matter.
Mike Mansfield
Mike Mansfield
Michael Joseph Mansfield was an American Democratic politician and the longest-serving Majority Leader of the United States Senate, serving from 1961 to 1977. He also served as United States Ambassador to Japan for over ten years...
, the Democratic Senate Majority Leader was indirectly approached by the PRC and passed a note on to the State Department and President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
.
Nixon believed it necessary to forge a relationship with China, even though there were enormous differences between the two countries. He was assisted in this by his National Security Advisor
National Security Advisor (United States)
The Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs, commonly referred to as the National Security Advisor , serves as the chief advisor to the President of the United States on national security issues...
Henry Kissinger
Henry Kissinger
Heinz Alfred "Henry" Kissinger is a German-born American academic, political scientist, diplomat, and businessman. He is a recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize. He served as National Security Advisor and later concurrently as Secretary of State in the administrations of Presidents Richard Nixon and...
. Domestic political concerns also entered into Nixon's thinking, as the boost from a successful courting of the PRC could help him greatly in the 1972 American presidential election. He also worried immensely that one of the Democrats would preempt him and go to the PRC before he had the opportunity.
Communication between PRC and American leaders were conducted with Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
and Romania
Romania
Romania is a country located at the crossroads of Central and Southeastern Europe, on the Lower Danube, within and outside the Carpathian arch, bordering on the Black Sea...
as intermediaries.
On April 6, 1971, the young American ping pong player Glenn Cowan
Glenn Cowan
Glenn L. Cowan was an American table tennis player, and arguably one of two critical personalities, the other being the Chinese table tennis player Zhuang Zedong, in the 1971 Ping Pong Diplomacy which served as a prelude to the normalization of the Sino-American relations.Cowan, a former Santa...
missed his US team bus and was waved by a Chinese table tennis player onto the bus of the Chinese team at the 31st World Table Tennis Championship in Nagoya, Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
. Cowan spoke with the Chinese players in a friendly fashion, and the Chinese player, Zhuang Zedong, a three-time World Men's Singles Champion, presented him with a silk-screen portrait of the famous Huangshan Mountains
Huangshan Mountains
Huangshan , is a mountain range in southern Anhui province in eastern China. The range composed of material that was uplifted from an ancient sea during the Mesozoic era, 100 million years ago. The mountains themselves were carved by glaciers during the Quaternary...
. While this had been a purely spontaneous gesture of friendship between two athletes, the PRC chose to treat it as an officially sanctioned outreach. Henry Kissinger also believed that it was planned. Zhuang Zedong spoke about the incident in a 2007 talk at the USC US-China Institute. According to sources from the PRC, the friendly contact between Zhuang Zedong and Glenn Cowan, as well as the photograph of the two players in Dacankao, had an impact on Mao's decision making. He had earlier decided not to invite the US team to tour mainland China along with teams of other western countries, but in a move later known as Ping Pong Diplomacy
Ping Pong Diplomacy
Ping pong diplomacy refers to the exchange of ping pong players between the United States and People's Republic of China in the 1970s. The event marked a thaw in U.S.–China relations that paved the way to a visit to Beijing by President Richard Nixon....
, Mao and the PRC invited the American ping pong team to tour after all. The Americans agreed and on April 10, 1971 the athletes became the first Americans to officially visit China
China
Chinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
since the communist revolution in 1949.
In July 1971, Henry Kissinger feigned illness while on a trip to Pakistan
Pakistan
Pakistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Pakistan is a sovereign state in South Asia. It has a coastline along the Arabian Sea and the Gulf of Oman in the south and is bordered by Afghanistan and Iran in the west, India in the east and China in the far northeast. In the north, Tajikistan...
and did not appear in public for a day. He was actually on a top-secret mission to Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
to open relations with the government of the PRC. On July 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
revealed the mission to the world and that he had accepted an invitation to visit the PRC.
This announcement caused immediate shock around the world. In the United States, some of the most hardline anti-communists
Anti-communism
Anti-communism is opposition to communism. Organized anti-communism developed in reaction to the rise of communism, especially after the 1917 October Revolution in Russia and the beginning of the Cold War in 1947.-Objections to communist theory:...
spoke against the decision, but public opinion supported the move and Nixon saw the jump in the polls he had been hoping for. Since Nixon had sterling anti-communist credentials he was all but immune to being called "soft on communism."
Within the PRC there was also opposition from left-wing elements. This effort was allegedly led by Lin Biao
Lin Biao
Lin Biao was a major Chinese Communist military leader who was pivotal in the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, especially in Northeastern China...
, head of the military, who died in a mysterious plane crash over Mongolia
Mongolia
Mongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
while trying to defect to the Soviet Union. His death silenced most internal dissent over the visit.
Internationally, reactions varied. The Soviets were very concerned that two major enemies seemed to have resolved their differences, and the new world alignment contributed significantly to the policy of détente
Détente
Détente is the easing of strained relations, especially in a political situation. The term is often used in reference to the general easing of relations between the Soviet Union and the United States in the 1970s, a thawing at a period roughly in the middle of the Cold War...
.
America's Europe
Europe
Europe is, by convention, one of the world's seven continents. Comprising the westernmost peninsula of Eurasia, Europe is generally 'divided' from Asia to its east by the watershed divides of the Ural and Caucasus Mountains, the Ural River, the Caspian and Black Seas, and the waterways connecting...
an allies and Canada
Canada
Canada is a North American country consisting of ten provinces and three territories. Located in the northern part of the continent, it extends from the Atlantic Ocean in the east to the Pacific Ocean in the west, and northward into the Arctic Ocean...
were pleased by the initiative, especially since many of them had already recognized the PRC. In Asia
Asia
Asia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
, the reaction was far more mixed. Japan
Japan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
was annoyed that it had not been told of the announcement until fifteen minutes before it had been made, and feared that the Americans were abandoning them in favor of the PRC. A short time later, Japan also recognized the PRC and committed to substantial trade with the continental power. South Korea
South Korea
The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...
and South Vietnam
South Vietnam
South Vietnam was a state which governed southern Vietnam until 1975. It received international recognition in 1950 as the "State of Vietnam" and later as the "Republic of Vietnam" . Its capital was Saigon...
were both concerned that peace between the United States and the PRC could mean an end to American support for them against their Communist enemies. Throughout the period of rapprochement, both countries had to be regularly assured that they would not be abandoned.
From February 21 to February 28, 1972, President Nixon traveled to Beijing
Beijing
Beijing , also known as Peking , is the capital of the People's Republic of China and one of the most populous cities in the world, with a population of 19,612,368 as of 2010. The city is the country's political, cultural, and educational center, and home to the headquarters for most of China's...
, Hangzhou
Hangzhou
Hangzhou , formerly transliterated as Hangchow, is the capital and largest city of Zhejiang Province in Eastern China. Governed as a sub-provincial city, and as of 2010, its entire administrative division or prefecture had a registered population of 8.7 million people...
, and Shanghai
Shanghai
Shanghai is the largest city by population in China and the largest city proper in the world. It is one of the four province-level municipalities in the People's Republic of China, with a total population of over 23 million as of 2010...
. At the conclusion of his trip, the US and the PRC issued the Shanghai Communiqué
Shanghai Communiqué
The Joint Communiqué of the United States of America and the People's Republic of China, also known as the Shanghai Communiqué , was an important diplomatic document issued by the United States of America and the People's Republic of China on February 27, 1972 during President Richard Nixon's visit...
