issues moved from being the main source of converging interests between
the United States and China to the main source of divergence and mutual
distrust between the two countries. Throughout the entire period, security
issues have never been uniformly positive or negative for the relationship;
their implications usually have been mixed. However, the broad pattern
shows important convergence of Sino-American security interests against the
Soviet Union in the period from the late 1960s through the early 1980s. This
convergence can be explained using the lens of realism in international rela-
tions (IR) theory, with both the United States and China putting aside impor-
tant differences in pragmatically seeking advantage in mutual collaboration
against a common adversary. US-China security ties were cut drastically
after the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown. This US step can be explained in part
by liberalism in IR theory, with the United States asserting strong opposition
to China’s affront to American liberal norms involving human rights and
democracy. Constructivism in IR theory helps explain what happened next.
In response to US assertion of its liberal values, the Chinese government put
much greater emphasis on strongly conditioning Chinese opinion to support a
Communist Party–led China. Each side reinforced an identity of its state and
society with divergent values and norms, complicating compromise and col-
laboration up to the present. The United States and China did restore busi-
nesslike security ties and developed common ground on a variety of interna-
tional security questions. These positive elements were offset by differences
on a range of security issues. The differences arose against a background of
changing Asian and international power relations caused in part by China’s
rising power and prominence in international affairs, and particularly by
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China’s strong military modernization focused on Asian issues of key con-
cern to the United States. China’s growing military role in Asia was sup-
ported by expanding Chinese nuclear and unconventional attack capabilities
and espionage directed at the United States. The pattern in the 2010s has seen
China employing its increasing power and acting more boldly and assertively
to change the regional and international status quo, supported by what it sees
as a declining United States. Against the background of strong national iden-
tities with many antagonistic values and norms that can be understood by
constructivism, the maneuvering of the two powers in the post–Cold War
period can be assessed using realism, with both sides seeking advantage amid
changing power realities in Asia and the world.
CONVERGENCE AGAINST THE SOVIET THREAT
As discussed in chapter 4, the United States and China aligned together after
decades of intense Cold War conflict and confrontation because of common
security interests in the face of an expanding threat posed by the Soviet
Union. Maoist China was racked by factional leadership disputes and com-
mitted to radical domestic and foreign policies and practices, but the Chinese
leadership saw the need and wisdom of working closely with the United
States in the face of the pressure China was receiving from the USSR. The
Nixon administration and later US governments were prepared to put aside
or play down a long list of American differences with China over foreign
policy, economics, and values, in order for American foreign policy to priori-
tize the development of a new opening to China for the benefit of US inter-
ests in Asian and world affairs—interests that were challenged in particular
by expanding Soviet power. 1
Both governments judged they had a lot at stake in how they worked
together and in parallel to deal with security dangers posed by the Soviet
Union. China was particularly vocal in complaining repeatedly in the 1970s
and early 1980s that the United States was not firm enough in dealing with
Soviet expansion or that the United States was too interested in bilateral
agreements with Moscow that would benefit the United States but have ad-
verse consequences for China. It took years for Chinese leaders to overcome
a previous assumption that the United States would be more likely to cooper-
ate with the Soviet Union against Chinese interests than to cooperate with
China against the USSR. American leaders were concerned during this peri-
od with the possibility of a Sino-Soviet rapprochement and the negative
impact this would have on US foreign policy and security. They worked hard
to keep China on the US side in an international arena seen heavily influ-
enced by trilateral US-USSR-China relations. 2
Security Issues in Contemporary US-China Relations
167
The Shanghai Communiqué of 1972 and other official statements of both
China and the United States during the 1970s and early 1980s made clear the
