The dynamic between the United States and China is the most
complex bilateral relationship in the modern age. In the fifty years since
President Nixon’s opening to China, Sino-American relations have undergone an
impressive transformation from animosity and conflict during the Cold War to
candid dialogue and cooperation in the unipolar moment. These two vastly
complicated countries found common ground on issues of trade, investment, and
in peacekeeping and maintenance of global security. Alarmingly, however,
animosity and conflict have reemerged with great urgency in the past decade. Relations
between the two countries are becoming colder as American officials are crafting
“a strategy that deals with China as it is, rather than as they wish it were,”
indicating a harder line will be proposed. The potential for instability to the
world order looms as China continues to build its economic might and military
strength in what looks to be a formidable contest for hegemony with the United
States.
Opinions vastly differ in what should be America’s response to
China. Some believe that China as rising power will threaten the United States,
with violence as the likeliest outcome.[1] Neorealist
John Mearsheimer writes the contestation of America’s power is inevitable and
will lead to an intense security competition between China and the United
States.[2]
Are these scholars right? Historians are unsure because attempting to answer
these questions with political theory have proven inadequate; China does not
behave in ways that are cognizable to those utilizing western political thought
as their basis of understanding. How can the United States better understand and
respond to China? The answer lies in examining how the United States has
perceived China over time and how those perceptions differ from reality. Rather
than measuring the relationship with political theory, this dissertation seeks
to interpret the relationship through discourse analysis of the intellectual
perceptions of China by American elites.
In order to fully comprehend the political and strategic
implications of America’s relationship with China, historical analysis must be
utilized in order to understand why certain tropes and ideas of China exist and
persist in America’s collective memory and American political elite perception. This
analysis utilizes intellectual historian Quentin Skinner’s methodology from the
Cambridge School of “historicist contextualism” in which discourse is “placed
within the larger, historical context of linguistic utterances, written or
verbal, of which it is a demonstrable part,”[3]
and examining how China has been written about over time. Examination of the
cultural circulation of such discourse and “its diffusion beyond the confines
of an intellectual elite and into the wider sphere of society”[4]
will help to trace the broader patterns found within the discourse. Diplomatic
records are available on all four periods in the Foreign Relations of the United States series, Freedom of
Information Act reading rooms, and personal memoirs of each of the Presidents
and their Secretaries of State and National Security Advisors. Oral histories
from the Association for Diplomatic Studies and Training are also available on
twentieth-century interactions. Additionally, retired government officials who
were involved in twentieth-century relations are available for interview.
At the
same time, the dissertation will examine the dialogical relationship between how
China has been represented in popular culture over time and the direction of
U.S.-China relations vis-a-vis elite opinion. The dissertation will attempt to
provide empiricist explanations using representative data, such as keyword
usage and popular opinion polls, and apply an interpretation through the methodological
tools of intellectual historians who examine the empirical impact of the
cultural dispersion of ideas through textual and dialogical analysis.
While
much has been written about this topic recently, it is political analysis and
theory. The most recent historical
analysis has been by Gordon Chang in Fateful Ties: America’s Preoccupation
with China (2015), in which he traces the outlines of American cultural
fascination and dualistic policies toward China. His volume is more a social
and cultural history of relations. Discourse analysis was conducted by leading
twentieth-century China historian John K. Fairbank when he wrote China Perceived:
Images and Policies in Chinese-American Relations in 1974. Clearly, a need
for contemporary interpretation of this very important relationship exists. As
a scholar of international affairs and having taught courses on diplomacy and
America’s foreign relations, this author is well-placed to examine this topic. Personal
contacts from her career as a Foreign Service Officer at the US Department of
State will also assist research.
This
dissertation will focus on four specific periods that constitute pivotal
moments in US-China relations: The Open-Door Notes era, rapprochement during
the Nixon administration, Carter’s official diplomatic recognition of China,
and the Clinton era in which the administration heavily supported China in its
bid for entry into the World Trade Organization and helped launched China’s
economy into rapid modernization and growth. Within each of these periods,
changes occurred that fundamentally shifted the nature of the relationship and
the trajectory of each nation in the global world order. And it is through
examination of these periods that we may be able to better understand how to
craft future China policy.
Bibliography
Allison,
Graham. Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?
Reprint edition. Mariner Books, 2017.
Chang, Gordon H. Fateful Ties: A History
of America’s Preoccupation with China. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard
University Press, 2015.
Fairbank, John King. China Perceived:
Images and Policies in Chinese-American Relations. New York: Knopf, 1974.
Gordon, Peter E. “What Is
Intellectual History? A Frankly Partisan Introduction to a Frequently
Misunderstood Field.” Harvard University, Spring 2012.
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/history/files/what_is_intell_history_pgordon_mar2012.pdf.
Mearsheimer, John J. “The Gathering
Storm: China’s Challenge to US Power in Asia.” The Chinese Journal of
International Politics 3, no. 4 (December 1, 2010): 381–96.
https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/poq016.
[1] Graham
Allison, Destined for War: Can America and China Escape Thucydides’s Trap?,
Reprint edition (Mariner Books, 2017).
[2] John J.
Mearsheimer, “The Gathering Storm: China’s Challenge to US Power in Asia,” The
Chinese Journal of International Politics 3, no. 4 (December 1, 2010): 382,
https://doi.org/10.1093/cjip/poq016.
[3] Peter E.
Gordon, “What Is Intellectual History? A Frankly Partisan Introduction to a
Frequently Misunderstood Field” (Harvard University, Spring 2012), 8,
https://projects.iq.harvard.edu/files/history/files/what_is_intell_history_pgordon_mar2012.pdf.
[4] Ibid. 11.
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