Sino-American Relationship

Since 2012, the eminent Athenian general Thucydides, whose somber account of the Peloponnesian War among the leading Greek city states of the fifth century BCE has long been respected as a foundational text of both history and international relations theory, has attained instant name recognition in global public discourse. In August that year
the Harvard academic Graham Allison, who was previously best known for his study of decision-making during the October 1962 Cuban missile crisis between the United States and the Soviet Union, published the first of a series of op-eds and articles, which were ultimately expanded into a bestselling book, that argued that the chances of outright war between two great powers, the United States, the current global hegemon, and the People’s Republic of China (PRC), a rising and ambitious rival for world supremacy, were uncomfortably high. This lengthy review of two significant works discussing the theory of the Thucydides Trap seeks to assess the applicability of the concept to the current state of relations between China and the United States.

Most contemporary International Relations academics and experts agree that with the collapse of the Soviet Union and the deconstruction of the bipolar arrangement of the global stage, the present international order based on the pre-eminent domination of the United States of America in almost every sphere of international politics is essentially a unipolar one. Advocates of the structural realist account in international relations theory, however, believe that unipolarity will not last forever. Inevitably unipolarity must lead to the rise of other powers, who in turn will attempt to challenge the status quo based upon the dominance of the leading superpower. According to realists, China is poised to change the shape of the international configuration of power as it is working to ensure having a responsible status on the international stage. Furthering this desired perception, Chinese leaders assert that their country is committed to peace, harmony, and co-operation with other nations, and not global domination. Consequently, the prospect of China becoming a new superpower in the twenty-first century has triggered much-heated debate, along with endless speculation. War was almost always the case in the past when one major power was ceasing to rise and another rival rose on the scene and aspire to replace the previous power that usually resulted in a major conflict. Therefore, arguably, the most important question that faces scholars of international affairs is whether the relationship between the world's most important rising power and its established power will be peaceful or bellicose? Will the rise of China - and the reaction of America to that rise - have the effect that so many great power ascensions have had in the past, leading to general war? Or will the new constraints of economies and nuclear deterrence create powerful incentives on both sides for a peaceful, though highly competitive relationship? (Zakaria quoted in Keohane and Nye, 2012: xv). Assuming continued domestic success, as Brzezinski (2012: 179) noted, "it is unlikely that China will experience in the relatively near future - say by 2030 - what many in the West hope: the emergence of a middle-class-based constitutional democracy of the American-European variety. Therefore, the length of the process suggests that any fears of a modernising, assertive, impatient, triumphalist, aggressively nationalistic China are not justified. So far, despite a rise that rivals or even outstrips those of any previous rising power, China has been largely uninterested in a grand global role, particularly a military one. Why is there so much fear and envy surrounding China's rise? Perhaps, because China had a glorious and great past that could potentially put into shade other, distant civilisations when they choose to compete. As observed by some scholars, "in its heyday, China had no global peer, in the sense that no other power was capable of challenging its imperial status or even resisting its further expansion" while China built ships larger than any other civilisation (Brzezinski, 1997: 15). The fear of China rising might be only an ill-perceived anxiety existing in the mindsets of Western policymakers rather than an objective reality. This is because as observed by Khanna (2019), ''the biggest story today is not the rise of China, it is the collective resurgence of Asia''. China is the midpoint in this process. Indeed, “For most of recorded history, Asia was the economic, technological and cultural centre of the world. From that perspective, the last 500 years of western dominance almost appear an aberration.'' (Khanna, 2019). But the future does not need to be mono-civlisational because, in truth, America, did also have a great past. It would be a great idea if America could continue to work with rather than against China. Thus, whether it is possible to unite both civilisations will depend on the