US-China Relations
Perilous Past, Uncertain Present
Third Edition
Robert G. Sutter
George Washington University
ROWMAN & LITTLEFIELD
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Names: Sutter, Robert G., author.
Title: U.S.-China relations : perilous past, uncertain present / Robert G. Sutter, George Washington University.
Description: Third edition. | Lanham, Maryland : Rowman & Littlefield, 2018. | Includes bibliographical references and index.
Identifiers: LCCN 2017039755 (print) | LCCN 2017043456 (ebook) | ISBN
9781538105351 (electronic) | ISBN 9781538105337 (cloth : alk. paper) | ISBN
9781538105344 (pbk. : alk. paper)
Subjects: LCSH: United States—Foreign relations—China. | China—Foreign relations—
United States.
Classification: LCC E183.8.C5 (ebook) | LCC E183.8.C5 S884 2018 (print) | DDC
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Contents
1 Introduction
1
2 Patterns of US-China Relations Prior to World War II
13
3 Relations during World War II, Civil War, Cold War
37
4 Rapprochement and Normalization
61
5 Tiananmen, Taiwan, and Post–Cold War Realities, 1989–2000
91
6 Pragmatism amid Differences during the George W. Bush
Administration
119
7 Barack Obama, Donald Trump, and Xi Jinping: Pragmatism
Falters amid Acrimony and Tensions
145
8 Security Issues in Contemporary US-China Relations
165
9 Economic and Environmental Issues in Contemporary US-
China Relations
185
10 Taiwan and East Asian Maritime Disputes in Contemporary US-
China Relations
213
11 Issues of Human Rights in Contemporary US-China Relations
237
12 Outlook
265
Notes
Selected Bibliography
317
Index
323
About the Author
331
iii
2
Chapter 1
and environmental issues was prominently featured, and bilateral discussion
on human rights continued amid mixed reviews on progress in China toward
accepting US-backed international norms. US-China differences over Tai-
wan subsided with the coming to power of Taiwan President Ma Ying-jeou
(2008–16), who sharply shifted Taiwan toward a more cooperative stance in
relations with China. In broad terms and with some reservations, the US
government accepted and supported the Chinese Communist government as
a leading actor in world affairs; the Chinese government seemed to tacitly
accept, at least for a time, the existing international order in which the United States exerted leading power in Asian and world affairs. 2
The Chinese and American governments had strong reasons to emphasize
the positive aspects of their relationship and to minimize public discussion of negative aspects. Sino-American differences were dealt with through private
conversations among senior leaders and channels of diplomacy called di-
alogues. The number of these dialogues grew to more than ninety by the end
of the Obama administration. The most important was the US-China strategic
and economic dialogue, which held its first meeting in July 2009.
During this seemingly positive period, students, media commentators,
and other readers inexperienced with the complicated background and con-
text of the Sino-American relationship had a tendency to be misled by the
benign image of US-China relations that had flowed from the public dis-
course of US and Chinese officials in the previous decade. Adding to the mix
was the point of view of some commentators, particularly in the United
States, that emphasized the convergence of interests between the United
States and China. At the outset of the Obama administration, some argued for
an international order determined chiefly by cooperation between the two
governments, what is called a G-2 world order, for the twenty-first century. 3
The first edition of this book took issue with what it saw as an overly benign
image of Sino-American cooperation; it concurred more with scholarly and
other assessments in the United States, China, and elsewhere that viewed
Sino-American relations as more complicated and conflicted than official
discourse and arguments by commentators who favored a Sino-American
international condominium led many to expect.
