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This chapter focuses on the evolution of the EU's foreign and security policy towards China and East Asia, including EU realignment on the position of the United States following the shelving of the proposal to lift the Chinese arms embargo in Summer 2005. This chapter discusses the reasons for this policy realignment and whether (and to what extent) the EU has started to adopt some form of containment vis‐à‐vis China. The second part of this chapter examines the prospects — put forward by some US and Japanese scholars and policy makers — for the emergence of a global concert of democracies that would contain authoritarian countries such as China, discussing the likelihood, and feasibility, for the Europeans to join such a concert. This chapter concludes with an examination of the similarities, and the differences, among the core liberal—democratic nations (United States, Europe, and Japan) on how to deal with a rising China.

This is the second of three chapters that analyse the connections between legitimacy and power, and seek to demonstrate the erosion of international and domestic support for America’s China policy. The topic addressed here is the changing status of American trade with China from the period before 1950 (when China had been a major post-war trading partner) until 1979. The first section of the chapter discusses the total trade embargo placed by the USA on trade with China in relation to the ‘China differential’ : the fact that international trade controls with China were harsher than those imposed on the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. The next section looks at the status of the American embargo in the period 1950–58 (the China differential was removed in 1957), and the following section at changing international and American policy on trade with China in the period 1958–1971, which culminated in Nixon’s decision in April 1971 to end the embargo on non-strategic sales to China. The last section of the chapter looks at trade patterns in the period 1972–79, which began with Nixon’s historic visit to China and the signing of the Shanghai Communiqu” in February 1972.

This is the last of three chapters that analyse the connections between legitimacy and power and seek to demonstrate the erosion of international and domestic support for America’s China policy. It presents a historical account of changing US public (domestic) opinion on the country’s China policy in the period 1949–79, and describes this as going through four main phases. There was an uncertain first phase from the last stages of the Chinese civil war until October 1950, when the mass public were indifferent, this was followed by the phase when China’s entry into the Korean war dramatically shaped attitudes, generating criticism of those in government who in an earlier period had failed to identify China as an implacable enemy. In the next ‘transitional’ phase, the late 1950s to the mid-1960s, doubts about the rigid quality of America’s policy towards the People’s Republic of China (PRC) surfaced, articulated most strongly within Congress, but also among the wider public and at various levels within the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. From then on through to the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1979, there was a widespread consensus that China should neither be left in ‘angry isolation’ nor diminished through a Soviet attack; thus, for reasons of world order and American political and security interests, many in the USA came to believe that Beijing needed to be brought into the international community.

This is the first of three chapters that analyse the connections between legitimacy and power, and seek to demonstrate the erosion of international and domestic support for America’s China policy. It presents an analysis of the evolution of the American position on the representation of China at the UN. This started as a determination to exclude the People’s Republic of China (PRC) when it was first proclaimed as an independent state in 1949, in favour of retaining the pro-American Republic of China (Taiwan). The period from 1951 to 1960 was one when the US managed to block debate on the question of PRC representation; after this, until 1971, the UN gradually enlarged and US interests became less guarded, so that in 1971 the PRC was finally admitted to the UN. The different sections of the chapter examine, in turn, the PRC’s objectives in becoming a member of the UN, the American attitude to the PRC and the impact on this of the Korean war, and shifts in international attitudes to the US position on the PRC. The final section discusses the impact of China’s entry to the UN on America, and notes that while Washington’s PRC exclusion policy had first led the US to suffer serious erosion of its international legitimacy, that erosion did cease, and the presence of the PRC in the UN began to bolster certain American interests.

Britain emerged from the First World War with her overall position in the East Asian structure of power diminished, but with the institutions of formal and informal empire in China unharmed. During 1929–30, two of the most profitable public utility companies in Shanghai passed from British into American ownership. Between 1911 and 1913, the Great Powers, acting in relative harmony, had seized the chance of a collapsing ancien régime to humiliate China in unprecedented ways. Until 1926, the British saw no need for a major revision of their China policy. The decentralization or even disappearance of state authority in China jeopardized the foundations of informal empire. Chinese nationalism had no coherent doctrine and no unified political movement. There were reasons to doubt the dogma that British well-being in China depended on extraterritoriality and consular jurisdiction. Britain's Imperial retreat from China went through a number of stages. The temporary rescue of a late Imperial British position in China was mainly a result of the split of the Chinese revolutionary movement in 1927 and of the victory of moderate élite nationalism over radical mass nationalism.