internal condition of both countries. The world needs evolving, harmonious China and renovating, energetic America. An America that renews its infrastructure, that recognises its technological innovation, that regains its sense of historical optimism, and that overcomes its paralysing political gridlock (Brzezinski, 2012: 178). Such America will be able to more confidently adjust to, and cope with, a rising China. Such an America will be likely to have a clearer, less Manichean view of the world, and thus would be better able to face a world in which its political preeminence in the future has to be shared and accept cooperation between civilisations. If that process of cooperation changes, on either side, it will surely alter the basic stability of the global system. However, despite this reality some analysts evidently remain rather unsettled with it and they predict the inevitable conflict between China and America. According to this logic, the prevailing story of power in the 21st century will be the rise in the power of China that will create fear in the United States of America, which will lead to a great conflict. However, this is a simplistic interpretation, bad history and a poor understanding of power for our century. In contrast to pessimistic predictions, this thesis argues that the future of global politics will not be based on zero-sum games ​but on honest partnership and measures designed to build trust between both Great Powers. Bipolar systems throughout history have been, arguably, the most stable ones. Once there is a degree of balance there is stability. For every power that competes in Great Power politics, there must be a check just like in chess game so that there is a relative equilibrium or the conditions of balance of power and therefore no advantage is taken by the more dominant country. At least, this idea prevents tribalism or nationalism and takes more care of the Earth. If such an equal partnership could develop between America and China, and then, be channelled, for example, onto cooperative solutions to the novel, global challenges such as climate change the world and the whole planet would probably witness much-needed progress, advancement and prosperity born out of bilateral, more spontaneous and inclusive system of cooperation. One truth that still proves valid in global politics is that no country can solve the challenges of our time effectively unless it solves them together. Another truth is that America and China together emit about 45 per cent of the global carbon dioxide emissions from fossil fuels (Gallagher and Xuan, 2018: xii). It is perfectly justifiable and technically reasonable, thus to focus global efforts of reducing greenhouse gases emissions starting from these two countries. Without good cooperation, we cannot solve climate change effectively. Using justice claims and accusations that the other country does not keep the standards are no longer appropriate. The planet will not wait for united climate action. By studying the climate policy process in both countries analysts can shed more light, and indeed, understand each other's goals, differences and similarities between both countries. ''Through a better understanding of each other, leaders of both countries might be able to turn distrust into at minimum a cautious scepticism and perhaps even, a more realistic approach to cooperation.'' (Ibid: 12). In international politics, ''empathy and understanding are the foundations for partnerships. Through a better understanding about each other's differences and particular constraints, future negotiations between these two countries will be more productive because we will understand the fundamental interests of the other side.'' (Ibid.) Both countries need to develop more trust, more common interests, they need to be less suspicious, and more respectful about fundamental uncertainties and they need to learn from each other's experiences.'' (Ibid.). If such conditions were to develop gradually, it is more likely that climate cooperation could succeed in the future (Ibid.) The difficulty in the complex process of climate policy regulation is that ''climate change was not considered a top-tier issue by the foreign policy establishment in either country, and the United States and China had been deadlocked in the international climate negotiations for decades.'' (Gallagher and Xuan, 2018: 1). This is because politicians have kept the public away from the truth of the suffering Earth. Global climate unity requires abortion of party-politics, bureaucracy, culture of denial and war through geo-economics. Great Powers could build and not only compete, construct and not only constrain. If so, the planet could experience a more holistic civilisational advancement. ''Every great achievement was a vision before it became a reality (Kissinger, 2011: 530). Strategic vision for the 21st century implies that China and America work together with other Great Powers while building a new architecture of global peace and stability.

