led initiatives that infringed on Chinese internal political control or territorial and sovereignty issues involving Taiwan, Tibet, and Hong Kong. Leadership
debate about how open China should be to promoting economic reform at
home and how welcoming China should be to economic interchange with the
West as it consolidated authoritarian rule at home appeared to be resolved
following Deng Xiaoping’s tour of southern China in 1992. Deng urged
continued rigorous economic reform and opening to the benefits of foreign
trade, investments, and technology transfer. Beginning in 1993, as the Chi-
nese government presided over strong economic growth, and the US and
other international attention that came with it, Chinese leaders reflected more confidence as they dealt with US pressures for change. However, the Chinese
leaders generally eschewed direct confrontation that would endanger the crit-
Tiananmen, Taiwan, and Post–Cold War Realities, 1989–2000
93
ically important economic relations with the United States unless China was
provoked by US, Taiwanese, or other actions. 4
US policy in the decade after Tiananmen worked explicitly against the
central interest of the Chinese leadership to sustain the rule of the Commu-
nist Party in China (CCP). Even when US government leaders emphasized a
pragmatic policy of engagement with China’s leaders, they often used ratio-
nales that the engagement would lead to the demise of the authoritarian CCP
rule. US policy also increased support for Taiwan, for the interests of the
Dalai Lama in Tibet, and for forces in Hong Kong seen as critical of Chinese
government goals and threatening to the overall territorial integrity and sov-
ereignty of China. The United States also was in the lead in criticizing a
range of Chinese foreign policies; it was seen to be strengthening strategic
and other pressures on China through the reinforcement of US military rela-
tions with Japan and other allies and the improvement of American military
as well as political and economic relations with other nations around China’s
periphery. In response, Chinese leaders and broader public opinion saw US
policy and intentions in a negative way. 5
Over time, years of pragmatic Sino-American engagement policies and
generally positive treatment of the United States in state-controlled Chinese
media in the first decade of the twenty-first century resulted in an improve-
ment in Chinese public opinion about the United States. Privately, Chinese
leaders were reported to remain deeply wary and suspicious of the policies
and intentions of the United States. Strong public Chinese antipathy toward
the United States and US policy and practice toward China also showed from
time to time, over sensitive issues or during times of crisis in US-China
relations. 6
Although American leaders held the initiative in relations with China
during the years after the Tiananmen incident, they had a hard time creating
and implementing an effective and integrated policy. Coherent US policy
toward China proved elusive in the midst of contentious American domestic
debate over China policy during the 1990s. That debate was not stilled until
the September 11, 2001, terrorist attack on America muffled continued US
concerns over China amid an overwhelming American concern to deal with
the immediate, serious, and broad consequences of the global war on terror-
ism. 7
In the aftermath of Tiananmen, President George H. W. Bush tried to
keep China policy under his control and to move US relations with China in
directions he deemed constructive. Yet he and his administration were re-
peatedly criticized by Congress, the media, and organized groups with differ-
ing interests in policy toward the PRC but with an agreed emphasis on a
harder US approach to China. In this atmosphere, Bush’s more pragmatic
approach to China became a distinct liability for the president, notably during his failed reelection campaign in 1992. 8
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Chapter 5
President Bill Clinton entered office on an election platform critical of the
“butchers of Beijing.” His administration developed a clear stance linking
Chinese behavior regarding human rights issues with US trade benefits to
China. Majorities in Congress and many nongovernmental groups and the
media favored this position. However, the policy came under increasing
pressure from other groups and their allies in both Congress and the adminis-
tration who were strongly concerned with US business interests in relation to
China’s rising market. The opposition prompted President Clinton to end the
policy of linkage in May 1994. 9
The president’s decision did not end the battle for influence over China
policy on the part of competing US interest groups and their supporters in the
Congress and the administration. Pro-Taiwan interests mobilized in early
1995 to change US policy in order to allow the Taiwan president to travel to
the United States in a private capacity. After senior US officials assured
China that no visa would be granted, President Clinton decided to allow the
visit. His reversal triggered a major crisis and military face-off between the
United States and China over Taiwan in 1995–96. There were periodic live-
fire Chinese military exercises in the Taiwan Strait, including tests of short-
range Chinese ballistic missiles, over a period of nine months beginning in
mid-1995 and culminating in large exercises coincident with Taiwan’s first
direct election of its president in March 1996. The US government did little
in public reaction to the exercises at first, but by 1996 senior US leaders
privately, and eventually publicly, strongly warned Chinese leaders against
them. In the end, the United States sent two aircraft carrier battle groups to
the Taiwan area to face off against the perceived Chinese military provoca-
tions during the Taiwan presidential elections. 10
Seeking to restore calm and avoid repetition of dangerous crises with
China, the Clinton administration accommodated Chinese interests as US
policy shifted to a strong emphasis on pragmatic engagement with China,
highlighted by US-China summits in Washington and Beijing in 1997 and
1998, respectively. Through often difficult negotiations, the United States
and China were able to reach agreement in late 1999, leading to China’s
entry into the World Trade Organization (WTO). Related to this accord, the
Clinton administration secured congressional passage of a law granting Chi-
na the trading status of Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) in 2000.
