US-China Relations (3rd Ed)
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more concern to American political values in the conduct of US foreign
policy. He pledged to put aside the realpolitik calculations seen as prevalent
in the policies of the Nixon and Gerald Ford administrations. This shift in
policy resulted in divergence and confrontation between the United States
and some authoritarian governments, but it had little effect on US relations
with China. In the case of China, President Carter and his key aides pursued
the pragmatic search for strategic leverage begun by Nixon; they did not
allow differences over human rights and values to impede advances in rela-
tions, leading to the normalization of diplomatic relations in 1979. 7
During the 1970s, there were signs of domestic debate and disagreement
in both the United States and China over issues involving how the two
countries differed with regard to values and human rights and the tendencies
of the respective governments to give little overt attention to these differ-
ences in the pursuit of other interests. Leadership debate in China at the end
of the Maoist period included disagreements over the alleged corrupting
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effect American and broader Western values would have on the prevailing
authoritarian political order and social and economic structure of China.
Removal of the radical Chinese leadership faction known as the Gang of
Four following Mao’s death in 1976 reduced the debate. Deng Xiaoping’s
return to power in 1978 coincided with a remarkable demonstration of freer
speech in the posting of various proposals for reform, individual freedom,
and democracy in Beijing’s so-called Democracy Wall. After one year of
publicizing proposals for sometimes radical reform, including some calling
for the end of Communist rule in China, the Chinese leadership closed off
this channel of free speech and arrested and imprisoned some prominent
reform advocates. 8
American public and elite opinion supported Nixon’s opening to China
and gave comparatively little attention to human rights issues in relations
with China. A minority of media commentators, specialists, members of
Congress, and other influential Americans called attention to President Car-
ter’s apparent double standard in pushing human rights issues in relations
with various authoritarian governments, but not doing so in his administra-
tion’s approach to China. The Democracy Wall caught the attention of the
American and other foreign media and their audiences. As China opened to
greater foreign contact and Chinese intellectuals were able to write about
some of the searing experiences of Maoist rule, reporters, academic special-
ists, and other American and foreign commentators showed greater aware-
ness of the enormous abuses of human rights in China and the wide gap
between the United States and China over political and other values. 9
The disclosures of human rights abuses in Maoist China and the closing
of the Democracy Wall and arrests and imprisonment of prominent dissidents
had little effect on the forward momentum in US-China relations. Deng
Xiaoping’s reform programs were widely seen in the United States and else-
where in the West to be advancing the material well-being of Chinese people
while curbing many of the capricious uses of authoritarian administrative
power that had prevailed during the Maoist period. Broadly gauged human
rights conditions in China were seen to be improving with post-Mao eco-
nomic and political reforms and opening to greater international interchange.
Some American officials, advocacy groups, and media commentators fo-
cused on the negative implications of China’s continued Communist rule for
imprisoned or otherwise suppressed political dissidents, and for religious and
ethnic groups, notably Tibetan followers of the Dalai Lama. US supporters of
democracy and self-determination for Taiwan also joined Americans press-
ing for continued US support for Taiwan’s status separate from the control of
China’s Communist government. In contrast, President Ronald Reagan
seemed to capture the generally more optimistic American view about trends
in China during his remarks at the time of his official visit to China in 1984.