, a statement of their respective foreign policy views. In the Communiqué, both nations pledged to work toward the full normalization of diplomatic relations. The US acknowledged the PRC position that all Chinese on both sides of the Taiwan Strait
Taiwan Strait
The Taiwan Strait or Formosa Strait, formerly known as the Black Ditch, is a 180-km-wide strait separating Mainland China and Taiwan. The strait is part of the South China Sea and connects to East China Sea to the northeast...
maintain that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of China. The statement enabled the US and PRC to temporarily set aside the issue of Taiwan and open trade and communication.
The rapprochement with the United States benefited the PRC immensely and greatly increased its security for the rest of the Cold War
Cold War
The Cold War was the continuing state from roughly 1946 to 1991 of political conflict, military tension, proxy wars, and economic competition between the Communist World—primarily the Soviet Union and its satellite states and allies—and the powers of the Western world, primarily the United States...
. It has been argued that the United States, on the other hand, saw fewer benefits than it had hoped for. The PRC continued to heavily support North Vietnam
North Vietnam
The Democratic Republic of Vietnam , was a communist state that ruled the northern half of Vietnam from 1954 until 1976 following the Geneva Conference and laid claim to all of Vietnam from 1945 to 1954 during the First Indochina War, during which they controlled pockets of territory throughout...
in the Vietnam War and also backed the Khmer Rouge
Khmer Rouge
The Khmer Rouge literally translated as Red Cambodians was the name given to the followers of the Communist Party of Kampuchea, who were the ruling party in Cambodia from 1975 to 1979, led by Pol Pot, Nuon Chea, Ieng Sary, Son Sen and Khieu Samphan...
in Cambodia
Cambodia
Cambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
. Eventually, however, the PRC's suspicion of Vietnam's motives led to a break in Sino-Vietnamese cooperation and, upon the Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia in 1979, the Sino-Vietnamese War
Sino-Vietnamese War
The Sino–Vietnamese War , also known as the Third Indochina War, known in the PRC as and in Vietnam as Chiến tranh chống bành trướng Trung Hoa , was a brief but bloody border war fought in 1979 between the People's Republic of China and the Socialist Republic of Vietnam...
. Both China and the United States backed combatants in Africa
Africa
Africa is the world's second largest and second most populous continent, after Asia. At about 30.2 million km² including adjacent islands, it covers 6% of the Earth's total surface area and 20.4% of the total land area...
against Soviet and Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
n-supported movements. The economic benefits of normalization were slow as it would take decades for American products to penetrate the vast Chinese market. While Nixon's China policy is regarded by many as the highlight of his presidency, others such as William Bundy
William Bundy
William Putnam "Bill" Bundy was a member of the CIA and foreign affairs advisor to Presidents John F. Kennedy and Lyndon B. Johnson. He had a key role in planning the Vietnam War. After leaving government service he became a historian.-Early years:Raised in Boston, Massachusetts he came from a...
have argued that it provided very little benefit to the United States.
Liaison Office, 1973–1978
In May 1973, in an effort to build toward formal diplomatic relations, the US and the PRC established the United States Liaison Office (USLO) in Beijing and a counterpart PRC office in Washington, DC. In the years between 1973 and 1978, such distinguished Americans as David K. E. BruceDavid K. E. Bruce
David Kirkpatrick Este Bruce was an American diplomat, and the only American to serve as Ambassador to France, the Republic of Germany and the United Kingdom.-Biography:...
, George H. W. Bush
George H. W. Bush
George Herbert Walker Bush is an American politician who served as the 41st President of the United States . He had previously served as the 43rd Vice President of the United States , a congressman, an ambassador, and Director of Central Intelligence.Bush was born in Milton, Massachusetts, to...
, Thomas S. Gates, and Leonard Woodcock
Leonard Woodcock
Leonard Freel Woodcock was an American labor union leader and diplomat.He was the president of the United Automobile Workers from 1970 to 1977 and the first US ambassador to the People's Republic of China....
served as chiefs of the USLO with the personal rank of Ambassador.
President Gerald Ford
Gerald Ford
Gerald Rudolph "Jerry" Ford, Jr. was the 38th President of the United States, serving from 1974 to 1977, and the 40th Vice President of the United States serving from 1973 to 1974...
visited the PRC in 1975 and reaffirmed American interest in normalizing relations with Beijing. Shortly after taking office in 1977, President Jimmy Carter
Jimmy Carter
James Earl "Jimmy" Carter, Jr. is an American politician who served as the 39th President of the United States and was the recipient of the 2002 Nobel Peace Prize, the only U.S. President to have received the Prize after leaving office...
again reaffirmed the goals of the Shanghai Communiqué. Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Brzezinski
Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski is a Polish American political scientist, geostrategist, and statesman who served as United States National Security Advisor to President Jimmy Carter from 1977 to 1981....
and senior staff member of the National Security Council Michel Oksenberg
Michel Oksenberg
Michel Charles Oksenberg was a leading American political scientist and China watcher who moved between academia and policy work. As a senior member of the National Security Council, he was closely involved in the normalization of U.S.-China relations undertaken during the administration of...
encouraged Carter to seek full diplomatic and trade relations with China. Brzezinkski and Oksenberg traveled to Beijing in early 1978 to work with Leonard Woodcock
Leonard Woodcock
Leonard Freel Woodcock was an American labor union leader and diplomat.He was the president of the United Automobile Workers from 1970 to 1977 and the first US ambassador to the People's Republic of China....
, then head of the liaison office, to lay the groundwork to do so. The United States and the People's Republic of China announced on December 15, 1978 that the two governments would establish diplomatic relations on January 1, 1979.
Normalization to Tian'anmen
In the Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic RelationsJoint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations
The Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations of January 1, 1979, established official relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China....
, dated January 1, 1979, the United States transferred diplomatic recognition from Taipei to Beijing. The US reiterated the Shanghai Communiqué's acknowledgment of the Chinese position that there is only one China and that Taiwan is a part of China; Beijing acknowledged that the American people would continue to carry on commercial, cultural, and other unofficial contacts with the people of Taiwan. The Taiwan Relations Act
Taiwan Relations Act
The Taiwan Relations Act is an act of the United States Congress passed in 1979 after the establishment of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and the breaking of relations between the United States and the Republic of China on the island of Taiwan by President Jimmy Carter...
(text) made the necessary changes in US domestic law to permit such unofficial relations with Taiwan to flourish.
Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping
Deng Xiaoping was a Chinese politician, statesman, and diplomat. As leader of the Communist Party of China, Deng was a reformer who led China towards a market economy...
's January 1979 visit to Washington, DC initiated a series of important, high-level exchanges which continued until the spring of 1989. This resulted in many bilateral agreements, especially in the fields of scientific, technological, and cultural interchange, as well as trade relations. Since early 1979, the United States and the PRC have initiated hundreds of joint research projects and cooperative programs under the Agreement on Cooperation in Science and Technology, the largest bilateral program.
On March 1, 1979, the United States and the People's Republic of China formally established embassies in Beijing and Washington, DC. In 1979, outstanding private claims were resolved and a bilateral trade agreement was completed. Vice President
Vice President of the United States
The Vice President of the United States is the holder of a public office created by the United States Constitution. The Vice President, together with the President of the United States, is indirectly elected by the people, through the Electoral College, to a four-year term...
Walter Mondale
Walter Mondale
Walter Frederick "Fritz" Mondale is an American Democratic Party politician, who served as the 42nd Vice President of the United States , under President Jimmy Carter, and as a United States Senator for Minnesota...
reciprocated Vice Premier Deng's visit with an August 1979 trip to China. This visit led to agreements in September 1980 on maritime affairs, civil aviation links, and textile matters, as well as a bilateral consular convention.
United Nations
The United Nations is an international organization whose stated aims are facilitating cooperation in international law, international security, economic development, social progress, human rights, and achievement of world peace...