The law removed the previous annual legal requirement for the president to
publicly notify Congress of his intention to seek most-favored-nation (MFN)
status for American trade with China, and for the president’s notification to
be subject to possible legislation of disapproval by Congress. That legal
requirement provided the focus of annual and often raucous congressional
debates over the pros and cons of harsher US measures against China in the
years after the Tiananmen crackdown. 11
Tiananmen, Taiwan, and Post–Cold War Realities, 1989–2000
&
nbsp; 95
Clinton’s policy shift toward engagement with China met strong opposi-
tion in Congress and the media and among nongovernment groups pressing
for a harder policy. As for China, the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in
Belgrade in May 1999 saw the Chinese government react by directing mass
demonstrations that destroyed or severely damaged US diplomatic properties
in Beijing and other cities. Beijing leaders also openly debated their contin-
ued emphasis on engagement with the United States, eventually coming to
the conclusion that shifting to a more confrontational Chinese approach
against US “hegemonism” was not in the overall interests of the Chinese
administration. 12
Those seeking to use international relations (IR) theory to understand the
complicated dynamics in American policy toward China in the decade after
the Tiananmen suppression of 1989 are urged to avoid emphasizing just one
theory. Instead, it is important to consider various schools of thought in order to contextualize various determinants and offer a comprehensive view of the
complex situation.
Liberalism helps explain the massive disappointment and hostility di-
rected at China’s rulers by American elite and public opinion following the
crackdown at Tiananmen. In particular, liberalism captures the previous
widespread American belief that post-Mao China’s movement toward freer-
market economic policies and greater engagement with the West would be
accompanied by social and political pluralism in line with liberal expecta-
tions. Those expectations were grievously undermined by the Tiananmen
crackdown, resulting in the negative backlash in US opinion. Meanwhile,
while President Clinton’s motives remain unclear, he justified his policy
reversal in seeking compromise and closer engagement with China after the
Taiwan Straits crisis on the assumption that such engagement would lead to
social and political pluralism, in line with liberal thinking. US companies
keenly interested in the growing China market also justified their support for
continuing MFN tariff status for China on the argument that sustaining MFN
treatment for China would lead to growing Sino-US economic relations that
in turn would result in political pluralism in China, as forecast by liberal
theory.
Realism played an important role in the determination of President
George H. W. Bush and his senior aides to sustain workable relations with
China, as China was seen as a major power and one of increasing internation-
al importance. Unfortunately for coherence in US foreign policy, realism also
influenced those calling for sanctions and punishment of China after Tianan-
men. Many such advocates used the realist argument that the demise of the
Soviet Union and other communist states meant that the United States no
longer needed China’s favor to offset the USSR and its allies. In this view,
the reality of power in world affairs saw the US superpower ascendant, with
little need to accommodate gross offenses like the Tiananmen suppression.
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Chapter 5
Constructivism helps explain the massive gap between the American
identity and the Chinese identity that developed after Tiananmen. The bloody
crackdown against unarmed demonstrators was anathema for most
Americans, more than justifying rigorous sanctions and punishments in re-
sponse. The American response focused directly on the most important prior-
ity of the Chinese government: the preservation of CCP rule. To counter the
pressure, the Chinese rulers appealed to a well-developed sense of Chinese
identity as a people and society of tremendous achievement that, in weakness
since the nineteenth century, was subjected to various unfair modes of op-
pression by arrogant foreign powers. Beijing worked effectively to portray
the strident American polemics and sanctions as the latest in a long series of
foreign affronts going back to the first Opium War and the beginning of
China’s gross victimization at the hands of evil foreign powers.