This chapter provides a historical overview of the evolution of China-LAC relations from that of third world peers with distinct political and economic interactions in the postwar years to a takeoff in economic ties at the turn of millennium. It focuses on five of the six strategic partners with which China had the strongest bonds: Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Mexico, and Peru, excluding Costa Rica because it did not recognize China diplomatically until 2007. The author argues that although China’s rapid ability to become such a significant force within the economies of these countries is due to the sudden boom in commodity prices around 2003, the ties formed were largely an extension and exaggeration of much earlier trends. Thus, the sheer magnitude of the expansion in China–LAC economic relations in the 2000s may have caught policymakers and producers off guard, but the relationship itself was already under way and fairly well defined.

Although exceptionalism is an important dimension of China’s foreign policy, it has not been a subject of serious scholarly research. This chapter examines the manifestations and sources of contemporary Chinese exceptionalism and explains its implications for foreign policy. Chinese exceptionalism is defined by great power reformism, benevolent pacifism, and harmonious inclusionism. While resting on an important factual basis, it is constructed by mixing facts with myths through selective use of China’s vast historical and cultural experiences. Exceptionalism does not determine policy, but by being an essential part of the worldview of the Chinese government and many intellectuals, it can become an important source for policy ideas. It can also be viewed as a normative theory for China’s foreign policy, as one among six major schools competing for ideational influence in China’s foreign policy formation.

Private and extra-state efforts to shape U.S. China policy are the subjects of this chapter. Personal orientalisms as well as representatives of the Guomindong government swayed citizens like the notorious Alfred Kohlberg to advocate on behalf of the Nationalist cause. This section argues that the so-called “China Lobby” was comprised of many individuals (including Soong Mei-ling and the American China Policy Association) and organizations rather than a monolithic body. It is best understood by the manner in which it turned nostalgic orientalism into a template for activism that rightwing groups emulated well into the 1960s. Such efforts illustrated Free China’s wide political appeal, as well as the ways in which it drew together different types of conservatives who otherwise would have had more difficulty finding common ground.

China’s foreign policy must rely on opaque and behind-the-scenes coordination organs to work through a large number of bureaucratic agencies of the state, party, and military, whose primary roles are information gathering and the implementation and recommendation of policy. In addition, some new players, such as think tanks, media, local governments, and transnational corporations, have played a variety of roles to influence China’s foreign policy. This chapter examines the evolving role of the paramount leader, the foreign policy coordination and elaboration organs, the bureaucracies, and the new players in the making and transformation of China’s foreign policy. Providing a historical overview, it also observes how President Xi Jinping has centralized and personalized foreign policy making power in the name of strengthening a unified party leadership.

This chapter summarizes the interplay between China and South Asia, Central Asia, and the Middle East, then assesses the geopolitical implications for America, and offers recommendations for US policy. Marshalling evidence from previous chapters, it shows that anticipating the political consequences of China’s overseas activities in any particular instance requires an appreciation of the other state’s preexisting domestic political-economic conditions and geopolitical relationships. It finds that across Eurasia, China’s involvement tends to undercut healthy pressure for economic and political reform within states and appears to be exacerbating or rekindling tensions among them. The chapter evaluates current US policy in the context of global competition with China and identifies a range of strategies for Eurasia, including “benign neglect,” “peaceful accommodation,” “critical publicity,” “selective competition,” and “militarized competition.” To make the most of America’s limited influence, it argues that US policymakers should pursue a selective and localized strategy in Eurasia.