, and other multilateral organization affairs, and international narcotic
Narcotic
The term narcotic originally referred medically to any psychoactive compound with any sleep-inducing properties. In the United States of America it has since become associated with opioids, commonly morphine and heroin and their derivatives, such as hydrocodone. The term is, today, imprecisely...
s matters.
The expanding relationship that followed normalization was threatened in 1981 by PRC objections to the level of US arms sales to the Republic of China on Taiwan. Secretary of State Alexander Haig
Alexander Haig
Alexander Meigs Haig, Jr. was a United States Army general who served as the United States Secretary of State under President Ronald Reagan and White House Chief of Staff under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford...
visited China in June 1981 in an effort to resolve Chinese concerns about America's unofficial relations with Taiwan. Vice President Bush visited the PRC in May 1982. Eight months of negotiations produced the US-PRC Joint Communiqué of August 17, 1982. In this third communiqué, the US stated its intention to gradually reduce the level of arms sales to the Republic of China, and the PRC described as a fundamental policy their effort to strive for a peaceful resolution to the Taiwan question
Political status of Taiwan
The controversy regarding the political status of Taiwan hinges on whether Taiwan, Penghu, Kinmen, and Matsu should remain effectively independent as territory of the Republic of China , become unified with the territories now governed by the People's Republic of China , or formally declare...
.
High-level exchanges continued to be a significant means for developing US-PRC relations in the 1980s. President Ronald Reagan
Ronald Reagan
Ronald Wilson Reagan was the 40th President of the United States , the 33rd Governor of California and, prior to that, a radio, film and television actor....
and Premier Zhao Ziyang
Zhao Ziyang
Zhao Ziyang was a high-ranking politician in the People's Republic of China . He was the third Premier of the People's Republic of China from 1980 to 1987, and General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1987 to 1989....
made reciprocal visits in 1984. In July 1985, President Li Xiannian
Li Xianniàn
Li Xiannian was President of the People's Republic of China between 1983 and 1988 and then chairman of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference until his death. He was an influential political figure throughout the PRC, having been a member of the Politburo of the Communist Party of...
traveled to the United States, the first such visit by a PRC head of state. Vice President Bush visited the PRC in October 1985 and opened the US Consulate General in Chengdu
Chengdu
Chengdu , formerly transliterated Chengtu, is the capital of Sichuan province in Southwest China. It holds sub-provincial administrative status...
, the US's fourth consular post in the PRC. Further exchanges of cabinet-level officials occurred between 1985 and 1989, capped by President Bush's visit to Beijing in February 1989.
In the period before the June 3–4, 1989 crackdown
Tiananmen Square protests of 1989
The Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, also known as the June Fourth Incident in Chinese , were a series of demonstrations in and near Tiananmen Square in Beijing in the People's Republic of China beginning on 15 April 1989...
, a growing number of cultural exchange activities gave the American and Chinese peoples broad exposure to each other's cultural, artistic, and educational achievements. Numerous mainland Chinese professional and official delegations visited the United States each month. Many of these exchanges continued after the suppression of the Tiananmen protests.
Tian'anmen to September 11th, 2001
Human rights in the People's Republic of China
Human rights in the People's Republic of China are a matter of dispute between the Chinese government, other countries, international NGOs, and dissidents inside the country. Organizations such as the U.S. State Department, Amnesty International, and Human Rights Watch have accused the Chinese...
. The US suspended high-level official exchanges with the PRC and weapons exports from the US to the PRC. The US also imposed a number of economic sanctions. In the summer of 1990, at the G7 Houston summit, Western nations called for renewed political and economic reforms in mainland China, particularly in the field of human rights.
Tian'anmen disrupted the US-PRC trade relationship, and US investors' interest in mainland China dropped dramatically. The US government responded to the political repression
Political repression
Political repression is the persecution of an individual or group for political reasons, particularly for the purpose of restricting or preventing their ability to take political life of society....
by suspending certain trade and investment programs on June 5 and 20, 1989. Some sanctions were legislated while others were executive actions. Examples include:
- The US Trade and Development Agency (TDA): new activities in mainland China were suspended from June 1989 until January 2001, when President Bill ClintonBill ClintonWilliam Jefferson "Bill" Clinton is an American politician who served as the 42nd President of the United States from 1993 to 2001. Inaugurated at age 46, he was the third-youngest president. He took office at the end of the Cold War, and was the first president of the baby boomer generation...
lifted this suspension. - Overseas Private Insurance Corporation (OPIC): new activities have been suspended since June 1989.
- Development Bank Lending/International Monetary FundInternational Monetary FundThe International Monetary Fund is an organization of 187 countries, working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty around the world...
(IMF) Credits: the United States does not support development bank lending and will not support IMF credits to the PRC except for projects that address basic human needs. - Munitions ListUnited States Munitions ListThe United States Munitions List is a list of articles, services, and related technology designated as defense-related by the United States federal government. This designation is pursuant to sections 38 and 47 of the Arms Export Control Act...
Exports: subject to certain exceptions, no licenses may be issued for the export of any defense article on the US Munitions List. This restriction may be waived upon a presidential national interest determination. - Arms Imports - import of defense articles from the PRC was banned after the imposition of the ban on arms exports to the PRC. The import ban was subsequently waived by the Administration and reimposed on May 26, 1994. It covers all items on the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms' Munitions Import List. During this critical period, J. Stapleton Roy, a career US Foreign Service Officer, served as ambassador to Beijing.
In 1996, the PRC conducted military exercises in the Taiwan Strait
Taiwan Strait
The Taiwan Strait or Formosa Strait, formerly known as the Black Ditch, is a 180-km-wide strait separating Mainland China and Taiwan. The strait is part of the South China Sea and connects to East China Sea to the northeast...
in an apparent effort to intimidate the Republic of China electorate before the pending presidential elections, triggering the Third Taiwan Straits Crisis. The United States dispatched two aircraft carrier battle groups to the region. Subsequently, tensions in the Taiwan Strait diminished and relations between the US and the PRC improved, with increased high-level exchanges and progress on numerous bilateral issues, including human rights, nonproliferation, and trade. President Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin
Jiang Zemin is a former Chinese politician, who served as General Secretary of the Communist Party of China from 1989 to 2002, as President of the People's Republic of China from 1993 to 2003, and as Chairman of the Central Military Commission from 1989 to 2005...
visited the United States in the fall of 1997, the first state visit to the US by a PRC president
President of the People's Republic of China
The President of the People's Republic of China is a ceremonial office and a part of State organs under the National People's Congress and it is the head of state of the People's Republic of China . The office was created by the 1982 Constitution...
since 1985. In connection with that visit, the two sides came to a consensus on implementation of their 1985 agreement on Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation, as well as a number of other issues. President Clinton visited the PRC in June 1998. He traveled extensively in mainland China, and had direct interaction with the Chinese people, including live speeches and a radio show which allowed the President to convey a sense of American ideals and values. President Clinton was criticized by some, however, for failing to pay adequate attention to human rights abuses in mainland China.
Relations between the US and the PRC were severely strained for a time by the NATO Bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade
NATO Bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade
On May 7, 1999, during the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia , five US JDAM bombs hit the People's Republic of China embassy in the Belgrade district of New Belgrade, killing three Chinese reporters and outraging the Chinese public. President Bill Clinton later apologized for the bombing, stating it was...
in May 1999, which was blamed on an intelligence error but which some Chinese believed to be deliberate. By the end of 1999, relations began to gradually improve. In October 1999, the two sides reached an agreement on humanitarian payments for families of those who were injured or killed, as well as payments for damages to respective diplomatic properties in Belgrade
Belgrade
Belgrade is the capital and largest city of Serbia. It is located at the confluence of the Sava and Danube rivers, where the Pannonian Plain meets the Balkans. According to official results of Census 2011, the city has a population of 1,639,121. It is one of the 15 largest cities in Europe...
and China.
