Tiananmen Crisis Research Articles

American Sanctions towards China: 1990-2010s

The article is devoted to the research of American sanctions against China imposed after 1989 Tiananmen Crisis. During 1990s the problem of the sanction extension was in American political agenda allowing the politicians (for example, Bill Clinton) to get their political points. However, bonuses for American capital and the strong confidence of American elite in inevitable victory of Western neoliberal model in China following the development of trade and economic ties with the West made the sanctions nominal and uninfluential. The situation lasted for more than two decades before D. Trump declared the Trade War.

The Refugee Challenge in Post–Cold War America

At the end of 2019, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees reported that there were 79.5 million people forcibly displaced around the world, including 26 million refugees, 4.2 million asylum seekers, and over 45 million internally displaced individuals.1 These figures underscore the timeliness of María Cristina García's The Refugee Challenge in Post–Cold War America, the first historical monograph that takes the narrative of US refugee policy beyond the 1980s and into the twenty-first century. García centers the interplay between forces that have prompted resettlement opportunities to expand and contract. Ultimately, she distills this debate to a contest between fears—about economic anxieties and terrorism, especially—and humanitarian impulses.The Refugee Challenge expertly charts these tensions in four chronological chapters. Chapter 1 explores the years immediately after 1989 using Soviet refuseniks, Chinese university students in the wake of the Tiananmen crisis, and Haitian and Cuban boat people as case studies. Chapter 2, also using a case study approach, explores the United States’ responses—or lack thereof—to genocide in Iraq, Rwanda, Bosnia, and Kosovo. García's third chapter provides a revealing look into changes in the US immigration bureaucracy. She vividly documents the importance of the 1993 and 2001 terrorist attacks by detailing how these events led to significant bureaucratic restructurings. The most notable such reorganization involved the creation of the Department of Homeland Security in 2002 and the inclusion of immigration policy under this new cabinet level center of power. Chapter 4 highlights the complex, even contradictory functioning of the asylum bureaucracy. Collectively, these chapters offer keen insight into the vitally important questions of how policy is made and implemented.The Refugee Challenge is a critical addition to our understanding of US refugee policy. Using a global framework and an interdisciplinary approach, García highlights key characteristics of US refugee policy in the post–Cold War era. First, she demonstrates the extent to which the United States, which so often acted unliterally during the Cold War, has come to selectively endorse a multi-lateral approach, working with the international community to address what are described as “refugee crises” in collective fashion. Second, García argues that the United States has embraced and, in fact, grown ever more dependent on the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and other NGOs in its efforts to determine who is eligible for a coveted US refugee visa. García also notes that, third, the refugees and asylum-seekers admitted to the United States after 1989 hail from a much wider set of home nations than those who entered during the Cold War.Perhaps one of García's most important contributions is to demonstrate the inadequacy of the legal definition of “refugee.” Popular application of the refugee label has far eclipsed the legal requirements that one must be “outside” their country of nationality and facing political persecution to quality for refugee status. Those displaced by natural disasters, for instance, are routinely referred to as refugees. García's book demonstrates that it is not just pundits and popular audiences who apply the refugee label more liberally than the legal definition, it is policymakers as well. As García explains, the US government has often used “in country” processing for refugee resettlement, a practice that defies the requirement that one must be “outside” their country of nationality. García also traces the ways US officials admit refugees through creative means when “quotas have proved insufficient” (p. 3). Although both of these trends were present prior to 1989, especially in response to the Indochinese diaspora, García deftly shows how they became more pronounced in the post–Cold War era.This decoupling of the term refugee from its legal definition reveals the extent to which refugee admissions relies more on political will than legal structures. It is also indicative of larger trends. At the same time that the refugee label has become unmoored from its legal definition, technological advancements, especially drones, have promoted war to “burst out of its old boundaries” in ways that have prompted legal scholars to wonder if the ways we think about and regulate warfare are obsolete.2 The relationship between war and migration in these changing, complex circumstances will no doubt be of keen interest to historians in the years ahead.As relevant sources undergo declassification, it is inevitable that future works will expand, amend, and contest the conclusions offered in The Refugee Challenge. What is equally certain, however, is that the scholarly community owes García a huge debt of gratitude for blazing a trail upon which the next generation of scholarship can travel. Her latest book is essential reading.

