The Conduct of Post-Tiananmen U.S. China Policy

Abstract

T hree years after Tiananmen massacre, U.S. relations with People's Republic of China (PRC) remain strained in spite of Bush administration's best intentions not to overreact to event, and prospect of normalizing bilateral relationship in near future is far from bright. Beijing has reiterated that its relations with European nations and Japan have been restored to pre-1989 level, but it has lamented that relations with United States have yet to be repaired. Indeed, impact of event on bilateral relationship is so immeasurable that Richard Nixon characterized massacre at Tiananmen Square as the greatest crisis in Chinese-American relations since we opened new relationship in 1972.' I contend in this article that difficulty Bush administration has been experiencing in conducting relations with China is due to adverse change in operational milieu under which bilateral relations have developed, a change caused by convergence of massacre and end of cold war. Up to that traumatic moment, there existed in United States a broad consensus in support of developing a cordial and stable relationship with China.2 In addition, Congress played a largely subordinate role in formulating China policy and was supportive of various diplomatic initiatives toward Beijing. A profoundly anti-communist public opinion was transformed in tandem with progress made in bilateral relations into a reservoir of goodwill toward China's modernization efforts. Finally, China's strategic impor-