In April 2001, a PRC J-8 fighter jet
Shenyang J-8
The Shenyang J-8 is a high-speed, high-altitude Chinese-built single-seat interceptor fighter aircraft.-J-8:...
collided with a US EP-3
EP-3E Aries II
|-See also:-References:* Winchester, Jim, ed. Military Aircraft of the Cold War . London: Grange Books plc, 2006. ISBN 1-84013-929-3.-External links:* and * *...
reconnaissance aircraft flying south of the PRC in what became known as the Hainan Island incident
Hainan Island incident
On April 1, 2001, a mid-air collision between a United States Navy EP-3E ARIES II signals intelligence aircraft and a People's Liberation Army Navy J-8II interceptor fighter jet resulted in an international dispute between the United States and the People's Republic of China called the Hainan...
. The EP-3 was able to make an emergency landing on PRC's Hainan Island
Hainan
Hainan is the smallest province of the People's Republic of China . Although the province comprises some two hundred islands scattered among three archipelagos off the southern coast, of its land mass is Hainan Island , from which the province takes its name...
despite extensive damage; the PRC aircraft crashed with the loss of its pilot, Wang Wei. It was widely believed that the EP-3 recon aircraft was conducting a spying mission on the Chinese Armed Forces before the collision. Following extensive negotiations resulting in the "letter of the two sorries," the crew of the EP-3 was released from imprisonment and allowed to leave the PRC 11 days later. The US aircraft was not permitted to depart Chinese soil for another three months, after which the relationship between the US and the PRC gradually improved once more.
Bush administration
September 11, 2001 attacks
The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks The September 11 attacks (also referred to as September 11, September 11th or 9/119/11 is pronounced "nine eleven". The slash is not part of the pronunciation...
. Many PRC citizens died in the September 11, 2001 attacks on the World Trade Center
World Trade Center
The original World Trade Center was a complex with seven buildings featuring landmark twin towers in Lower Manhattan, New York City, United States. The complex opened on April 4, 1973, and was destroyed in 2001 during the September 11 attacks. The site is currently being rebuilt with five new...
, and mainland Chinese companies and individuals sent expressions of condolences to their US counterparts. The PRC offered strong public support for the war on terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
ism. The PRC voted in favor of UNSCR 1373
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373
United Nations Security Council Resolution 1373, adopted unanimously on September 28, 2001, is a counter-terrorism measure passed following the September 11 terrorist attacks on the United States...
, publicly supported the coalition campaign in Afghanistan
Afghanistan
Afghanistan , officially the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan, is a landlocked country located in the centre of Asia, forming South Asia, Central Asia and the Middle East. With a population of about 29 million, it has an area of , making it the 42nd most populous and 41st largest nation in the world...
, and contributed $150 million of bilateral assistance to Afghan reconstruction following the defeat of the Taliban. Shortly after 9/11, the US and PRC also commenced a counterterrorism dialogue. The third round of that dialogue was held in Beijing in February 2003.
In the United States, the terrorist attacks greatly changed the nature of discourse. It was no longer plausible to argue, as the Blue Team had earlier asserted, that the PRC was the primary security threat to the United States, and the need to focus on the Middle East
Middle East
The Middle East is a region that encompasses Western Asia and Northern Africa. It is often used as a synonym for Near East, in opposition to Far East...
and the War on Terror
War on Terror
The War on Terror is a term commonly applied to an international military campaign led by the United States and the United Kingdom with the support of other North Atlantic Treaty Organisation as well as non-NATO countries...
made the avoidance of potential distractions in East Asia a priority for the United States.
There were initial fears among the PRC leadership that the war on terrorism would lead to an anti-PRC effort by the US, especially as the US began establishing bases in Central Asia
Central Asia
Central Asia is a core region of the Asian continent from the Caspian Sea in the west, China in the east, Afghanistan in the south, and Russia in the north...
n countries like Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan
Uzbekistan , officially the Republic of Uzbekistan is a doubly landlocked country in Central Asia and one of the six independent Turkic states. It shares borders with Kazakhstan to the west and to the north, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan to the east, and Afghanistan and Turkmenistan to the south....
and Tajikistan
Tajikistan
Tajikistan , officially the Republic of Tajikistan , is a mountainous landlocked country in Central Asia. Afghanistan borders it to the south, Uzbekistan to the west, Kyrgyzstan to the north, and China to the east....
and renewed efforts against Iraq
Iraq
Iraq ; officially the Republic of Iraq is a country in Western Asia spanning most of the northwestern end of the Zagros mountain range, the eastern part of the Syrian Desert and the northern part of the Arabian Desert....
. Because of setbacks in America's Iraq campaign, these fears have largely subsided. The application of American power in Iraq and continuing efforts by the United States to cooperate with the PRC has significantly reduced the popular anti-Americanism that had developed in the mid-1990s.
The PRC and the US have also worked closely on regional issues, including those pertaining to North Korea
North Korea
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea , , is a country in East Asia, occupying the northern half of the Korean Peninsula. Its capital and largest city is Pyongyang. The Korean Demilitarized Zone serves as the buffer zone between North Korea and South Korea...
and its nuclear weapons program
North Korea and weapons of mass destruction
North Korea has declared that it has nuclear weapons and is believed by many to have nuclear weapons. The CIA assesses that North Korea also has a substantial arsenal of chemical weapons...
. The People's Republic of China has stressed its opposition to North Korea's decision to withdraw from the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty
The Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, commonly known as the Non-Proliferation Treaty or NPT, is a landmark international treaty whose objective is to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and weapons technology, to promote cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy and to...
, its concerns over North Korea's nuclear capabilities, and its desire for a non-nuclear Korean peninsula
Korean Peninsula
The Korean Peninsula is a peninsula in East Asia. It extends southwards for about 684 miles from continental Asia into the Pacific Ocean and is surrounded by the Sea of Japan to the south, and the Yellow Sea to the west, the Korea Strait connecting the first two bodies of water.Until the end of...
. It also voted to refer North Korea's noncompliance with its International Atomic Energy Agency
International Atomic Energy Agency
The International Atomic Energy Agency is an international organization that seeks to promote the peaceful use of nuclear energy, and to inhibit its use for any military purpose, including nuclear weapons. The IAEA was established as an autonomous organization on 29 July 1957...
obligations to the UN Security Council.
Taiwan remains a volatile issue, but one that remains under control. The United States policy toward Taiwan has involved emphasizing the Four Noes and One Without
Four Noes and One Without
The Four Noes and One Without , also known as the Four Noes was a pledge by former President of the Republic of China Chen Shui-bian made in his inauguration speech on 20 May 2000 concerning the political status of Taiwan...
. On occasion the United States has rebuked Republic of China President Chen Shui-bian for provocative pro-independence rhetoric. However, in 2005, the PRC passed an anti-secession law
Anti-Secession Law of the People's Republic of China
The Anti-Secession Law is a law of the People's Republic of China. It was passed by the third conference of the 10th National People's Congress of the People's Republic of China . It was ratified on March 14, 2005, and went into effect immediately. Hu Jintao, President of the People's Republic of...
which stated that the PRC would be prepared to resort to "non-peaceful means" if Taiwan declared formal independence. Many critics of the PRC, such as the Blue Team, argue that the PRC was trying to take advantage of the US war in Iraq to assert its claims on Republic of China's territory. In 2008, Taiwan voters elected Ma Ying-jeou. Ma, representing the Kuomintang, campaigned on a platform that included rapprochement with mainland China. His election has significant implications for the future of cross-strait relations.