Reagan approved of emerging capitalist economic development in China and
Issues of Human Rights in Contemporary US-China Relations
241
tended to soft-pedal criticism of China’s authoritarian political system, referring to “so-called Communist China,” a sharp contrast with his trademark
criticism of the “evil empire” seen as prevalent in the Communist-ruled
Soviet Union. 10
The economic and political reforms in China in the 1980s saw continued
Chinese debate over the implications of closer Chinese interchange with the
United States and the West. American and broader Western values of indi-
vidual freedom were widely seen in elite and public opinion in China as a
threat to the Communist system in China. Conservatives railed against the
danger of the so-called spiritual pollution from US political values and cul-
ture that would undermine and weaken Chinese resiliency and power in the
face of international forces, including the United States, that were often seen as unfriendly to China. The conservatives included key leaders in the old
guard in the CCP hierarchy, and many other senior leaders said to be retired
but who actually exerted great influence in Chinese decision making. The
conservatives continued to influence the reformists leading the Chinese
Communist government, forcing them to curb initiatives at home and abroad
that might undercut the traditional power and prerogatives of Communist
rule in China. 11
The conservative leaders played a key role in support of the decision to
suppress the demonstrators in Tiananmen Square in Beijing and in other
Chinese cities in June 1989. Communist Party leaders advocating more mod-
erate treatment of the demonstrators and continued political reform were
removed from power. Over time, a Chinese leadership consensus emerged in
favor of continued economic reform and outreach to the world for the benefit
of Chinese modernization and development, on the one hand; and strong
efforts, on the other hand, to sustain authoritarian political rule in China and to resist pressures and other influences coming from US and Western governments and other advocates of political and other change that could lead to the
end of CCP rule in China. With the demise of the Soviet Union, the main
“threat” to China was seen to come from the United States and its allies. The
US and other Western governments and a broad array of nongovernmental
forces in these countries were seen to be pressing and undermining Commu-
nist Party rule and endeavoring to weaken and constrain its influence in
Asian and world affairs. 12
A resumption of more moderate policies of engagement with China by
the United States and other governments later in the 1990s helped reassure
Chinese authorities of the intentions of those governments, and it diminished
Chinese concern with the immediate threat of US and other pressure regard-
ing human rights and American values. But the Communist aut
horities re-
mained on guard against US values; they were diligent and generally effec-
tive in suppressing political dissidents and perceived deviant religious organ-
izations, ethnic groups, and other nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
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and individuals. The latter organizations and individuals sometimes received
support from individuals and groups, including some government-sponsored
organizations, in the United States or other countries favoring change in
China’s authoritarian political system in line with American and broader
Western values. 13
The Chinese crackdown on the Tiananmen demonstrators and the emerg-
ing consensus in the Chinese leadership on the need for a continued hard line
against political dissent and unauthorized religious and ethnic movements
placed human rights issues in the forefront of American differences with
China. For a period after the Tiananmen crackdown, human rights advocates
seemed to have the initiative in setting US policy toward China. The George
H. W. Bush administration was on the defensive, endeavoring to preserve
key elements of the US partnership with China despite the ending of the Cold
War and the perceived diminished importance of China as a counterweight to
the now sharply declining Soviet Union. Congressional leaders for a few
months gave top priority to the often idiosyncratic and inconsistent views of
Chinese students in the United States advocating reform in China and pun-
ishment for the Chinese authorities suppressing the demonstrators at Tianan-
men. 14
For more than a decade, the annual congressional consideration of the
president’s decision to renew most favored nation (MFN) trade status for
China provided an opportunity for American human rights advocates to pub-
licize their criticisms of China and to seek government as well as media and
broader public support for their efforts. Human rights advocates were soon
joined by other Americans with interests regarding economic and security
relations involving China, and advocates for stronger US support for Taiwan,
Tibet, and political rights in Hong Kong. As noted in chapter 5, the criticism
of Chinese policies and practices in Congress was pervasive, though congres-
sional commitment to a harder line against China often seemed thin. Partisan
motives apart from concern with human rights and other differences with
China frequently appeared to motivate critics of Chinese policies involved in
the annual debates over whether to renew MFN trade treatment for China.
When crises emerged in other areas affecting Sino-American interests, as
they did during the war over Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait in 1990 and the
Taiwan Straits crisis of 1995–96, the congressional criticism of China’s hu-
man rights policies and practices subsided as American officials pursued
pragmatic interaction with the Chinese government. The Bill Clinton admin-
istration succeeded in ending the annual congressional deliberations over
China by reaching agreement with China on entry into the WTO and getting
Congress to pass related legislation granting China permanent normal trade
relations with the United States. 15
Developments in the twenty-first century have reinforced American ten-
dencies to deal pragmatically with China and to play down differences. The
Issues of Human Rights in Contemporary US-China Relations
243
terrorist attack on America in 2001 and the global economic crisis beginning
in 2008–9 prompted US leaders to minimize differences over human rights
and related values in pursuit of closer cooperation with China for the sake of
other American interests. However, these issues continued to be raised by US
leaders in discussions with China. President George W. Bush continued to
voice concern with human rights issues, especially freedom of religion in
China. He met several times with the Dalai Lama and also met with promi-
nent political dissidents from China. 16
President Barack Obama seemed to capture the recent balance in the US
government’s concerns with human rights issues when he spoke to the annu-
al Sino-American leadership dialogue meeting in Washington in July 2009.