The second edition came in 2013 amid the increasing competition and
public acrimony evident in Sino-American relations since 2010. It depicted a
fragile balance between converging and diverging interests in the relation-
ship, notably with China’s newly appointed party leader and president Xi
Jinping (2012– ) pursuing assertive and often bold initiatives at home and
abroad that seriously challenged key American security, economic, and polit-
ical interests. Though registering sometimes strong public opposition to Chi-
na’s advances at the expense of its neighbors and the United States and
taking some military, economic, and diplomatic moves in response, the Oba-
ma government on the whole continued to rely on private summit talks and
Introduction
3
other dialogues to manage tensions. The Xi Jinping government also avowed
support for such diplomatic managing of key differences, but China’s actions
on sensitive territorial disputes, trade and investment matters, international
governance issues, and restrictive treatment in China of Chinese citizens and
of US and other foreign businesses and nongovernment organizations under-
mined the previous benign image of co
operation with the United States. 4
The Obama government remained positive about the status of US-China
relations to the end of its tenure in January 2017. However, sharply critical
treatment of China in the 2016 US election campaign came from the leading
Democratic Party candidate, Hillary Clinton, the secretary of state in the first term of the Obama government (2009–13). Clinton’s negative assessment of
Chinese policies and practices complemented criticisms by Republican front-
runner and later President Donald Trump. 5 Together, the two candidates reinforced a broad trend seen among American experts, specialists, members
engagement of China was failing; a new, tougher approach would be re-
quired to deal with the rising challenges posed by Xi Jinping’s government. 6
For their part, Chinese specialists and media were on guard in the face of
these negative trends. They claimed that China would seek to work construc-
tively with the president-elect. Hillary Clinton was viewed negatively as an
official who was familiar with Sino-American differences and determined to
push Beijing on these matters. Trump was depicted as a newcomer and much
less committed to key differences with China; a prevailing view in China saw
him as a pragmatic businessman turned political leader who could be
“shaped” to accord to Chinese interests through bargaining and negotia-
tions. 7
The third edition was written against this background after five months of
the Trump presidency in 2017. US-China relations were tense at first, as
President-elect Trump in December 2016 took a controversial step in accept-
ing a congratulatory phone call from Taiwan’s president. When China com-
plained, President-elect Trump replied by criticizing Chinese economic poli-
cies and military advances in disputed islands in the South China Sea, and he
later went on to repeatedly question why the United States needed to support
a position calling for one China and avoiding improved contacts with Tai-
wan. 8
These rapid-fire actions upended Chinese forecasts of smoother sailing
with Trump than with Hillary Clinton. In a few gestures and blunt messages
to the media and on Twitter, the president-elect showed President Xi and his
lieutenants that the new US leader would be capable of a wide range of
actions that could be done easily and would surprise Chinese counterparts
with serious negative consequences. During the long US election campaign,
President Trump made clear that he preferred unpredictability and did not
place the high value President Obama did on policy transparency, carefully
4
Chapter 1
measured responses, and avoidance of dramatic actions. He has been much
less constrained than the previous US administration by a perceived need to
sustain and advance US-China relations. Like President Xi and unlike Presi-
dent Obama, President Trump has been characterized as (1) not averse to
conflict, (2) presumably willing to seek advantage in tensions between the
two countries, and (3) prepared to seek leverage through linking his policy
preference in one area of the relationship with policies in other areas of the
relationship. 9
In June 2017 the outlook for US-China relations seemed heavily influ-
enced by one bold leader interacting with another bold leader. President
Trump eventually was persuaded to publicly reaffirm support for the
American one-China policy during his first phone conversation with Presi-
dent Xi on February 9. Xi reportedly refused to speak with President Trump
until he did so.
The informal summit meeting with President Xi at the Trump resort Mar-
a-Lago in early April 2017 went well, though it sandwiched President
Trump’s surprise announcement of fifty-nine US cruise missiles striking a
Syrian airfield that was being used to carry out a widely condemned chemi-
cal weapons attack. After the summit, the Trump government kept strong
political pressure on China to use its economic leverage to halt North Ko-
rea’s nuclear weapons development. While stoking widespread fears of con-
flict on the peninsula, President Trump stressed his personal respect for
President Xi. He promised Beijing easier treatment in negotiations on the two
countries’ massive trade imbalance and other economic issues.
