What Went Wrong With US China Policy?

Twenty years ago, the United States won the cold war by disintegrating the Soviet Union. Now, facing the People’s Republic of China, a regime that once looked up to the Soviet as the “Big Brother,” and whose economic and military strength still lags behind that of the United States, the United States often finds itself accommodating to instead of changing China. The fact is: the United States has grown ever weaker in promoting human rights and democracy in China, while the PRC has grown more assertive in the international arena.

At the very beginning, the Nixon and Carter administrations reached out to Beijing as an ally against the Soviets. After 1991, the change in the strategic situation necessitated a new justification for the relationship with the PRC.

For the last 20 years, the buzz word for U.S. China policy has been engagement. By contacts and exchanges, the United States has hoped to gradually transform China into a free and democratic society under the rule of law.

In the Cold War a head-on competition in hard power proved to be effective in bringing down a giant empire. In the case of the PRC, converting China to a democratic nation by engagement, which seems preferable in not involving an arms race, is in theory possible. If engagement had worked, it would have been the best foreign policy wisdom.

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