He advised his Chinese colleagues that the American government did not
seek to force China to conform to its view of human rights, but it would
nonetheless continue to press China and others to conform to the values of
human rights so important to the United States. He said:
Support for human rights and human dignity is ingrained in America. Our
nation is made up of immigrants from every part of the world. We have
protected our unity and struggled to perfect our union by extending basic
rights to all our people. And those rights include the freedom to speak your
mind, to worship your God, and to choose your leaders. They are not things
that we seek to impose—this is who we are. It guides our openness to one
another and the world. 17
Chinese leaders for their part highlighted the great progress made in
advancing economic, social, and other considerations affecting the lives of
the vast majority of Chinese people during the post-Mao period. Public opin-
ion in China tended to be supportive of prevailing conditions in the country.
Chinese officials also underlined China’s increasing cooperation with foreign
governments and international organizations to promote human rights
abroad. They nonetheless drew a line against US and other foreign govern-
ment and nongovernment efforts to interfere in Chinese internal affairs in
ways that would undermine the sovereignty of China and the integrity of its
Communist institutions. They also strongly opposed US and Western-backed
efforts supporting popular empowerment against foreign authoritarian rulers
in various so-called color revolutions (peaceful democratic movements in-
volving mass demonstrations supported by Western governments and non-
government groups that toppled post-Communist authoritarian administra-
tions in such former Soviet states as Georgia, Ukraine, and Kyrgyzstan) 18
and the uprisings seen in the Middle East in the so-called Arab Spring. They
resisted foreign efforts to spotlight Chinese deviations from international
norms in international organizations or world media. 19
At times, these diverging Sino-American approaches have come together
in ways that complicate US-China relations. For example, an unanticipated
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uprising in Tibet in March 2008 saw a strenuous Chinese crackdown against
dissent in Tibet. The developments received widespread negative media
treatment in the United States and other Western countries. They coincided
with an international Olympic Torch Relay that the Chinese government had
organized leading up to the summer Olympic Games in China in 2008. The
Olympic Torch Relay traveled through several Western countries, including
the United States, and was greeted by hostile demonstrators supporting
Tibetan rights and condemning Chinese policies. Some Western leaders vac-
illated on whether to participate in the opening ceremony of the Summer
onstrations, supportive media coverage, and political leaders sympathetic to
the Dalai Lama and Tibetan rights were strong. President Bush said firmly
that he would attend the summer games in China, easing the tension in Sino-
American relations over the episode, but the Tibet issue remained highly
sensitive in Chinese interaction with some West European countries, and it
then became a focal point of Chinese pressure on the incoming Obama ad-
ministration. President Obama delayed a meeting with the Dalai Lama so as
not to complicate his first visit to China in November 2009. He met with the
Tibetan leader in February 2010, prompting much tougher Chinese criticism
than seen in earlier US presidential meetings with the Dalai Lama. That
Chinese pressure was viewed by Americans as one of several signs of grow-
ing Chinese assertiveness over differences with the United States. 20
Broadly speaking, human rights remained a secondary concern in
American policy toward China during the Obama administration. Incoming
President Donald Trump promised a “pragmatic” approach to human rights
issues in China and elsewhere, treating them with lower priority than eco-
nomic and security interests of the United States. Despite such US govern-
ment practice, the impact of policies and practices of China’s more assertive
and international active leader, Xi Jinping, strongly affected American con-
cerns about human rights in China. His government tightened political con-
trols over the media, academic institutions, and cultural activities; arrested
dissidents and lawyers defending dissidents; and curbed NGOs supported by
the United States and others in the West that were promoting change seen as
challenging to CCP rule. The Xi government’s push for the CCP’s greater
authoritarianism and firmer control of public discourse, social interchange,
and key elements of the Chinese economy added to the perception widely
held among specialists, media, various interest groups, and members of Con-
gress that the decades of American and Western engagement in China were
moving in the wrong direction and perhaps leading to failure. The above-