China-US Diplomacy: New dogs, old tricks
People want China-US relations to improve overnight. They overlook the fact that conflict may be the status quo.
This is Newsletter #6, hope you enjoy this hot take, new podcast should be out early next week.
The first line of a Bloomberg article published earlier this week reads “The U.S.-China relationship hasn’t been this fraught since normalization in the 1970s.”
When I read this line I thought “wow, either people don’t know about the history of US-China relations, or they’re so desperate for things to return to stability that they’re willing to ignore it altogether.”
Since the conclusion of the recent US Presidential Elections, I’ve seen several articles urging a ‘return to normalcy’ or a ‘reboot’ of China-US relations. This sentiment is understandable, given a turbulent 4 years of Trumpian hardlining and a trade war that unfolded and morphed at a dizzying pace. However, whether or not Biden is the man to lead the countries to a new, fruitful relationship is, I think, not the real question here. What is needed is an understanding of the recent history of the relationship between the two countries, what actually constitutes ‘normal’, and whether Trump was really the problem or something much, much deeper.
In a 2010 article titled “The Instability of China-US Relations,” Yan Xuetong notes that “sudden deteriorations followed by rapid recoveries have been the norm in China–US relations since the 1990s” and that the two countries have a largely “superficial friendship.” I agree with Yan. This phenomenon has been largely ignored, not just by the news media, but by politicians in general. In a bid to align the two competing ideologies of the world’s largest superpowers (probably in an effort to avoid all-out war), most pundits have tried to overlook as much as possible the fundamental differences between China and the US, differences that have kept the two locked in a ‘fake friendship’ for decades.
1970s - Establishment
To understand this relationship properly we need to go back almost 50 years. After the collapse of Sino-Soviet relations, the US President Nixon began to forge new ties with China by visiting the country in 1972. This was the first time the two countries had basically even spoken to each other in 25 years, barring Kissinger’s secret visit in 1971. While this marked a significant turning point - not unlike Trump’s visit to North Korea in 2019 - it did not mean that the relationship was smooth sailing from then on out.
Despite the move forward, tensions remained due to the fundamental ideological differences between the liberal, democratic US and the one-party authoritarian China, exacerbated by the presence of US troops in South Korea, Taiwan, and Vietnam (Chinese PLA troops were also present in the communist North Vietnam since the mid-1960s).
Despite these underlying tensions, relations in the 1970s were overall positive, with the two countries establishing formal diplomatic ties in 1979 upon Deng Xiaoping’s visit to the States. The US severed diplomatic ties with Taiwan, promised to provide China with intel on Soviet espionage, and agreed to allow the selling of arms and technology to China from 1980s onwards, a move that became vital to the modernisation of the Chinese military.
1980s - Improvement, followed by disaster
Throughout the 1980s, the situation continued to improve gradually. In a Joint Communiqué signed in 1982, the US agreed to recognise China’s rights to deal with its own internal affairs (meaning Taiwan) without US interference. Exports of technology goods to China reached $1.7 billion in 1988, and “ between 1981 and 1989 the value of U.S. arms sales to China grew from $0 to $106.2 million.” (Resnick)
However, as the US began to improve its relationship with the Soviet Union from the mid-1980s onwards, it no longer needed China as a bulwark to expanding Soviet influence, and began to treat its relationship with China with more scrutiny. Despite nominally adhering to international policies on nuclear nonproliferation, China continued to support Pakistan’s nuclear development and continued to export arms (mainly missiles) to a number of countries hostile to the US including Iran and North Korea. These moves were on occasion met with restrictions on bank loan guarantees for imports and exports.
In a foreshadowing of the modern trade war, the two countries even had a tit-for-tat ban on goods in the mid-1980s, as US companies complained of cheaper Chinese goods flooding the market, while they were faced with tariffs, import restrictions, and barriers to investment opportunities in China.