The crisis over North Korea put a premium on US interaction with China.
Planned arms sales to Taiwan, freedom-of-navigation exercises in the South
China Sea, and other US initiatives that might complicate America’s search
for leverage to stop North Korea’s nuclear weapons development were put on
hold. 10
Overall, the US leader put his Chinese counterpart on the defensive,
compelling Beijing to prepare for a wide range of contingencies from the
American president. Gone was the Obama government’s commitment to
positive ties with China. It became clear that Beijing could no longer rely on
the policy transparency, measured responses, and avoidance of dramatic ac-
tion or spillovers among competing interests that characterized the previous
administration. As discussed in chapter 7, in the view of American critics,
“no-drama” Obama enabled Xi to expand in the South China Sea and carry
out other bold moves at American expense without the danger that the result-
ing tensions would lead to serious US retaliation.
China’s new uncertainty over the American president added to reasons
for Beijing to avoid—at least temporarily—controversial moves at US ex-
pense, such as expansionist actions in the disputed South China Sea and
Introduction
5
especially sensitive Chinese interchange with North Korea. How long this
discretion would last would be a guessing game.
Meanwhile, the respective interests of the two countries in pragmatic
cooperation over common concerns amid serious differences remained im-
portant determinants; they are assessed in the following chapters. The incen-
tives to avoid serious US-China confrontation or even war have been enor-
mous11 and seemed obvious to all; but the differences have been growing in importance. The evolution and influence of incentives to cooperation versus
differences are treated in the following chapters.
ENDURING DIFFERENCES:
DIVERGING INTERESTS AND VALUES
The lessons of history over US relations with China and especially relations
with the People’s Republic of China (PRC) provide the basis for findings of
lasting importance in determining the course of Sino-American relations.
The following chapters show that on balance the historical trajectory has not
been positive, with tensions reaching a high point of conflict and confronta-
tion during the first two decades of the Cold War. A major breakthrough took
place under the leadership of President Richard Nixon (1969–74) and Chair-
man Mao Zedong. After that historic thaw, major turning points over the next
forty years showed that without powerful, practical reasons for pragmatic
accommodation and cooperation, strong and often deeply rooted and endur-
ing differences between the two govern
ments and their broader societies
were likely to emerge. Even in the best of times, those differences tended to
obstruct improvement in Sino-American relations.
The differences between the United States and China in the early twenty-
first century are summarized in the sections that follow.
China
China’s many disagreements with the United States can be grouped into four
general categories of disputes that have complicated US-China relations for
years. Based on Chinese statements and commentary in official Chinese
media, the four categories are (1) opposition to US support for Taiwan and to
US diplomatic and other involvement with other sensitive sovereignty issues,
including Tibet, Xinjiang, and Chinese territorial disputes with neighbors
along China’s eastern and southern maritime borders; (2) opposition to actual
or perceived US efforts to change China’s political system; (3) opposition to
the United States playing the dominant strategic role along China’s periphery
in Asia, including US military involvement in Taiwan and military activities
in disputed and other territory along China’s rim; and (4) opposition to many
aspects of US leadership in world affairs. Some specific issues in the latter
6
Chapter 1
two categories include US policy in Iraq, Iran, Syria, and the broader Middle
East; aspects of the US-backed security presence in the Asia-Pacific, seen
notably in the Obama government’s so-called pivot or rebalance policy in the
region; US and allied ballistic missile defenses; periodic US pressure on such
governments as Myanmar (Burma), North Korea, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Cuba,
and Venezuela; US pressure tactics in the United Nations and other interna-
tional forums, and at times the US position on global climate change. 12
United States
US differences with China continue to involve clusters of often contentious
economic, security, political, sovereignty, and foreign policy issues. Eco-
nomic issues center on inequities in the US economic relationship with China
that include a massive trade deficit, Chinese currency policies and practices,
US dependence on Chinese financing American budget deficits, and China’s
lax enforcement of intellectual property rights and wide use of industrial