US-China Relations (3rd Ed)

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US-China Relations (3rd Ed) Page 21

by Robert G Sutter


  est in turn of many visitors from Congress and the administration concerned

  with the growth of the US economy and economic opportunity abroad. By

  early 1994, Chinese officials were well aware that proponents for continuing

  the human rights conditions on MFN treatment for China had become isolat-

  ed in the administration and centered in the State Department. The private

  reservations held among senior officials in US departments concerned with

  business, notably the Treasury Department and the Commerce Department,

  about these conditions on China’s MFN status had become clear through

  their earlier visits to China and through other interactions. Moreover, US

  business groups had moved into high gear in warning that conditions on

  MFN treatment could jeopardize US access to the burgeoning Chinese mar-

  ket. 61

  Sino-American disagreements over human rights conditions in China and

  MFN status rose sharply during Secretary of State Warren Christopher’s

  March 11–14, 1994, visit to Beijing. 62 Before and during Secretary Christopher’s visit, Chinese leaders appeared defiant in the face of US human rights

  requirements. Most notably, Chinese security forces detained prominent dis-

  sidents immediately prior to the secretary’s visit and also detained some

  Western journalists covering interaction between Chinese dissidents and Chi-

  nese security forces. In public interchange during the secretary’s visit, Chi-

  nese leaders strongly warned against US use of trade or other pressure to

  prompt changes in China’s human rights policy.

  This tough approach reflected a determination to rebuff overt US pressure

  seen as targeted against the priority Chinese leadership concern of sustaining

  CCP rule. It also reflected the fact that the secretary’s trip coincided with the annual convening of the National People’s Congress. That meeting was the

  focal point of dissident activism in Beijing, and Chinese leaders were deter-

  mined to take a hard line toward those both at home and abroad who pressed

  for political change.

  Tiananmen, Taiwan, and Post–Cold War Realities, 1989–2000

  115

  Perhaps of most importance, Chinese leaders calculated that the time was

  right to press the United States to alter its human rights policy, especially the linkage with MFN renewal. They saw the Clinton administration leaders

  divided on the issue. They saw members of the US Congress as much more

  supportive than in the recent past of maintaining MFN treatment for China.

  Congress was perhaps influenced, too, by the fact that while the United

  States had been debating the issue, countries that were political allies to the United States but economic competitors, like Japan, Germany, and France,

  had been sending high-level officials to China—underlining their willingness

  to help fill the vacuum should US-China economic relations falter with the

  withdrawal of MFN tariff treatment. 63

  Reflecting a calculus of costs and benefits along the lines of realism in IR

  theory, Chinese leaders adopted a tough stance during the Christopher visit.

  Those in the US government favoring linkage of MFN treatment and human

  rights conditions were further isolated, and US leaders were forced to change

  their policy or lose the considerable economic opportunities in the Chinese

  market. In the end, Chinese leaders were generally pleased with President

  Clinton’s May 26, 1994, decision to “delink” MFN treatment to China from

  US consideration of Chinese human rights practices.

  Subsequently, Chinese officials and commentators in official Chinese

  media were anxious for the United States and China to take advantage of the

  improved atmosphere in bilateral relations to push for more far-reaching and

  comprehensive progress in the US-China relationship. 64 Whatever hopes Chinese leaders held about advancing relations with the United States were

  dashed by President Clinton’s reversal of past policy, permitting Taiwan’s

  president, Lee Teng-hui, to make an ostensibly private visit to Cornell Uni-

  versity in June 1995.

  Beijing’s tough military and polemical responses and the Clinton admin-

  istration’s eventual dispatch of carrier battle groups to Taiwan highlighted

  mixed lessons for China. 65

  On the positive side, Chinese officials claimed several achievements re-

  sulting from the PRC’s forceful reaction to Lee Teng-hui’s visit to the United

  States:

  • It intimidated Taiwan, at least temporarily, preventing it from taking fur-

  ther assertive actions to lobby in the US Congress or elsewhere for greater

  international recognition. Pro-independence advocates in Taiwan also had

  to reassess previous claims that the PRC was bluffing in its warnings

  against Taiwan independence.

  • It prompted second thoughts by some pro-Taiwan advocates in the Con-

  gress and elsewhere in the United States as to the wisdom of pursuing

  their agenda at that time. International officials seeking to follow the US

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  Chapter 5

  lead in granting greater recognition to Taiwan had to reevaluate their

  positions as well.