large number of security as well as economic, political, and other issues that
continued to divide the two countries. Despite secret US concessions to
China over Taiwan at the start of the Sino-American normalization process,
the slow pace of US withdrawal from official relations with Taiwan and the
continued US commitments to the island government remained at the center
of a set of key differences between the United States and China that were of
fundamental importance to China. The United States was disappointed with
China’s position regarding the US war in Vietnam. Chinese leaders seemed
from the American perspective to straddle the fence in opening closer rela-
tions with the United States while continuing support for the Vietnamese
Communists fighting Americans in Indochina. 3
The two powers were at odds over the Korean Peninsula, where they were
on opposite sides, China supporting Kim Il-song’s North Korea and the
United States sustaining a strong alliance with and large military presence in
South Korea. The close US alliance with Japan and China’s avowed fear of
revived Japanese “militarism” were important sources of differences between
the United States and China, though China and Japan quickly normalized
their relations in 1972, and China seemed more concerned in this period in
shoring up Japanese resolve to join with the United States and China in
struggling against the danger posed by the expanding Soviet Union. Else-
where in international politics, China’s influence was comparatively small,
as Beijing was slowly rebuilding its international relationships tattered by the binge of self-righteous radicalism during the Cultural Revolution; Chinese
leaders generally followed a path that focused opposition against the Soviet
Union but also demonstrated strong differences with the United States. Chi-
nese officials publicly opposed the two superpowers: the Soviet Union and
the United States. The Chinese priority was building a strong international
united front against expanding Soviet “hegemonism,” but China continued to
register strong differences with US policies in the Middle East, Africa, Latin
America, and other parts of the developing wo
rld, as well as US positions in
international organizations and American views on international economic
and political issues. 4
Balancing American security interests with China and the Soviet Union
was a repeated challenge for US policy makers. The prevailing US tendency
to “play the China card,” to lean closer to China in seeking US advantage
against the Soviet Union, remained controversial in American politics and
government decision making. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance and critics in
and out of government saw US interests better served by seeking negotia-
tions and improved relations with the USSR through arms control and other
agreements. China’s actual utility in assisting the United States in dealing
with the expanding Soviet power also seemed limited. What exactly China
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Chapter 8
would do in assisting the United States in a security confrontation with the
Soviet Union was subject to debate. 5 In addition, China’s sometimes strident positions and provocative actions against the USSR or its allies raised the
danger of military conflict that alarmed some US officials. For example,
China’s military invasion of Soviet-backed Vietnam in 1979 prompted nu-
merous statements of disagreement from prominent Americans. 6
How US support for China in the face of the common danger posed by the
Soviet Union would impact other important US security issues remained
controversial. The United States was reluctant to build close military ties
with China; US arms sales to the Chinese government were not an option
until the early 1980s. Not only were such sales and the closer US alignment
with China seen as limiting US options in relations with the Soviet Union,
but US arms sales to China also had implications for long-standing US allies
and associates in Asia who remained wary of Chinese intentions and expand-
ing military capabilities. Nonetheless, the Jimmy Carter administration and
the early Ronald Reagan administration continued efforts to solidify US
security and other relations with China on an anti-Soviet basis. The full
extent of American security cooperation with China against the Soviet Union
did not become clear until years later. It involved extensive Sino-American
clandestine operations directed against Soviet forces occupying Afghanistan
following the Soviet invasion of December 1979, and agreements allowing
US intelligence agents to monitor Soviet ballistic missile tests from sites in
China. 7
TIANANMEN AND POST–COLD WAR DIVERGENCE
US sanctions against China in reaction to the Tiananmen crackdown focused
heavily on the US-China military relationship. The George H. W. Bush ad-
ministration suspended military-to-military contacts and arms sales to China.