Post–Cold War Imperatives and American Debate
over China Policy
Understanding the changes in US policy toward China in the 1990s requires
going beyond the Tiananmen crackdown and other immediate issues in US-
China relations to assess the implications of the post–Cold War debate in US
foreign policy. Because security issues and opposition to Soviet expansion
no longer drove US foreign policy, economic interests, democratization
abroad, and human rights were among concerns that gained greater promi-
nence in American foreign policy. Various US advocacy groups and institu-
tions interested in these and other foreign policy concerns also showed great-
er influence in policy making, including policy making with regard to China.
Historically, such fluidity and competition among priorities had more often
than not been the norm in American foreign policy making. As noted in
chapters 2 and 3, Woodrow Wilson and Franklin Roosevelt both set forth
comprehensive concepts of a well-integrated US foreign policy, but neither
framework lasted long. The requirements of the Cold War were much more
effective in establishing rigor and order in US foreign policy priorities. The
influence of these requirements in driving US interest in rapprochement and
was over.
In its place was a changed array of forces influencing American foreign
policy in general and policy toward China in particular. There was a shift
away from the elitism of the past and toward much greater pluralism. This
increased the opportunity for inputs by nongovernmental groups, including
lobby groups with interests in foreign policy, notably policy toward China. 13
The elitist model of American foreign policy making that prevailed
through much of the Cold War included the following characteristics:
Tiananmen, Taiwan, and Post–Cold War Realities, 1989–2000
97
• Domination of the process by the executive branch, particularly by the
White House, the State Department, and the Pentagon.
• Presidential consultation with a bipartisan leadership in Congress and mo-
bilization through them of broad congressional support for the administra-
tion’s foreign policy.
• Parallel consultations with a relatively small group of elites outside
government, some of whom were specialists on the particular issue under
consideration and others of whom had a more general interest in foreign
policy as a whole.
• Mobilization of public support through major newspapers and television
programs, other media outlets, and civic organizations. 14
This process transformed in much more pluralistic directions and took on
quite different characteristics following the 1980s:
• A much greater range of agencies within the executive branch became
involved in foreign policy, with the rise of economic agencies (Com-
merce, Treasury, and US Trade Representative) of particular importance.
• A reallocation of power within the government, moving away from domi-
nance by the e
xecutive branch and giving more power to Congress.
• Much greater participation of nongovernmental organizations including
lobbying groups, which attempted to shape foreign policy to conform to
their interests.
• Much less consensus within Congress and within the broader American
public over the direction of US foreign policy.
Among divergent American views about foreign policy in the post–Cold
War period were three discernable schools of thought. 15 The first school was in line with realism in IR theory and stressed the relative decline in US power and its implications for US ability to protect its interests abroad. It called for the United States to work harder to preserve important interests while adjust-ing to limited resources and reduced influence. This school of thought—
reflected in the commentary of such leaders as George H. W. Bush, Henry
Kissinger, and others—argued that these circumstances required the United
States to work closely with traditional allies and associates. In Asia, it saw
that not to preserve long-standing good relations with Japan and other allies
and friends whose security policies and political-cultural orientations com-
plemented US interests, was inconsistent with US goals. It urged caution in
policy toward other regional powers—Russia, China, and India. All three
countries were preoccupied with internal development issues and did not
appear to want regional instability. All sought closer economic and political
relations with the West and with other advancing economies. Washington
would be well advised, according to this view, to work closely with these
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Chapter 5
governments wherever there were common interests. In considering US as-
sets available to influence regional trends, proponents of this view called on
the United States to go slow in reducing its regional military presence. 16
A second school of thought argued for major cutbacks in US international
activity, including military involvement, and a renewed focus on solving
domestic American problems. Variations of this view were seen in the writ-
ings of William Hyland, Patrick Buchanan, and other well-known commen-
tators of the time, and in the political statements of the independent candidate in the 1992 presidential election, Ross Perot. Often called an “America First”