China's president Hu Jintao visited the United States in April 2006.
Clark Randt, U.S. Ambassador to China from 2001 to 2008 examined "The State of U.S.-China Relations in a 2008 lecture at the USC U.S.-China Institute.
Obama administration
The 2008 US presidential election centered on issues of war and economic decline, but candidates Barack ObamaBarack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
and John McCain
John McCain
John Sidney McCain III is the senior United States Senator from Arizona. He was the Republican nominee for president in the 2008 United States election....
also spoke extensively regarding US policy toward China. Both favored cooperation with China on major issues, but they differed with regard to trade policy. Obama expressed concern that the value of China's currency was being deliberately set low to benefit China's exporters. McCain argued that free trade was crucial and was having a transformative effect in China. Still, McCain noted that while China might have shared interests with the US, it did not share American values.
Barack Obama
Barack Obama
Barack Hussein Obama II is the 44th and current President of the United States. He is the first African American to hold the office. Obama previously served as a United States Senator from Illinois, from January 2005 until he resigned following his victory in the 2008 presidential election.Born in...
's presidency has fostered hopes for increased co-operation and heightened levels of friendship between the two nations. On November 8, 2008, Hu Jintao
Hu Jintao
Hu Jintao is the current Paramount Leader of the People's Republic of China. He has held the titles of General Secretary of the Communist Party of China since 2002, President of the People's Republic of China since 2003, and Chairman of the Central Military Commission since 2004, succeeding Jiang...
and Barack Obama shared a phone conversation in which the Chinese President congratulated Obama on his election victory. During the conversation both parties agreed that the development of US-China relations is not only in the interest of both nations, but also in the interests of the world.
Other organizations within China also held positive reactions to the election of Barack Obama, particularly with his commitment to revising American climate change
Climate change
Climate change is a significant and lasting change in the statistical distribution of weather patterns over periods ranging from decades to millions of years. It may be a change in average weather conditions or the distribution of events around that average...
policy. Greenpeace
Greenpeace
Greenpeace is a non-governmental environmental organization with offices in over forty countries and with an international coordinating body in Amsterdam, The Netherlands...
published an article detailing how Obama's victory would spell positive change for investment in the green jobs sector as part of a response to the financial crisis gripping the world at the time of Obama's inauguration. A number of organizations, including the US Departments of Energy and Commerce, NGOs such as the Council on Foreign Relations and the Brookings Institution, and universities, have been working with Chinese counterparts to discuss ways to address climate change. Both US and Chinese governments have addressed the economic downturn with massive stimulus initiatives. The Chinese have expressed concern that "Buy American" components of the US plan discriminate against foreign producers, including those in China.
As the two most influential and powerful countries in the world, there have been increasingly strong suggestions within American political circles of creating a G-2
Group of Two
The Group of Two is a proposed informal special relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Originally initiated by C...
(Chimerica) relationship for the United States and China to work out solutions to global problems together.
The Strategic Economic Dialogue initiated by then-US President Bush and Chinese President Hu and led by US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson
Henry Paulson
Henry Merritt "Hank" Paulson, Jr. is an American banker who served as the 74th United States Secretary of the Treasury. He previously served as the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Goldman Sachs.-Early life and family:...
and Chinese Vice Premier Wu Yi
Wu Yi
Wu Yi was one of four Vice Premiers of the State Council of the People's Republic of China, overseeing the country's economy until March 2008. Known as the "iron lady", Wu is one of the toughest negotiators in China's government.-Biography:...
in 2006 has been broadened by the Obama administration. Now called the US-China Strategic and Economic Dialogue it is led by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and US Secretary of the Treasury Timothy Geithner for the United States and Vice Premier Wang Qishan
Wang Qishan
Wang Qishan is a politician in the People's Republic of China who currently serves as the Vice-Premier in charge of economic, energy and financial affairs under premier Wen Jiabao. Previously Wang served in regional positions in Hainan and Beijing...
and Chinese State Councilor Dai Bingguo
Dai Bingguo
Dai Bingguo is a Chinese politician and professional diplomat. Since 2008, Dai has emerged as one of the foremost and highest-ranking figures of Chinese foreign policy in the Hu Jintao administration....
for China. The focus of the first set of meetings in July 2009 was in response to the economic crisis, finding ways to cooperate to stem global warming and addressing issues such as the proliferation of nuclear weapons and humanitarian crises.
US President Barack Obama visited China on November 15–18, 2009 to discuss economic worries, concerns over nuclear weapon proliferation, and the need for action against climate change. The USC US-China Institute produced a digest of press comments on this visit and on earlier presidential trips.
In January 2010, the US proposed a $6.4 billion arms sale to the Republic of China
Republic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
. In response, the PRC threatened to impose sanctions on US companies supplying arms to Taiwan and suspend cooperation on certain regional and international issues.
On February 19, 2010, President Obama met with the Dalai Lama, who China accuses of "fomenting unrest in Tibet." After the meeting, China summoned the US ambassador to China, Jon Huntsman
Jon Huntsman, Jr.
Jon Meade Huntsman, Jr. is an American politician and diplomat who served as the 16th Governor of Utah. He also served in the administrations of four United States presidents and is a candidate for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination.Huntsman worked as a White House staff assistant for...
, but Time
Time (magazine)
Time is an American news magazine. A European edition is published from London. Time Europe covers the Middle East, Africa and, since 2003, Latin America. An Asian edition is based in Hong Kong...
has described the Chinese reaction as "muted," speculating that it could be because "the meeting came during the Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year
Chinese New Year – often called Chinese Lunar New Year although it actually is lunisolar – is the most important of the traditional Chinese holidays. It is an all East and South-East-Asia celebration...
... when most officials are on leave." Some activists criticized Obama for the relatively low profile of the visit.
United States public debt and fiscal outlook
China is a major creditor nation and the largest foreign holder of U.S. public debt and has been a vocal critic of U.S. deficits and fiscal policy. China has repeatedly appealed for the safeguarding of Chinese investments in U.S. treasuries and called for policies that maintain the purchasing value of the Dollar. Responding to S&P's downgrade of U.S. credit rating, China was scathing in its criticism of U.S. fiscal policy. It advised that U.S. must stop its "addiction to debt", urged the U.S. to use "common sense" in pursuing fiscal balance and "learn to live within its means", and warned that "the US government has to come to terms with the painful fact that the good old days when it could just borrow its way out of messes of its own making are finally gone".Military spending
The PRC's military budgetMilitary budget
A military budget of an entity, most often a nation or a state, is the budget and financial resources dedicated to raising and maintaining armed forces for that entity. Military budgets reflect how much an entity perceives the likelihood of threats against it, or the amount of aggression it wishes...
is often mentioned as a threat by many, including the Blue Team in the United States
United States
The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...
. The PRC's investment in its military is growing rapidly. The United States, along with independent analysts, remains convinced that the PRC conceals the real extent of its military spending. According to the PRC government, China spent $45 billion on defense in 2007. In contrast, the United States had a $623-billion budget for the military in 2008, $123 billion more than the combined military budgets of all other countries in the world. Some very broad US estimates maintain that the PRC military spends between $85 billion and $125 billion. According to official figures, the PRC spent $123 million on defense per day in 2007. In comparison, the US spent $1.7 billion ($1,660 million) per day that year.