The Sino-American trade war has become a symbol of rivalry for leadership in the international system. It also attracts growing attention to the problem of possible change to the regional and global hegemony. The debate with its possible ramifications is clear to academics, the media and political elites. However, it has focused on a limited scope of factors and mostly at the leadership level of, most notably, the United States of America. Considering its complexity, the issue of US policy towards China should be analyzed at various levels. These include the presidents, their collaborators, domestic politics and US strategy, and, finally, the international system as it experiences the relative change of power distribution. The main goal of this article is to analyze the recent US administrations’ strategy towards the People’s Republic of China. This is in the context of changes to the international system, focusing on the relative change of power distribution. The hypothesis driving this article states that the US strategy towards China is a response to the changing relative distribution of power in the regional and global system. It follows that American administrations differ rather in methods than in goals of foreign policy. This text is prepared with reference to the Power Transition Theory of A. Organski and J. Kugler, and the research is based on the US strategic documents’ analysis and statistical analysis of the power distribution in the system.

China's new assertiveness and the sudden inward turn of United States are a function of causes located in both the second and third images. The key second-image variable is nationalism, which combines with the power trajectories (a third-image variable) of both China and the United States to define how their relationship will unfold in the coming years. The interaction between nationalism and power trajectory produces entirely different foreign policy orientations in rising and declining powers-the former embraces an outward-looking, extroverted foreign policy of expansion, while the latter adopts an inward-looking, introverted foreign policy of restraint and retrenchment. The resurgent nationalisms of the rising challenger and the declining hegemon are entirely compatible with a future relationship characterized by peace and harmony. Obviously, the two nationalisms pose no inherent conflict of interests: China currently wants more global influence; the Unites States wants less. Hence, there is good reason to expect a soft landing as the world moves from unipolarity to bipolarity.

This article examines how the U.S. and China perceived each other’s domestic politics. It argues that the clarity of these perceptions determined the development of the faltering Sino-American rapprochement of the 1970s. It further shows how U.S. interventions in Beijing's politics had profound consequences for Zhou Enlai and Deng Xiaoping.

For round-table in Passport: The Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations Review 47:1 (April 2016), 14-18.
One of four round-table reviews (the others are by David C. Atkinson, Madeline Y. Hsu, and Eileen P. Scully) of Meredith Oyen's recent book, The Diplomacy of Migration: Transnational Lives and the Making of U.S.-Chinese Relations in the Cold War

This paper applies a neoclassical realist approach that combines systemic-and domestic-level variables to explain important aspects of the current global delegitimation phase. The key unit-level variable is nationalism, which interacts with structural-systemic factors to create unexpected behaviors for both the rising power and its threatened neighbors. With respect to China, nationalism interacts with its power status and trajectory to produce an increasingly assertive foreign policy regardless of whether it continues rising or stalls. With respect to China's neighbors, nationalism makes it easier for leaders to mobilize public support for military preparation and sacrifices associated with internal balancing behaviors. But nationalism and other powerful domestic factors interact with system structure to constrain China's neighbors from aligning with each other. These domestic restrictions that reduce the apparent flexibility of alliances under multipolarity partly explain the puzzling absence of a counterbalancing coalition against a rising and increasingly assertive China.

In 2005, noted historian Nancy Bernkopf Tucker advanced the thesis that President Richard M. Nixon and National Security Advisor Henry Kissinger viewed Taiwan as an expendable asset in their rush to promote Sino-American normalization, resulting in the administration conceding more than necessary in disregard for Taiwan’s future or status. This article examines documents declassified since Tucker’s study to argue that this interpretation is no longer tenable. Nixon and Kissinger applied to their Taiwan policy a set of principles remarkably consistent with their broader views on foreign policy, namely an emphasis on peoples directly involved in conflicts undertaking gradual, peaceful changes, while maintaining in the interim some form of security arrangement to maintain peace. Moreover, both Nixon and Kissinger understood the myriad benefits of the u.s. relationship with the Republic of China in advancing American interests and maintaining credibility in a volatile world, and, in fact, did consider the future status of Taiwan and its government. This culminated in the Kissinger-Zhou Enlai discussions in 1971 where the former deftly defended, to the extent possible, a principled commitment to Taiwan. Ultimately, the administration’s insistence on establishing rapprochement with Beijing did not mean that Washington simply would cave to every Chinese demand. Taiwan was not expendable.

The international equilibrium of power has been reallocated from west to east. The intermingling pressures that brought about the fierce conflicts of the last century are also moving. Economic development, shipping lanes, geography, territorial conflicts and natural resources all combine to form a potentially lethal environment. Avoiding the blunders that led to such devastation as occurred in 20th Century Europe has become something of a tightrope walk for the region’s two greatest powers, China and India.

Ada beberapa pertanyan fundamental yang akan dijawab dalam tulisan ini: Bagaimana karakter relasi Cina-Amerika mempengaruhi kondisi politik internasional kontemporer? Apa kontribusi Cina terhadap tatanan global saat ini? Temuan dari kajian ini menunjukkann bahwa nasionalisme dan kedaulatan merupakan beberapa faktor domestik yang berkontribusi kepada pembuatan politik luar negeri Cina. Sementara itu, faktor eksternal berupa globalisasi dan regionalism juga memiliki pengaruh signifikan terhadap bagaimana Cina melihat dunia. Temuan ini menunjukkan pula bahwa pandangan state-centric tidak lagi memiliki validitas dalam melihat pola perilaku kebijakan luar negeri Cina dan implikasinya terhadap politik internasional kontemporer. Dalam kondisi politik global sesudah Perang Dingin, faktor domestik dan eksternal saling terkait sehingga sulit dipisahkan mana yang lebih dominan.