  • It resulted in heightened sensitivity by the Clinton administration regard-

  ing China. This led to official reassurances to the PRC that US policy

  toward Taiwan would not deviate from past practice; it also led to an

  invitation for the Chinese president to visit the United States, a summit

  meeting long sought by Chinese leaders; and it led to tightly controlled

  management of significant developments in US policy toward China by

  the president and his senior advisers, who now sought to pursue an active

  engagement policy with China and to avoid significant deterioration of

  relations.

  At the same time, Beijing appeared to have overplayed its hand in press-

  ing the United States for pledges against Taiwan official visits to the United

  States and in pressing Taiwan’s people to abandon Lee Teng-hui in favor of a

  leader more committed to reunification with the mainland. Beijing also ap-

  peared to recognize that it was not productive to continue strident accusa-

  tions in official Chinese media during 1995–96 that the United States was

  attempting to contain China, or to shun dialogue with the United States.

  Given China’s perceived need to sustain a working relationship with the

  United States for the foreseeable future, Beijing officials tried, for example

  through President Jiang Zemin’s meeting with President Clinton in 1995, to

  find and develop common ground while playing down differences. Whereas

  Beijing had appeared prepared in mid-1995 to freeze contacts with the Clin-

  ton administration, awaiting the results of the 1996 US elections, Beijing

  now appeared to have judged that endeavoring to work constructively with

  the current US government was in China’s best interests. Also, Jiang Zemin

  told US reporters in October 1995 that lobbying Congress would be an im-

  portant priority in the year ahead, and Chinese specialists also said that the

  PRC would put more effort into winning greater understanding and support

  from other US sectors, notably the media and business. 66 For its part, the Clinton administration continued strong efforts to avoid serious difficultie
s

  with China; to emphasize a policy of engagement with the PRC; and to seek

  high-level contacts, summit meetings, and tangible agreement with China on

  sensitive issues.

  The events of the next two years in US-China relations were highlighted

  by the summit meetings of Presidents Jiang and Clinton in Washington in

  1997 and Beijing in 1998. Despite the continued debate in the United States

  over the Clinton administration’s new commitment to a policy of engage-

  ment with China, Chinese officials and specialists claimed to be confident

  that China’s rising power and influence in world affairs, and its willingness

  to cooperate with the United States on issues of importance to both countries,

  Tiananmen, Taiwan, and Post–Cold War Realities, 1989–2000

  117

  made it unlikely that the US opponents of the engagement policy would have

  a serious, lasting impact on US-China relations. 67

  The events of 1997 and 1998 seemed to bear out the Chinese view. The

  US-China summit meetings capped the Beijing leaders’ decade-long effort to

  restore their international legitimacy after the Tiananmen incident. The re-

  sults redounded to the benefit of the presiding Chinese leaders, especially

  President Jiang Zemin. Jiang was anxious to carve out a role as a responsible

  and respected international leader as part of his broader effort to solidify his political base of support at home. Basically satisfied with the results of the

  smooth summit meetings with the US president, Beijing saw little need to

  take the initiative in dealing with continuing US-China differences like hu-

  man rights, trade, and weapons proliferation. It was the US side that felt

  political pressure to achieve results in these areas.

  Responding to repeated US initiatives to reach agreements at the summit

  meetings and elsewhere on these kinds of questions, Chinese officials took

  the opportunity to make demands of their own, especially regarding US

  policy toward Taiwan. At the same time, Beijing was willing marginally to

  improve human rights practices, and it curbed nuclear and cruise missile

  exchanges with Iran, for the sake of achieving a smoother and more coopera-

  tive US-China relationship.

  In sum, despite strong and often partisan debate in the United States over

  policy toward China, Chinese officials were well pleased with the progress

  they had made in normalizing relations with the United States from the low

  points after the Tiananmen crackdown of 1989 and the confrontation over

  Taiwan in 1995–96. The progress had been made largely by changes in US

  policy toward China, and with few concessions by Beijing in key areas of

  importance to China. The summits of 1997 and 1998 represented the cap-

  stone of the normalization effort, in effect strongly legitimating the PRC

  leaders at home and abroad—a key Chinese goal after the Tiananmen inci-

  dent. Once this was accomplished, Chinese leaders could turn to their daunt-

  ing domestic agenda with more assurance that the key element of US-China

  relations was now on more stable ground.

  At the same time, Chinese leaders had few illusions about US policy.