The United Nations and Development Assistance in the Asia-Pacific Region

The United Nations at Work in Asia: An Envoy's Account of Development in China, Vietnam, Thailand and the South Pacific. By Roy D. Morey Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Co, 2014. 277 pp., $33.25 paperback (ISBN-13: 978-0-786-47871-2). The rather formal title of this book belies its rich, varied, and original content. Roy Morey takes the reader on his extraordinary life's journey from US Senate staffer; to junior academic in Granville, Ohio; to the Nixon White House as Ehrlichman's chief public opinion polling officer; to the Department of State as Deputy Assistant Secretary of State in the Bureau of International Organization Affairs; and finally, to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), where a four-month consultancy expanded into a permanent career as UNDP resident representative in the Asia-Pacific region: in Thailand, Samoa and the “Microdots,” China, and Vietnam. Morey's final posting, as Director of the UNDP office in Washington, brings him full-circle, enabling him to look back and, with a wise and critical eye, assess the many strengths, and occasional weaknesses, of the United Nations and, particularly, the UNDP. He evaluates the contributions of these international organizations to each country to which he was posted, and enumerates the critical lessons gleaned from a lifetime's work in development assistance. The book also represents a journey in Morey's personal development, from self-described Republican and (continuing) admirer of Richard Nixon to thoughtful and cosmopolitan citizen of the world, asserting the values and virtues of the United Nations in the face of a skeptical Tea Party critique. Because of the fortuitous timing of his postings, Morey was present at some important turning points in international and developmental politics. Most dramatic was his appointment to China in 1988 and his first-hand experience of the 1989 Tiananmen crisis, when he assumed the critical role of expatriating UN personnel from Beijing. Prior to that time, from 1978, he was involved in …

Educational Exchange in Post-Mao U. S.-China Relations: The Hopkins-Nanjing Center

AbstractFounded in 1986, an educational joint venture between Johns Hopkins University and Nanjing University has survived the trials of culture, geopolitics, and nature. As it entered its third decade, the Hopkins-Nanjing Center for Chinese and American Studies offered the first ever Sino-U. S. joint master's degree. This article traces the evolution of this bi-national institution, exploring its role in international relations, cultural exchange, economic globalization, and China's postMao drive toward modernization. A risk-taking Chinese university president, his American counterpart, a Chinese-American scientist who served as cultural mediator, the Tiananmen crisis, the SARS epidemic, Chinese and American students seeking to advance careers and mutual understanding–all these factors play a role in the story. Though continuous in many ways with early twentieth-century exchanges, the Hopkins-Nanjing Center diverges from the former pattern by being an equal partnership. This difference reflects China's growing economic and political power as well as a different American sensibility. In addition to reflecting the state of bilateral relations, the Center has contributed to relations through the symbolism of its survival and hopes, over the long term, to contribute by training future leaders in the government, business, and civil society sectors of the two societies.

The Impact of the Tiananmen Crisis on China's Economic Transition

The social and economic model that emerged out of the Tiananmen crisis was profoundly different from that contemplated on the eve of Tiananmen. China made a firm transition to a high-input, high investment, high growth model of development. The broad but vague social consensus in favour of political and economic reforms that underlay the Tiananmen protests crumbled, while the economy boomed and some people became much better off. In the post- Tiananmen period a strong economic logic and a strong political logic coincided to produce a policy regime that was remarkably consistent and strongly self-replicating.

Structural Sources of China's Territorial Compromises

More than a decade ago, in a review of Jack Snyder's Myths of Empire, Fareed Zakaria noted: After over a decade of vigorous debates about realism, structural realism, neoliberal institutionalism, and hegemonic stability theory, political scientists are shifting their attention to the internal sources of foreign policy. Some even contend that realism's dictum about the 'primacy of foreign policy' is wrong, and that the domestic politics of states are key to understanding world events. Innenpolitik is in.' evidenced by Taylor Fravel's Regime Insecurity and International Cooperation: Explaining China's Compromises in Territorial Disputes, Innenpolitik is still in.2 In Fravel's words, Regime insecurity best explains China's pattern of cooperation and delay in its territorial disputes between 1949 and 2004 (p. 81). According to the regime insecurity hypothesis, Internal conflict often creates conditions for cooperation, producing a 'diversionary peace' instead of war (p. 49). Given the domestic vulnerability of the Chinese Communist regime during periods such as the revolt in Tibet and the upheaval that followed the Tiananmen crisis, Chinese leaders reached territorial compromises to extend their tenure in office (p. 51). Although intuitively plausible, Fravel's regime vulnerability argument is flawed, for two reasons. First, his confidence in the empirical accuracy of the domestic insecuritydiversionary peace theory rests on a realist straw man, arguing that China's behavior is inconsistent with the predictions of realist theories because China has not used its power advantages to bargain hard over contested land, especially with its weaker neighbors (p. 46). When properly construed and understood, realist theories can explain territorial compromises as well as conflict. Realist theories suggest that strong states exploit the weak, but only under certain conditions because powerful states often face powerful incentives not to exploit their weaker neighbors: As Stuart Kaufman suggests, the logic of self-help under anarchy 'encourages strong powers to absorb