How likely is a cold war between the US and China in accordance with their interests, ideologies, and activities? How today's' the Sino-American relationship resembles Cold War Era Sino-Soviet relations? What is the relationship between these two states, how it evolved since 1989, and what were/are the turning points?

Andrzej Mania, Marcin Grabowski, U.S. Department of State in the U.S. Policy towards the People’s Republic of China in the First Barack Obama Presidential Term (2009-2013), in: M. Pietraś, H. Dumała, B. Surmacz, A. Ziętek (eds.), Theory and Practice of International Relations: Intellectual Heritage of Professor Ziemowit Jacek Pietras, University of Maria Curie-Sklodowska Press, Lublin 2014, pp. 389-404

The U.S. disengagement from the Middle East begun during the Obama administration and perpetuated during the Trump four-year term have favored the emergence of a new regional order. As part of the currently fragmented multipolarity in the Middle East, the increased room for maneuver of regional actors has coincided with the spread of new perceptions of insecurity. This regional environment has generated a variety of dynamics including the establishment of coalitions that cross over the sectarian identities, the adoption of interventionist policies, the outbreak of proxy-wars, and the quest for alliances with extra-regional patrons such as Russia and China. Especially China has expanded its presence in the region, thereby laying the basis for long-term influence. For this reason, the Middle East is bound to become a competitive arena between the United States and China. Through the prism of power transition theory, the article explores the two Great Powers' role in the region by charting the future choices of the newly elected U.S. President Joe Biden.

In the title of his Beautiful Imperialist: China Perceives America, 1972-1990 (1991), David Shambaugh made a rather clever play on the Chinese characters, Mei Di, which could be translated literally as “beautiful imperialist,” but in the Chinese political lexicon are in fact a sort of Chinese acronym for “American imperialism,” which in Chinese is Meiguo diguo zhuyi, or meidi for short.  Shambaugh’s point was that for the Chinese the United States was beautiful or admirable, as its Chinese name Meiguo (“beautiful country) coincidentally suggests, for the Chinese admired America’s wealth, its powerful military, and its technological prowess.  Yet at the same time the post-1949 Chinese leadership has traditionally viewed American foreign policy as essentially imperialistic in nature.  In other words, the US was the “beautiful imperialist.”  This chapter is an overview of the Chinese view of the United States and US foreign policy, and it concludes that Beijing’s view of the US in 2009 is essentially that the US is less beautiful than in the past, and still somewhat imperialistic, referring to its recent economic woes and its actions in Iraq, respectively, but that Beijing’s stronger economic position today has given it the confidence to stand up to America should it need to, and so much power and influence that it has become less likely that it will have to.  This chapter is concerned with Sino-American relations from the perspective of Beijing.  It will include a brief history of the bilateral relationship, a discussion of the state of bilateral relations today, a discussion of the defining issues that shape the bilateral relationship, the reasons why this is the most important bilateral relationship for Beijing, how Washington policy is basically made in Beijing, and concluding thoughts about the future of Sino-American relations.

Recent research has explored how the Sino-American narrative struggle around COVID-19 might affect power shift dynamics and world order. An underlying assumption is that states craft strategic narratives in attempts to gain international support for their understandings of reality. This article evaluates such claims taking a mixed-methods approach. It analyzes American and Chinese strategic narratives about the pandemic, and their global diffusion and resonance in regional states that are important to the U.S.-led world order: Australia, India, South Korea, Turkey, and the United Kingdom. While the article confirms that strategic narratives remain a highly popular policy instrument, it argues that their efficacy appears limited. Overall, the five states in question either ignored the Sino-American narrative power battle by disseminating their own strategic narratives, or they engaged in "narrative hedging." Moreover, even China's narrative entrepreneurship was enabled and constrained by pre-existing master narratives integral to the current U.S.led world order.

During the 1980s, an interlocking complex of U.S. non-governmental organizations (the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Asia Society, and the Rockefeller and Ford Foundations) gradually built up contacts with Chinese elites. By mid-decade, the National Committee and the Chinese People’s Institute of Foreign Affairs began a series of “U.S.-China Dialogues” in which influential figures from both sides met alternately in Beijing and the United States, supposedly informally, to discuss the state of Sino-American relations. Though the outcome of the protests at Tiananmen in June 1989 shocked them, American China-watchers consciously decided that contacts and efforts at communication and understanding must continue. At the Fourth U.S.-China Dialogue meeting in Beijing in early 1990, the American and Chinese participants assumed radically different positions, with the Chinese complaining bitterly about U.S. interference in China’s internal affairs. However, as the meeting ended, both sides agreed that, while there had been little agreement, such contacts and dialogues were valuable and must continue.