  They saw plenty of opportunities for continued difficulties. American behav-

  ior continued to be seen as fitting into the pattern of engagement and contain-

  ment—the “two hands” of US policy seen by Chinese officials and special-

  ists. The main trend in 1997 and 1998 was toward greater engagement, and

  China endeavored to encourage that. But there remained many forces in

  Congress, in the media, and among US interest groups that were prepared to

  challenge any forward movement in US-China relations. And the fact re-

  mained that although it was clearly in China’s interest to cooperate with the

  United States under existing circumstances, the two countries continued to

  have fundamentally contradictory interests over the international balance of

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  Chapter 5

  influence, the American strategic role in East Asia, US support for Taiwan,

  and American support for political change in China. 68

  Events in 1999, highlighted by the US bombing of the Chinese embassy

  in Belgrade, posed new challenges for Chinese leadership efforts to sustain

  workable economic and other ties with the United States while defending key

  Chinese interests of sovereignty, security, and nationalism. Chinese mob

  violence against US diplomatic properties was accompanied by a virulent

  leadership debate over how to deal with the United States that was not

  resolved for months. In the end, Chinese leaders decided their interests were

  best served by working with the US administration to restore calm and to

  continue US-China engagement that was beneficial to China.

  Amid the contentious US presidential campaign of 2000, where policy

  toward China figured as an issue of some importance, senior Chinese offi-

  cials told senior Clinton administration officials that China was intent on

  approaching the United States constructively, regardless of which candidate

  won the election. Such comment was seen by these US officials as support-

  ing a coherent and consistent Chinese strategy toward the United States. This

  strategy appeared similar to that seen in 1997 and 1998 in that it accepted US

  leadership in world affairs and in Asian affairs and sought Chinese develop-

  ment in a peaceful international environment where the United States main-

  tained primacy. 69

  However, the limitations, fragility, and apparent contradictions of this

  Chinese moderate approach toward the United States also were starkly evi-

  dent. Whatever this strategy entailed, it did not show Chinese willingness to

  curb harsh commentary and the use of military force in challenging US

  power and influence in Asian and world affairs. Thus, Chinese officials and

  commentary in 2000 and until mid-2001 continued to be full of invective

  against the United States, opposing alleged US power politics, hegemonism,

  and Cold War thinking. China repeatedly criticized the United States over a

  variety of key foreign policy issues, such as US plans for national missile

  defense in the United States and theater missile defense abroad, NATO ex-

  pansion, enhanced US alliance relations with Japan, and US policy and prac-

  tices in dealing with Iraq, Iran, Cuba, and other countries. 70 Chinese aircraft and ships monitoring US surveillance aircraft and ships in international waters near China carried out dangerous maneuvers in apparent efforts to harass

  and deter the Americans from carrying out their objectives.

  Chapter Six

  Pragmatism amid Differences during

  the George W. Bush Administration

  George W. Bush became president in 2001 with a reputation of toughness

  toward the People’s Republic of China (PRC) but no clearly articulated poli-

  cy. The new US administration’s approach to the Chinese government was

  based in large measure on a fundamental uncertainty: China was rising and

  becoming more prominent in Asia and world affairs, but US leaders were

  unsure if this process would see China emerge as a friend or foe of the United

  States. 1 The administration dealt with this ambiguous China situation within a broader US international strategy th
at endeavored to maximize US national

  power and influence in key situations, including relations with China. This

  involved strengthening

  • US military and economic power.

  • US relations with key allies; those in Asia, Japan, South Korea, and Aus-

  tralia—received high priority.

  • US relations with other power centers; the Bush administration was suc-

  cessful in moving quickly, before September 11, 2001, to build closer

  relations with the two major flanking powers in East Asia: Russia and

  India. 2

  In 2001 the new US president and his leadership team displayed a notably

  less solicitous approach to China than the one displayed by the outgoing Bill

  Clinton administration. As seen in chapter 5, the Clinton administration dur-

  ing its second term adopted an engagement policy toward China that re-

  ceived the top priority among US relations with Asia. The administration was

  anxious to avoid serious downturns in US-China relations over Taiwan and

  other issues; it also repeatedly sought negotiations with Beijing to develop

  119

  120

  Chapter 6

  “deliverables”—agreements and other tangible signs of forward movement

  in US-China relations. President Clinton, senior US officials, and US special-

  ists repeatedly made clear that key objectives of growing US engagement

  with China were to enmesh China in webs of interdependent relationships

  with the United States, international organizations, world business, and oth-

  ers that would constrain and ultimately change Chinese policies and practices

  at home and abroad that were seen as offensive to or opposed to US inter-

  ests. 3

  PRC bargainers used a prevailing atmosphere of strong, public Chinese

  criticism of US policies and warnings of Chinese actions against Taiwan in

  order to press for US concessions in areas of importance to them, notably

  regarding US relations with Taiwan. Chinese criticism of US policy had a

  broad scope involving Taiwan and a wide range of issues in US foreign and

  security policy including missile defense; NATO expansion; US-Japan se-

  curity cooperation; US human rights policy; US efforts in the United Nations

 

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