There were also growing concerns about China’s human rights record, which had been largely overlooked in the 1970s when China was still needed as a counterbalance to Soviet forces. In 1983, the US granted asylum to 19-year-old tennis player Hu Na, a small but embarrassing incident for the Chinese Communist Party. It proved to be a watershed moment. In 1985 US Congress passed an amendment to “deny U.S. funds to organizations that promote abortion as a method of family planning,” after accussing China of using forced abortions and sterilisation as ways to enforce its One-Child Policy. Another amendment was made in 1987 following China’s firing upon Tibetan demonstrators in September and October of that year, lambasting China’s history in the region, and linking the sale of arms and other policies to the efforts of China to “ resolve human rights issues in Tibet.”
Despite these hostilities, however, the general view from the West was that China was a weak country that was slowly joining the global economic and political stage. It should be allowed to make a few mistakes on the way while it was adjusting, and most of these problems were fairly minor and could be corrected over time. Further, Deng Xiaoping was extremely popular with Western leaders, who largely viewed him as a reformer keen to distance China from its recent history.
The real problem came in due course with the Tiananmen Square Incident on June 4th 1989. In response to the tragedy, the US effectively froze relations and ceased all arms sales to China immediately. General diplomacy was suspended until 1994. Many trade agreements were suspended until 2001. Sales of arms to China have never been resumed.
1990s - Decline
Human rights continued to be a defining feature of US-China relations in the 1990s. Just as relations between the two countries were beginning to open up with a visit of state department secretary, Warren Christopher, to Beijing in March 1994, the Chinese government arrested two high profile activists, Wei Jingsheng and Wang Dan. Both had been active during the Tiananmen protests, Wang Dan being a student leader in the democracy movement, and had previously been incarcerated, having been let out in 1993 apparently due to China’s bid for the 2000 Olympic games. Both were deported to the United States in the late 1990s, where they continue to live in political exile.
Taiwan independence was another issue on the agenda. In 1996, Lee Teng-hui won Taiwan’s first free election, becoming the first democratically elected pro-independence president of Taiwan. A year earlier he had visited his alma mater Cornell University, which was seen as a slap in the face to the CCP, who felt that this was a pro-Taiwan independence move on the part of the US. Ostensibly to intimidate Taiwanese voters, the Chinese military held several exercises in the Taiwan Strait just before the election, firing missiles just off the coast of Taiwan. The US responded by sending two groups of carriers, the largest show of force in the region since the end of the Vietnam war. China backed away quietly.
After these incidents, the term ‘neither friends nor enemies’ emerged as the phrase used by both governments to describe their relationship. However, both sides gradually came to realise that they may have more to gain from a productive relationship than a negative one, and China eventually regained its Most Favoured Nation trading status. The next summit between the two nations was not held until 1997, where Presidents Jiang Zemin and Clinton agreed “‘to build toward a constructive strategic partnership’ in the 21st century” (Yan). This dream was subsequently rattled by the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade on May 8th 1999.
2000s - Ambivalence and outright hostility
The Clinton administration sought to quickly repair the fraught relationship, signing the U.S.-China Relations Act of 2000 which normalised trade relations between the two nations permanently, and boosted China’s chances of joining the WTO, which it did in 2001. Despite an incident where a Chinese fighter jet collided with a US spy plane in April 2001, causing a 12-day standoff, relations were at their best in 2003, and China replaced Mexico as the US’ second-biggest trade partner by 2006. President Bush and his family even attended the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics in 2008.
As China solidified its position as the next global superpower through its economic dominance post-2008 recession, US-China relations suffered what some have termed a gradual and sustained downturn. It was clear that China’s growth was outpacing what anyone could have predicted:
Over the course of the 2000s, China reached a number of material benchmarks: it overtook Japan in 2010 as the world's second largest economy, in 2009 it became the leading exporter of goods, it had the world's largest foreign currency reserves, and from 2013 had the world's second largest military budget following a decade and more of double digit increases in defence spending. It also became the primary trading partner of nearly all of its neighbours, including Japan from 2008.