The concerns over the Chinese military budget may come from US worries that the PRC is attempting to threaten its neighbors or challenge the United States. Concerns have been raised that China is developing a large naval base near the South China Sea and has diverted resources from the People's Liberation Army Ground Force
People's Liberation Army Ground Force
The People's Liberation Army Ground Force is the land-based service branch of the People's Liberation Army. Its regular forces consist of 1.7 million personnel, with an additional 800,000 personnel in reserve, making it the largest active standing army in the world, and second largest in terms of...
to the Peoples Liberation Army Navy and to air force and missile development. Even still, China's military spending is only a fourth of US spending.
Andrew Scobell wrote that under President Hu, objective civilian control and oversight of the PLA appears to be weakly applied.
On October 27, 2009, American Defense Secretary Robert Gates praised the steps China has taken to increase transparency of defense spending. In June 2010, however, he said that the Chinese military was resisting efforts to improve military-to-military relations with the United States. Gates has also said that the United States will "assert freedom of navigation" in response to Chinese complaints about United States Navy deployments in international waters near China. Admiral Mike Mullen has said that the United States seeks closer military ties to China, but will continue to operate in the western Pacific.
A recent report stated that five of six US Air Force bases in the area are potentially vulnerable to Chinese missiles and called for increased defenses.
Meanwhile, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists
The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists is a nontechnical online magazine that covers global security and public policy issues, especially related to the dangers posed by nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction...
wrote in a 2010 report that the Chinese continue to invest in modernization of their nuclear forces because they perceive that their deterrent force is vulnerable to American capabilities and that further improvement in American missile defenses will drive further Chinese spending in this area.
Chinese defense minister Liang Guanglie has said that China is 20 years behind the United States in military technology.
Republic of China (Taiwan)
The Republic of ChinaRepublic of China
The Republic of China , commonly known as Taiwan , is a unitary sovereign state located in East Asia. Originally based in mainland China, the Republic of China currently governs the island of Taiwan , which forms over 99% of its current territory, as well as Penghu, Kinmen, Matsu and other minor...
remains a source of tension in relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China
People's Republic of China
China , officially the People's Republic of China , is the most populous country in the world, with over 1.3 billion citizens. Located in East Asia, the country covers approximately 9.6 million square kilometres...
. Although the PRC has never governed Taiwan, the PRC claims Taiwan as a 23rd province and has repeatedly threatened to take it by force. The United States exports large amounts of weaponry to the Republic of China and there is a great deal of sympathy for Taiwan partly because it, unlike the PRC, has transformed into a pluralistic, liberal democracy
Liberal democracy
Liberal democracy, also known as constitutional democracy, is a common form of representative democracy. According to the principles of liberal democracy, elections should be free and fair, and the political process should be competitive...
and because of residual sympathy over the Republic of China's anti-communism during the Cold War. Any accession to the PRC may also change the balance of power in that region in both political and military terms. This potentiality has been of increasing concern to Japan, a traditional ally of Taiwan and an ally of the Republic of China since its relocation to Taipei.
Officially, US policy is governed by the Taiwan Relations Act
Taiwan Relations Act
The Taiwan Relations Act is an act of the United States Congress passed in 1979 after the establishment of diplomatic relations with the People's Republic of China and the breaking of relations between the United States and the Republic of China on the island of Taiwan by President Jimmy Carter...
(text), the Six Assurances
Six Assurances
The Six Assurances are guidelines used in conducting relations between the United States of America and the Republic of China . They were proposed in 1982 by the Republic of China during negotiations between the United States and People's Republic of China over the Joint Communique on Arms Sales to...
, and the Three Communiques
Three Communiques
The Three Communiqué or The Three Joint Communiqués are a collection of three joint statements made by the governments of the United States and the People's Republic of China. The communiqué played a crucial role in the normalization of relations between the U.S. and the P.R.C...
. It has stated a commitment to a One China Policy in which it acknowledges the PRC's position that Taiwan is part of China, but does not indicate whether it agrees with that position. The strength of that commitment and the relationship between these policies, which may seem contradictory, changes from administration to administration.
In Taiwan, there is a general public consensus in favor of the status quo. However, some supporters of Taiwan independence
Taiwan independence
Taiwan independence is a political movement whose goals are primarily to formally establish the Republic of Taiwan by renaming or replacing the Republic of China , form a Taiwanese national identity, reject unification and One country, two systems with the People's Republic of China and a Chinese...
, such as Lee Teng-hui
Lee Teng-hui
Lee Teng-hui is a politician of the Republic of China . He was the 7th, 8th, and 9th-term President of the Republic of China and Chairman of the Kuomintang from 1988 to 2000. He presided over major advancements in democratic reforms including his own re-election which marked the first direct...
, have expressed the idea that Taiwan must act quickly to formally declare independence because the long-term trends favor increased Chinese economic and military power. Given the PRC's threats to invade if Taiwan formally declares independence, and the United States' commitments to Taiwan in the Taiwan Relations Act, such a declaration would put the US in a difficult position. In several cases in which the administration of Chen Shui-bian
Chen Shui-bian
Chen Shui-bian is a former Taiwanese politician who was the 10th and 11th-term President of the Republic of China from 2000 to 2008. Chen, whose Democratic Progressive Party has traditionally been supportive of Taiwan independence, ended more than fifty years of Kuomintang rule in Taiwan...
appeared to be moving away from the status-quo and toward de jure independence, the United States asked for and received assurances that the Republic of China remains committed to the "Four Noes and One Without
Four Noes and One Without
The Four Noes and One Without , also known as the Four Noes was a pledge by former President of the Republic of China Chen Shui-bian made in his inauguration speech on 20 May 2000 concerning the political status of Taiwan...
" policy.
In the last months of the Bush administration, Taipei reversed the secular trend of declining defense spending at a time when most Asian countries continued to reduce their military expenditures. It also decided to modernize both defensive and offensive capabilities. Taipei still keeps a large military apparatus relative to the island’s population: defense expenditures for 2008 were NTD 334 billion (approximately US $10.5 billion), which accounted for 2.94% of the GDP.
On January 30, 2010, the Obama administration announced it intended to sell $6.4 billion worth of antimissile systems, helicopters, and other military hardware to Taiwan. This move, expected under the American Taiwan Relations Act, drew a forceful reaction from Beijing. In retaliation, China warned the United States that their cooperation on international and regional issues could suffer over the administration's decision to sell arms to Taiwan. China further announced that it might penalize some of the companies involved in building the hardware for Taiwan, including Boeing
Boeing
The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...
, Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin
Lockheed Martin is an American global aerospace, defense, security, and advanced technology company with worldwide interests. It was formed by the merger of Lockheed Corporation with Martin Marietta in March 1995. It is headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, in the Washington Metropolitan Area....
, and Raytheon
Raytheon
Raytheon Company is a major American defense contractor and industrial corporation with core manufacturing concentrations in weapons and military and commercial electronics. It was previously involved in corporate and special-mission aircraft until early 2007...
.
Human rights
In 2003 the United States declared that despite some positive momentum that year and greater signs that the People's Republic of China was willing to engage with the US and others on human rightsHuman rights
Human rights are "commonly understood as inalienable fundamental rights to which a person is inherently entitled simply because she or he is a human being." Human rights are thus conceived as universal and egalitarian . These rights may exist as natural rights or as legal rights, in both national...
, there was still serious backsliding. The PRC government has acknowledged in principle the importance of protection of human rights in mainland China and has claimed to have taken steps to bring its human rights practices into conformity with international norms. Among these steps are the signing of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights in October 1997, ratified in March 2001, and signing of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights
The International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights is a multilateral treaty adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 16, 1966, and in force from March 23, 1976...
in October 1998, which has not yet been ratified. In 2002, the PRC released a significant number of political and religious prisoners and agreed to interact with United Nations experts on torture, arbitrary detention, and religion. However, international human rights groups assert that there has been virtually no movement on these promises, with more people being arrested for similar offences since. Such groups maintain that the PRC still has a long way to go in instituting the kind of fundamental systemic change that will protect the rights and liberties of all its citizens in mainland China. The US State Department publishes an annual report on human rights around the world, which includes an evaluation of China's human rights record. In 2008, the State Department still found much to criticize about the Chinese government's human rights record, but dropped China from its list of states with the greatest human rights violations.