The introduction illustrates that there is an exceptional yet perturbing convergence in the longer-term fundamental drivers and the short-term recurring ones at the core of U.S.-China relations. Together, they are pressing this relationship toward a more competitive domain, and the ensuing competition will likely draw in a wider array of issues and encompass more actors. In examining the three U.S. presidents in the twenty-first century—Bush, Obama, and Trump—it is unclear as to whether a new U.S. president would or could fundamentally alter this intensifying dynamic or whether Xi Jinping would drastically shift course in the new decade and beyond. Many of these drivers are knotted to the personalities, material interests, and capabilities of both states, indicating, but not ensuring, their permanence. Consequently, it is evident that relations are perhaps moving toward a new period which, unlike previous ones, will be characterized by an amplified preponderance of competition and the enhanced probability of conflict and confrontation. As the following chapters will reveal, obtaining an equilibrium in U.S.-China relations between cooperation and competition will be increasingly difficult to achieve as the latter becomes more pronounced and the former contracts and is viewed to be of limited value.

Chapter 10 describes the American response to the events of Black Friday, which was a violation of international law and could have been considered grounds for breaking diplomatic relations. In the days following the riots there were minor accidents that could have sparked new protests, creating a feeling of panic among many Americans. Back in the United States, Black Friday was regarded as an embarrassment to the White House, thus allowing Democrats to openly criticize Eisenhower's China Policy. Many speculated that the protests may have been pre-orchestrated due to the unannounced military exercise that diverted troops that day, the ROC's manipulation of the press, and the identity of the rioters, who could be traced back to three particular schools. The instigators remain unknown, though many blamed the ROC, IRP, PRC, communist agitators, or even Chiang Kai-shek and his heir. After Black Friday, many questions remained unanswered, and this time the Americans were demanding justice.

This chapter focuses on the Sunflower Occupy Movement which broke out in March of 2014, shaking Taiwan's political landscape and its relations with China. The Sunflower Movement was a culmination of resistance to China's political influence and to the Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) government's democratic careening. It arose from a changing political atmosphere and a wave of interconnected social protests in preceding years. Ultimately, it was a rare transformative event in which powerful collective action ruptures the structures confining a country. “Structures” here refers to two kinds of structure that constrain the space of individual and collective action but also induce action within this space: the structure of political rules, and that of ideology. This popular upsurge brought about tremendous impact, not merely transforming the political landscape of Taiwan but also diverting the political direction of the country from the KMT's pro-China policy, thus interrupting the course of a decade-long Chinese Communist Party (CCP)–KMT cooperation.

Taiwan’s economic and strategic well-being hinges on the continuation of constructive diplomacy between the United States and China. In recent decades relations between the countries have been characterized by equal measures of stability and volatility, and the future of the relationship remains highly uncertain. Some observers speculate that we are witnessing the beginnings of a new Cold War. Others contend that the countries’ shared interests are equally profound. This chapter examines the trends and conditioning factors shaping the interactions between the United States and China in the economic, diplomatic, ideological, and military spheres. The chapter concludes by echoing calls for China to act as a “responsible stakeholder,” a term popularized by Robert Zoellick, while underscoring the common interests of the world community which ought to serve as the basis for global policy in the decades to come.

This chapter discusses the diplomatic tensions between China and Japan over the past few decades. Although not all aspects of the complex Sino–Japanese relationship have been contentious, political leaders in Japan have found compromise more and more difficult as popular enthusiasm for China has faltered. Chinese leaders, too, have seemed unable to fulfill agreements or to reach a compromise. Despite the seeming trend toward confrontation, however, Tokyo and Beijing have managed to find ample room for compromise for the time being. A less appreciated aspect of Japan–China relations is the relationship between China policy and the pressures at home for policy reform in Japan. Over the past decade or more, there has been a considerable rethinking of some Japanese policies in order to better adapt to the new China.

This chapter assesses the domestic sources of contemporary China’s foreign policy. In particular, it examines the importance of national identities, China’s worldviews, the socialization of Chinese, and particularly the role of nationalism. The chapter begins by arguing that social influences matter: the CCP has inextricably linked itself, society, and foreign policy by staking its domestic right to rule upon its foreign policy performance. The chapter then turns to the thorny empirical question of what we know about Chinese feelings and attitudes toward different parts of the world, from China’s Asian neighbors, to the admired and resented Euro-American First World, to Russia, and the dark and backwards Third World of Africa and Latin America. It then turns to the causes/drivers of these worldviews, arguing that both demographics (e.g., age and location) and individual predispositions (e.g., nationalism and cosmopolitanism) matter, but that political and peer socialization has a powerful constraining effect on the international attitudes of the Chinese people.