US legislation in February 1990 enacted into law sanctions imposed on US
arms sales and other military cooperation. In April, China cancelled what had
been the most significant US arms transfer to China, the so-called Peace
Pearl program to upgrade avionics of Chinese fighter planes. 8
The Bill Clinton administration began to revive military-to-military meet-
ings with China. However, relations were marred by the Sino-American
military face-off in the Taiwan Strait as a result of China’s provocative
military exercises there in 1995–96; the trashing of US diplomatic properties
in China following the US bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in
1999; and, during the first months of the George W. Bush administration, the
crash of the EP-3 US surveillance aircraft with a Chinese fighter jet in 2001. 9
During this period, Congress stuck to a harder line toward China than the
administration did. It passed into law strict limits on the types of military
Security Issues in Contemporary US-China Relations
169
exchanges the United States could carry out with China, and it required
reports on the purpose and scope of such exchanges. It also required clas-
sified and unclassified annual reports on the purpose and scope of China’s
military buildup and its implications for American interests. 10
The US reaction to the Tiananmen crackdown and the shifts in US policy
toward China and Taiwan as a result of the decline and demise of the Soviet
Union and the emergence of newly democratic Taiwan raised fundamental
security questions in China regarding the United States. Though US adminis-
trations continued with varying vigor to pursue engagement with China, US
leaders repeatedly made clear their interest in American liberal values and
sought to promote change in China’s authoritarian political system. The top
priority of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leadership was to preserve
its rule in China, and the Chinese military and broader security apparatus
focused on this task accordingly. As a result, Chinese security and other
leaders came to view the US government and related nongovernment organ-
izations and groups, notably the US media, which encouraged and fostered
democratic change in China, as a fundamental threat to this key Chinese
national security goal. 11
The shift in American support for Taiwan also was seen in China as
fundamentally at odds with Chinese national security objectives regarding
preservation of Chinese sovereign claims and security. The fact that the
Clinton administration, seen by Chinese officials as sometimes irresolute on
security issues, sent two aircraft carrier battle groups to face off against
Chinese forces in the Taiwan area at the height of the Taiwan Strait crisis in
1996 had important lessons for Chinese national security planners. From that
time forward, Chinese security planners seemed to have little doubt that a
key aspect of Chinese military preparations to counter Taiwan’s moves to-
ward independence must involve building the military capability to impede
or deter US military intervention in a possible conflict between China and
Taiwan. Meanwhile, the US threat to Chinese national security and sov-
ereignty also took other concrete forms for China, as American leaders be-
came more prominent in support for the Dalai Lama and his calls for greater
Tibetan autonomy, and as they supported legislation and administrative ac-
tions pressing for democratic change and greater autonomy for Hong Kong
as it passed from British to Chinese rule in 1997. 12
TWENTY-FIRST-CENTURY DEVELOPMENTS: REASSURANCE
FOLLOWED BY GROWING TENSIONS
China’s foreign policy approach shifted in the first decade of the twenty-first century in order to take into account concerns over the possible negative
reactions of the United States and other powers to China’s rising internation-
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Chapter 8
al prominence and influence. More emphasis was given to reassuring China’s
neighbors, and new emphasis was given to reassuring the United States; all
were told that China’s rise would not affect their interests in adverse ways.
Opposition to “hegemonism” (a code word used by China in the past to
condemn the now-collapsed Soviet Union and used prominently by Chinese
officials and media throughout the 1990s to condemn the United States) had
been one of the t
wo main stated goals in major Chinese foreign policy pro-
nouncements for decades. It was dropped from major Chinese foreign policy
statements, or it received only passing reference. In its place emerged a
policy of reassurance with a strong focus on the United States. The process of
this evolution and change in Chinese foreign policy took several years and
culminated in a major foreign policy document, “China’s Peaceful Develop-
ment Road,” released by the Chinese government in December 2005. A few
years later, China’s foreign policy goal was recast by party leader Hu Jintao,
who stressed that China was seeking to promote a “harmonious world” as the
Chinese government also strove to achieve greater harmony inside China.
The net effect of the new emphasis on “harmony” reinforced Chinese efforts
to reassure American and other foreign leaders concerned with the implica-
tions of China’s rise.
As shown in chapter 7, the emphasis on reassuring the United States did
not last. On the one hand, the Xi Jinping leadership came to power in
2012–13 and stressed a nonconfrontational and constructive framework for
US-China relations known as a “new type of great power relationship.” On
the other hand, Beijing carried out a wide range of actions much bolder than
under the previous Chinese president to advance the Xi government’s
avowed “China Dream,” which involved policy choices that came at the
expense of a broad range of American interests in the prevailing Asian and
international order. Many Chinese and American observers saw the United
States as weakened and in decline on account of the draining wars and
security commitments involving Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, and the Islamic
State, and the protracted economic recession brought on by the American
financial breakdown in 2008. Under these circumstances, China was seen
opportunistically advancing its interests through bolder actions and initia-
tives—short of military confrontation—that came at American expense. The
Barack Obama government endeavored to counter China’s moves in part
through its signature “pivot” to Asia, or “rebalance,” policy. The policy was
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