To counter this, China has published a White Paper
Human Rights Record of the United States
.The Human Rights Record of the United States is a publication on the annual human rights record in the United States of America, published by the Information Office of the State Council of the People's Republic of China...
annually since 1998 detailing the human rights abuses by the United States, as well as its own progress in this area.
Since October 19, 2005 the PRC government has also published a White Paper on its own democratic progress. In November 2007, the Chinese government published a White Paper on the role of Communism and other parties in China.
US-China economic relations
The PRC and the US resumed trade relations in 1972 and 1973. Direct investment by the US in mainland China covers a wide range of manufacturing sectors, several large hotel projects, restaurant chains, and petrochemicalPetrochemical
Petrochemicals are chemical products derived from petroleum. Some chemical compounds made from petroleum are also obtained from other fossil fuels, such as coal or natural gas, or renewable sources such as corn or sugar cane....
s. US companies have entered agreements establishing more than 20,000 equity joint venture
Joint venture
A joint venture is a business agreement in which parties agree to develop, for a finite time, a new entity and new assets by contributing equity. They exercise control over the enterprise and consequently share revenues, expenses and assets...
s, contractual joint ventures, and wholly foreign-owned enterprises in mainland China. More than 100 US-based multinationals have projects in mainland China, some with multiple investments. Cumulative US investment in mainland China is valued at $48 billion. The US trade deficit with mainland China exceeded $350 billion in 2006 and was the United States' largest bilateral trade deficit. Some of the factors that influence the U.S. trade deficit with mainland China include:
- The strength of the US economy: there has been a shift of low-end assembly industries to mainland China from newly industrialized countriesNewly industrialized countriesThe category of newly industrialized country is a socioeconomic classification applied to several countries around the world by political scientists and economists....
in AsiaAsiaAsia is the world's largest and most populous continent, located primarily in the eastern and northern hemispheres. It covers 8.7% of the Earth's total surface area and with approximately 3.879 billion people, it hosts 60% of the world's current human population...
. Mainland China has increasingly become the last link in a long chain of value-added production. Because US trade data attributes the full value of a product to the final assembler, mainland Chinese value added is overcounted. - US demand for labor-intensive goos exceeds domestic output: the PRC has restrictive trade practices in mainland China, which include a wide array of barriers to foreign goods and services, often aimed at protecting state-owned enterprises. These practices include high tariffTariffA tariff may be either tax on imports or exports , or a list or schedule of prices for such things as rail service, bus routes, and electrical usage ....
s, lack of transparency, requiring firms to obtain special permission to import goods, inconsistent application of laws and regulations, and leveraging technology from foreign firms in return for market access. Mainland China's accession to the World Trade OrganizationWorld Trade OrganizationThe World Trade Organization is an organization that intends to supervise and liberalize international trade. The organization officially commenced on January 1, 1995 under the Marrakech Agreement, replacing the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade , which commenced in 1948...
is meant to help address these barriers. - The undervaluation of the RenminbiRenminbiThe Renminbi is the official currency of the People's Republic of China . Renminbi is legal tender in mainland China, but not in Hong Kong or Macau. It is issued by the People's Bank of China, the monetary authority of the PRC...
relative to the US dollar.
Beginning in 2009, the US and China agreed to hold regular high-level talks about economic issues and other mutual concerns by establishing the China-US strategic economic dialogue
China-U.S. strategic economic dialogue
The China-U.S. Strategic Economic Dialogue was a framework for the United States and the People's Republic of China to mutually discuss topics related to economic relations between both countries. The SED was initiated in 2006 by President George W. Bush and President Hu Jintao...
, which meets biannually. Five meetings have been held, the most recent in December 2008. Economic nationalism seems to be rising in both countries, a point the leaders of the two delegations noted in their opening presentations. The United States and China have also established the high-level US-China Senior Dialogue
Senior Dialogue
The U.S.-China Senior Dialogue was a regular, high-level strategic dialogue between the United States and the People's Republic of China...
to discuss international political issues and work out resolutions.
In September 2009 a trade dispute emerged between China and the United States, which came after the US imposed tariffs of 35 percent on Chinese tire imports. The Chinese commerce minister accused the United States of a "grave act of trade protectionism
Protectionism
Protectionism is the economic policy of restraining trade between states through methods such as tariffs on imported goods, restrictive quotas, and a variety of other government regulations designed to allow "fair competition" between imports and goods and services produced domestically.This...
," while a USTR
Office of the United States Trade Representative
The Office of the United States Trade Representative is the United States government agency responsible for developing and recommending United States trade policy to the president of the United States, conducting trade negotiations at bilateral and multilateral levels, and coordinating trade...
spokesperson said the tariff "was taken precisely in accordance with the law and our international trade agreements." Additional issues were raised by both sides in subsequent months.
Currency dispute
Monetary policy has been one of the biggest issues surrounding relations between the United States and China within the past decade. At the heart of the issue is the question of whether or not each country’s currency is at the proper value. Each country has placed the blame with the other. Most monetary and trade experts agree that China’s currency has been and is still undervalued, but an article by Business InsiderBusiness Insider
Business Insider is a U.S. business/entertainment news website launched in February 2009. Founded by DoubleClick Founder and former C.E.O. Kevin P. Ryan it is the overarching brand beneath which fall the Silicon Alley Insider and Clusterstock verticals...
argues that China raising the value of their currency would have a large effect on the trade balance between the two countries.
Domestic leaders within the United States have pressured the Obama Administration to take a hard line against China and compel them to raise the value of their currency. The United States Congress currently has before it a bill which would call on the President to impose tariffs on Chinese imports until China properly values its currency. Many Congressional members from states with large manufacturing sectors are leading the push to retaliate against China. The Chinese state newspaper has criticized the United States for unfair monetary policies as well. Both countries have sought out other international partners to side with them.
Influence in Asia
China's economic rise has led to some geo-political friction between the US and China in the East Asian region. For example, in response China's response to the Bombardment of YeonpyeongBombardment of Yeonpyeong
The bombardment of Yeonpyeong was an artillery engagement between the North Korean military and South Korean forces stationed on Yeonpyeong Island on November 23, 2010. Following a South Korean regular artillery exercise at waters in the south, North Korean forces fired around 170 artillery shells...
by North Korea, "Washington is moving to redefine its relationship with South Korea and Japan, potentially creating an anti-China bloc in Northeast Asia that officials say they don't want but may need." For its part, the Chinese government fears a US Encirclement Conspiracy.
In response to the increased American attacks on Pakistan during the Obama administration, the PRC has offered additional fighter jets to Pakistan.
South East Asian nations have responded to Chinese claims for sea areas by seeking closer relations with the United States. American Defense Secretary Leon Panetta has said that in spite of budget pressures, the United States will expand its influence in the region, in order to counter China's military buildup.