But it wasn’t necessarily China’s economic growth that threatened their relationship with the US. Following a not-so-fruitful state visit in 2009, the Obama administration became increasingly distrustful of the Chinese government. Differences of opinion on how to handle North Korea and China’s increasing aggression in the South China Sea led to the US’ “pivot to Asia” policy, and increasing arms sales to Taiwan in 2010 and 2011.
More issues emerged over the next few years: accusations of currency manipulation, cyberattacks, and human rights violations from the US, and complaints of interference in domestic affairs and punitive tariffs on the Chinese side. Political analysts were already citing the possibility of a Thucydides’s Trap situation back in 2013, the same year the Belt and Road Initiative was launched. US global hegemony was especially threatened by the establishment of the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) in 2016.
At the same time however, cultural exchanges increased in this period, as did US investment in Chinese businesses. Both sides recognise the benefits of having a net positive relationship, but mismatched policies on IP laws, cybersecurity, and technology exchanges is making the relationship increasingly fraught and blurring the lines between politics and economics. Every aspect of their relationship - human rights, domestic politics, tourism, trade, finance, the South China Sea - suffers from the same problem: they both want roughly the same result, but on their own terms.
What the US fears most is China’s global dominance at the expense of US hegemony, especially in economic terms. They want to be tough on China, while also maintaining good political ties in order to maintain international stability without losing their seat at the top of the table. In reality, what the CCP fears most is Western meddling in the political system, which threatens the legitimacy of the CCP and the stability of the country. That’s why it’s so guarded of its domestic politics, but seems not too bothered about peaks and troughs in trade relations.
So that’s a quick overview of the rise and decline of US-China relations. As we can see, problems didn’t suddenly arise because of an arbitrary trade war from a few years ago, I know human memory is short, but it really shouldn’t be that short.
Trump and Xi were friends once too
The idea that the decline in China-US relations began in 2016, and that hostility between the two nations can largely be attributed to Trump’s ego, is plain false. As is the idea that things will magically get better now that Trump has been replaced by someone else. If you cast your mind back to early 2016, you’ll remember that Trump was actively trying to make peace with China, inviting Xi to his private residence in Mar-a-Lago just after his term as president had begun. Trump even promoted the continuing friendship well into the trade war in 2018, after both countries had applied 25% tariffs on each other’s imports.
It wasn’t the aim of that administration to sour relations with China from the get go. Far from it, as Trump’s aim seems to have mirrored that of almost all his predecessors: make peace with a rising power at the potential cost of alienating existing allies.
The problem is not personality, it’s just personal. The two nations are socially, economically, and politically incompatible. They have fundamentally different views on governance, international diplomacy, and what constitutes fair trade. Until one country becomes more like the other, spurts of friendly cooperation followed by periods of mud-slinging will most likely remain the ‘normal’ state of affairs.
References
Andrew Browne, Bloomberg New Economy: Calls Ring Out for a U.S.-China Reboot, Bloomberg
Evan Resnick, Allies of Convenience: A Theory of Bargaining in U.S. Foreign Policy
Foreign Relations Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 1988-89 (excerpt) (1987) [248]
Los Angeles Times, China’s President Assails Congress’ Abortion Charges
Ming Wan, “Human rights and Sino-US relations: Policies and changing realities,” The Pacific Review, 10:2, 237-255
Rosemary Foot, “Power transitions and great power management: three decades of China–Japan–US relations,” The Pacific Review
Timeline of U.S. Relations With China: 1949 – 2020
Wang Jisi and Hu Ran, “From cooperative partnership to strategic competition: a review of China–U.S. relations 2009–2019,” China International Strategy Review (2019) 1:1–10
Wendy Wu and Jun Mai, Operation Reset? US and China revive backchannel talks; Beijing congratulates Biden, SCMP
Yan Xuetong, “The Instability of China–US Relations,” The Chinese Journal of International Politics, Vol. 3, 2010, 263–292