Analytical Liberalism (AL) predicates that preferences emerge from domestic actors and that domestic politics must addressed before any obstacles facing a state can be understood. NCR, rather, is more persuasive in its explanation of foreign policy outcomes during Obama’s presidency because it accepts that the international system is constrained, influenced and shaped by state behavior, and also maintains that domestic-level variables and elite perceptions act as intervening variables thus influencing state foreign policy. The NCR perspective also predicted that a state would pursue a more restricted, cautious foreign policy if it has experienced a decline in relative power. This reflected the Obama administration’s filtration of systemic-level imperatives through the lens of elite perceptions and domestic politics. While the DSG sought to respond to the systemic-level threats posed by China and Iran, it was constrained and shaped by the domestic politics of the fiscal crisis and the Budget Control Act, as well as the worldview of the president and his advisors. By examining systemic, domestic, and elite influences affecting the U.S. in 2012, this paper demonstrates that the DSG illustrates the core principles of NCR.

Three documentary films made by the U.S. Army during World War II dramatically showed the war in China.  "The Battle of China" (1944) was the sixth of seven "Why We Fight" orientation films made by the legendary Hollywood director Frank Capra – at the request of General George C. Marshall.  "China Crisis" (1945), largely shot in India, Burma, and China by combat cameraman Harold E. "Hal" Geer, showcased the Fourteenth Air Force.  And "Stilwell Road" (1945) chronicled the construction of the road between Ledo, India, and Kunming, China, as American, Chinese, British, and Indian forces pushed back the Japanese in Burma.  It was narrated by Captain Ronald Reagan.  Viewing the films sixty years after the end of the war, they recall a period of alliance and provide an example for U.S.-China cooperation.  [Interview, China Youth Daily Journalist Jiang Fei with Donald M. Bishop, American Embassy Minister-Counselor for Press and Cultural Affairs]

Sino-American relations are comprised of a complex field of factors which have influenced both cooperation and confrontation between the Chinese and Americans.  The factors which present the most obstacles are undoubtedly rooted in the Sino-American military relationship where there has been a great deal of potentially dangerous misunderstandings.  Part one of this study provides an overview of the literature on Sino-American relations, Sino-American military relations, and perception within the context of those relations.  Part two builds on the sparse literature that focuses on perception by further exploring how western media perceives military relations through the analysis of media articles published in the Washington Post and the New York Times between 2001 and 2017.  How military relations are framed in the media is important for understanding the perceptual boundaries within which policymakers can act along the cooperative-confrontational continuum.  The study concludes that the confrontational discursive approach dominating the framing of military relations is problematic for determining the most effective means of maintaining regional stability, order and peace in the Asia Pacific region as well as facilitating geostrategic security cooperation between the two countries.
 

Key Words: Sino-American Relations, Sino-American military Relations, China, Asia Pacific, Security Cooperation

George Orwell's 1984 was published in 1948 With the help of various publishers, journals, and cultural organizations secretly funded by the Central Intelligence Agency, the work was published widely ,translated into many languages and became a foundational element of global anti-communist ideology In the novel, Big Brother was widely seen as Joseph Stalin while the masses of people, called the " Proles " were held in contempt by inner party elite. Oceana, the transnational world power where the novel was set, was in an endless state of war against two rival world powers, East Asia and Eurasia, a war where enemies changed at the drop of a hat but the war mobilization was permanent and Africa, outside the three great powers, was the always the reported battleground1 In the novel, mass media/information was the controlled by the Ministry of Truth (Orwell got experience for 1984 working in wartime British Propaganda) where everything was its opposite, freedom was slavery, peace was war. " Newspeak " provided the language and framework through which a continuous flow of information was filtered The real historical 1984 saw former movie actor and U.S. President Ronald Reagan, who resembled Big Brother far more than Joseph Stalin, saving the U.S. from the Island of Grenada, bombing cities to kill rogue heads of state, and arming " freedom fighters " in Afghanistan to fight against the " Evil Soviet Empire, " Reagan