Long-term outlook for China’s political reform

China’s post-1978 economic reform is generally acclaimed as success, for the Chinese economy has expanded nine-fold in a matter of 25 years and the country rose from the world’s 34th largest trading nation in 1978 to the third largest in 2004 ahead of Japan. Interestingly, the Chinese experiment is often described in the West as “economic reform without political reform”. This begets the question: how could a politically un-reformed system be able to deliver such an economic miracle? In reality, China has conducted, by its own standards, major political reforms since 1978. Though far short of the Western expectations, the Chinese experience since 1978 should better be described as “great economic reforms with lesser political reforms”, without which China’s economic success would be inconceivable. China’s “lesser political reforms” have reduced country’s opportunities for greater political change, thus alienating many reform-minded intellectuals. Nevertheless, it may also have helped China avert the possible economic and social upheavals which could have resulted from rushing too fast into a radically different economic and political system. There is a strongly held belief, especially among the more ‘ideological’ observers of Chinese affairs that unless there were a radical political reform, perhaps tantamount to a revolution, to rid China of its “oppressive” Communist Party, the Chinese system would inevitably collapse just like what had happened in the USSR and Eastern Europe. As the party has been in power, China had been predicted to face collapse in the aftermath of the Tiananmen crisis of 1989, the Soviet Union’s disintegration of 1990, the death of Deng Xiaoping in 1996, and the Asian financial crisis of 1997 and the 2003 outbreak of SARS. Yet all these forecasts turned out to be wrong and the track record of the China doomsayers over the past 20 years is indeed poor. Will China become a democracy through its political reform in 20 years? Indeed, a full democracy could be the best scenario for China, the region and beyond, but it is difficult to give a definitive answer, which will, to a great extent, depend on how to achieve democracy in China, i.e. the costs/risks involved, as well as what kind of ultimate shape such a democracy will take. If full-fledged democratisation will take more time, the pressure for a more accountable government and more democratic society is growing, and this trend will continue with the rise of China’s middle class and civil society. Therefore, the most likely scenario for China in the coming two decades is that China will continue its own approach to political reform, and the relative successful experience of China’s economic reform may well set a pattern for China’s political reform in the years to come. As part of Europe’s general approach towards China’s political change, it is in Europe’s interest to assist, in line with the view of most Chinese, gradual reform rather than revolution or ‘regime change’, which could produce hugely negative consequences for China itself, Sino–European relations and European interests in China and even East Asia.

China's Changing of the Guard: Authoritarian Resilience

After the Tiananmen crisis in June, 1989, many observers thought that the rule of the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) would collapse. Instead, the regime brought inflation under control, restarted economic growth, expanded foreign trade, and increased its absorption of foreign direct investment. It restored normal relations with the G-7 countries that had imposed sanctions, resumed the exchange of summits with the United States, presided over the retrocession of Hong Kong to Chinese sovereignty, and won the right to hold the 2008 Olympics in Beijing. It arrested or exiled political dissidents, crushed the fledgling China Democratic Party, and seems to have largely suppressed the Falun Gong spiritual movement.

Chinese Populist Nationalism: Its Intellectual Politics and Moral Dilemma

In light of the growth of nationalism in China during the 1990s, it should comeas no surprise that intellectuals there have vigorously debated its political meaning and signiŽ cance. From their debates has emerged a multifariouspopulist nationalism which argues that anti-imperialist nationalism in China has provided a valuable public space for popular participation outside the country’s political institutions and that nationalist sentiments under the postcolonial condition represent a democratic form of civic activity. Advocates of this theory promote nationalism as an ideal of populist politics and as an embodiment of the democratic legitimacy that resides in the will of the people. Their justiŽ cation for populist nationalism is based on the argument that Chinese nationalismhas become the incarnation of the democratic process that allows the common people to join with others in forming ideals of equality and dignity in the national environment. This populist rhetoric radicalizes the emotional element in nationalist discourses and constructs nationalist politics as a fulŽ llment of the nation’s otherwise unavailable democratic public life. Populist nationalism is a comparatively late development in Chinese nationalism of the 1990s. It began to take recognizable shape after 1996, as a joint result of the evolving nationalist thinking of the early 1990s and the ongoing debates on modernity, postmodernism, postcolonialism, and their political implications—debates that have engaged many Chinese intellectuals since early 1995. From late 1989 to early 1992, nationalism was mainly an oYcial ideology by which the Chinese government buttressed the legitimacy of its tattered regime after the Tiananmen massacre. Throughout the second half of 1989, mainland media reiterated Deng Xiaoping’s explanation for the Tiananmen crisis: ‘‘This storm was bound to come sooner or later. This was determined by the major international climate and China’s own minor climate.’’ OYcial nationalism took a Ž rmly antagonistic stand