Espionage conspiracies
Since 2008 the United States has charged at least 57 defendants for attempting to spy for China.Controversies
In 2005, the partly state-owned Chinese National Offshore Oil Corporation attempted an $18.5 billion takeover of UNOCAL. The deal was rejected by the American government on the grounds that it threatened national security.China also rejected a $2.4 billion bid from the The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company
The Coca-Cola Company is an American multinational beverage corporation and manufacturer, retailer and marketer of non-alcoholic beverage concentrates and syrups. The company is best known for its flagship product Coca-Cola, invented in 1886 by pharmacist John Stith Pemberton in Columbus, Georgia...
for the Huiyuan Juice Group on the grounds that it would be a virtual monopoly, though nationalism
Nationalism
Nationalism is a political ideology that involves a strong identification of a group of individuals with a political entity defined in national terms, i.e. a nation. In the 'modernist' image of the nation, it is nationalism that creates national identity. There are various definitions for what...
was also thought to be a reason for aborting the deal.
See also
General- Air route authority between the United States and the People's Republic of ChinaAir route authority between the United States and the People's Republic of ChinaThere are currently bilateral treaties which govern aviation rights between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Agreements cover both passenger services and cargo services. There is not an "open skies" agreement, which generally refers to an agreement that allows unrestricted...
- ChimericaChimericaChimerica is a neologism coined by Niall Ferguson and Moritz Schularick describing the symbiotic relationship between China and the United States, with incidental reference to the legendary chimera....
- China as an emerging superpower
- China containment policyChina Containment PolicyThe China Containment Policy is a current political belief that U.S. foreign policy strives to diminish the economic and political growth of the People’s Republic of China. The term, which primarily originates from political analysts in China, harks of the U.S...
- China LobbyChina LobbyIn United States politics, the China lobby refers to any special interest group acting on behalf of the governments of either the People's Republic of China or the Republic of China to influence Sino-American relations. During most of the twentieth century, the term "China lobby" was usually used...
- Group of TwoGroup of TwoThe Group of Two is a proposed informal special relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China. Originally initiated by C...
- Strategic Economic Dialogue
- U.S.–China Strategic and Economic DialogueU.S.–China Strategic and Economic DialogueThe U.S.–China Strategic and Economic Dialogue is a high-level dialogue for the United States and China to discuss a wide range of bilateral, regional and global political, strategic, security, and economic issues between both countries. The establishment of the S&ED was announced on April 1,...
- Chinese Intelligence Operations in the United StatesChinese intelligence operations in the United StatesThe People's Republic of China has and is currently using a widespread effort to acquire U.S. military technology and classified information. To fulfill its long-term military development goals, the PRC uses a variety of methods to obtain U.S. technology; including espionage, the exploitation of...
History
- 1996 United States campaign finance controversy1996 United States campaign finance controversyThe 1996 United States campaign finance controversy, also known as Chinagate, was an alleged effort by the People's Republic of China to influence domestic American politics during the 1996 federal elections....
- Cox ReportCox ReportThe Report of the Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People's Republic of China, commonly known as the Cox Report after Representative Christopher Cox, is a classified U.S...
- Hainan Island incidentHainan Island incidentOn April 1, 2001, a mid-air collision between a United States Navy EP-3E ARIES II signals intelligence aircraft and a People's Liberation Army Navy J-8II interceptor fighter jet resulted in an international dispute between the United States and the People's Republic of China called the Hainan...
- Hu Na IncidentHu Na IncidentHu Na is a former professional tennis player best known for defecting from the People's Republic of China to the United States in 1982, thereby sparking a Cold War-era diplomatic incident...
- Nixon in ChinaNixon in China (opera)Nixon in China is an opera in three acts by John Adams, with a libretto by Alice Goodman. Adams' first opera, it was inspired by the 1972 visit to China by US President Richard Nixon. The work premiered at the Houston Grand Opera on October 22, 1987, in a production by Peter Sellars with...
- Permanent normal trade relations
- Ping Pong DiplomacyPing Pong DiplomacyPing pong diplomacy refers to the exchange of ping pong players between the United States and People's Republic of China in the 1970s. The event marked a thaw in U.S.–China relations that paved the way to a visit to Beijing by President Richard Nixon....
- U.S. immigration policy toward the People's Republic of China
- United States-China Economic and Security Review CommissionUnited States-China Economic and Security Review CommissionThe United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission is a congressional commission of the United States government. Created through a congressional mandate in October 2000, it is responsible for monitoring and investigating national security and trade issues between the United States and...
Further reading
- Sino-U.S. Competition and U.S. Security: How Do We Assess the Military Balance? by Daniel Blumenthal (NBR Analysis, 2010)
- Power Constrained: Sources of Mutual Strategic Suspicion in U.S.-China Relations by David M. LamptonDavid M. LamptonDavid M. Lampton is George and Sadie Hyman Professor of China Studies at Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies . He is Director of China Studies at SAIS. He is Former President of the National Committee on United States-China Relations in New York City...
(NBR Analysis, 2010) - "Letters From the Middle Kingdom: The Origins of America's China Policy," by David Gedalecia, in Prologue, 34.4 (Winter, 2002), pp. 260-273.
- Encyclopedia of Chinese-American Relations (2006), McFarland. Yuwu Song (Editor).
- Federation of American Scientists et al. (2006). Chinese Nuclear Forces and U.S. Nuclear War Planning
- China and Ballistic Missile Defense: 1955 to 2002 and beyond - analysis by Brad Roberts, IFRI Proliferation Papers n°10, 2004
External links
- History of China - U.S. relations
- PRC embassy in the U.S.
- U.S. embassy in the PRC.
- U.S. Dept. of State: THE UNITED STATES AND CHINA.
- American Institute in Taiwan.
- USC U.S.-China Institute– see Resources section for extensive documents collection and book reviews
- Documentary history of the background to the 1971 Kissinger trip to China
- Remembering ping pong diplomacy, 40th anniversary rematch
- "Election '08 and the Challege of China" - web documentary
- "Nixon's Fully Declassified Trip to China in 1972" - Provided by the National Security ArchiveNational Security ArchiveThe National Security Archive is a 501 non-governmental, non-profit research and archival institution located in the George Washington University in Washington, D.C.. Founded in 1985 by Scott Armstrong, it archives and publishes declassified U.S. government files concerning selected topics of US...
. - "Ping Pong Diplomacy".
- America and Taiwan, 1943–2004.
- "China-U.S. Joint Statement October 29, 1997." University of Hawaii. 10 Apr. 2006.
- Eckholm, Erik. "Clinton Urged to Meet Top China Dissident." New York Times 20 June 1998: A3. Historical New York Times. Proquest. DuBois Library, UMASS Amherst. 10 Apr. 2006.
- Bunton, T. S., and Kathleen J. Michels. "2005 REPORT TO CONGRESS OF THE U.S.-CHINA ECONOMIC AND SECURITY REVIEW COMMISSION." USCC 2005 Annual Report Page. U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission.
- Five Years of China’s WTO Membership. EU and US Perspectives on China’s Compliance with Transparency Commitments and the Transitional Review Mechanism, Legal Issues of Economic Integration, Kluwer Law International, Volume 33, Number 3, pp. 263–304, 2006, by Farah Paolo
- "Country Reports on Human Rights Practices - 2005." 8 Mar. 2006. U.S. Department of State. 11 Apr. 2006.
- Original text based from the State Department Background Note: China.
- Rumsfeld questions China spending; October 18, 2005 - BBCBBCThe British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
News article about China's military spending. - Rand Cooperation - China - RAND CooperationRANDRAND Corporation is a nonprofit global policy think tank first formed to offer research and analysis to the United States armed forces by Douglas Aircraft Company. It is currently financed by the U.S. government and private endowment, corporations including the healthcare industry, universities...
study concerning China's military spending, which argues that China's spending is higher than official figures. - Video and text of presentations and agreements signed at the 27-28 July 2009 Strategic and Economic Dialogue meetings in Washington, DC
- Word Spy - Chimerica