The Chinese Anti-American Nationalism in the 1990s

Abstract: After 1989, nationalism was on the march while anti-Americanism was rising in China. The Chinese nationalism with anti-U.S. sentiments came from three levels. First, Beijing was promoting patriotic education and anti-Americanism campaigns after the Tiananmen crisis and the end of the Cold War. They permeated Chinese society which was under the influence of powerful official propaganda. Secondly, after the Tiananmen incident, many Chinese intellectuals created a number of works of literature and arts expressing their national pride and anti-U.S. feelings because of their new studies on the Western culture, their frustrated personal experiences in the United States, and the anti-Beijing tendency of U.S. media. Finally, China’s economic expansion, the Yinhe incident, the defeat of China’s bid to host the Games, and Washington’s Taiwan policy contributed to the rise of nationalism and anti-Americanism among the Chinese public.

China After Deng: Ten Scenarios in Search of Reality

With Deng Xiaoping preparing to “meet Marx,” speculation over the future shape and stability of the Chinese polity has mounted steadily. In the wake of the 1989 Tiananmen crisis some observers predicted the early demise of China's Communist regime, triggered by a dramatic breakthrough on the part of resurgent democratic forces.1 When the regime failed to collapse as expected, attention was drawn to the apparent absence of such putative prerequisites of “civil society” as semi–autonomous social forces, civic associations and a well–defined “public sphere.” China, it seemed, wasn't quite ready for democracy after all.

China's U.S. Policy Conundrum in the 1990s: Balancing Autonomy and Interdependence

The Chinese have always had mixed feelings about America. The 1989 Tiananmen crisis has not led to an overhaul of China's policy toward the United States, but it did bring the policy into its sharpest focus since the rapprochement between the two countries in the early 1970s. Post-Tiananmen policies toward the U.S. focus on three central issues, all of which predate the 1989 crisis and reflect a fundamental dilemma in Chinese foreign policy. The first issue concerns the risks to China's political autonomy and domestic stability stemming from its close economic ties to the United States. The second involves Beijing's reassessment of its strategic environment and its devaluation of the importance of the U.S. in the regional balance of power. Underlying the first two issues is a third one, the rise of Chinese nationalism, which has gradually become the most controversial and problematic aspect of China's American policy. Together, these issues constitute a conundrum for Chinese leaders: how to assess the costs and benefits of dealing with a nation that is vital to China's economic modernization and future global role but whose values pose a major threat to the legitimacy of the Chinese government. In this regard, the fundamental challenge to China's American policy in the post-Cold War era is to find strategies compatible with maintaining China's political system, national independence, and status aspirations while at the same time achieving the economic and defense

The Aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Crisis in Mainland China.

The Aftermath of the 1989 Tiananmen Crisis in Mainland China.

China in the nineties: crisis management and beyond

The authoritarian outlook, David S.G.Goodman Chinese Marxism since Tiananmen - between evaporation and desmemberment, David Kelly human rights - the changing balance sheet, Ann Kent the Chinese Communist Party and the Beijing massacre - the crisis in authority, Lawrence R. Sullivan the social origins and the consequences of the Tiananmen crisis, Anita Chan China's army, China's future, Harlan W. Jencks foreign policy, Gerald Segal Taiwan and the reunification question, Lee Lai To Hong Kong and China - economic interdependence, Michele Ledic.

China's American Dilemma

The Tiananmen crisis of 1989 stimulated the most intense debate over Chinese policy toward the United States since the rapprochement between the two countries in the early 1970s. One issue confronting Chinese leaders has been to weigh the benefits of close economic and cultural ties with America against the disruptive ideas and values that accompany them. A second issue has been to determine China's response to the improvement of the U.S. strategic position caused by the collapse of communism in Eastern Europe, the moderation of Soviet foreign policy, and the American victory in the Persian Gulf. In the future, Beijing may also have to decide how to deal with growing American sympathy for the Nationalist Chinese government in Taipei or increased pressure for Taiwanese independence. The evolution of Chinese policy toward the United States since the Tiananmen crisis suggests that Chinese leaders still prefer a stable and beneficial relationship with America but are trying to find ways to maximize their diplomatic leverage over Washington.

PLA and the Tiananmen Crisis. Edited by Richard H. Yang. [Kaohsiung, Taiwan: SCPS Papers No. 1, 101989. 60 pp.

PLA and the Tiananmen Crisis. Edited by Richard H. Yang. [Kaohsiung, Taiwan: SCPS Papers No. 1, 101989. 60 pp.