PART I
Obama and His China Team Chapter 1
US Asia-Pacific Policy in Context
When Barack Obama took the presidential oath of office on January 20, 2009, US-China relations were probably not foremost on his mind. Obamaâs campaign promise of âhope and changeâ had largely focused on domestic issues, with promises of bipartisanship and a renewal of the floundering US economy. The election of the first African-American president was an historic event itself, one that seemed to suggest the United States had begun a new era of racial inclusion and harmony.
Yet Obama found himself elected at another historical beginning, one that had even greater implications for global peace and prosperity. If any year can be taken as an historical marker for Chinaâs entrance as a major world power, 2008 would be it. The Beijing Olympics provided China with its long-awaited global spectacle, where the nation could prove it belonged in the upper echelons of the international order. Even more importantly, the global financial crisis set in motion in 2008 convinced many Chinese scholars that their time had come.
China recovered relatively quickly from the economic damage, which suggested to many in China that their economic system had at last proven its advantage over Western capitalism. Further, the economic crash drastically slowed Western economic growth, allowing China to close the gap between it and the worldâs largest economies much more quickly than anyone had expected. China passed Japan as the worldâs second largest economy in 2010.1 Most analysts expect that China will surpass the US as the largest economy sometime before 2030, although some have put the date as close as 2016.2 To China, it seemed that the financial crisis accelerated the process of US decline, paving the way for Beijing to assume a role as a major world power.
Obama, who had almost no foreign policy experience, could not have been expected to predict the direction Chinaâs newly confident leaders would take their country. However, experienced or not, Obamaâs administration was responsible for setting the course of US-China relations under these new conditions. His leadership would set the tone for the relationship as the two countries grew closer and closer to being true equals. Absorbing this change will require a massive paradigm shift in both US foreign policy in general and China policy in particular.
US Asia Policy during the Early Cold War (1945â1971)
Washingtonâs Asia policy, like most of its foreign policy, was shaped by the Cold War for most of the twentieth century. The dust from World War II had barely settled before the United States had to deal with the Chinese Civil War, which pitted Mao Zedongâs Communist Party against Chiang Kai-shekâs Nationalist Party (also known as the Kuomintang or KMT). Despite the US governmentâs officially neutral stance, and its attempts to mediate through General George Marshall, it was clear to both Nationalists and Communists that the United States backed Chiang. As a result, after Maoâs forces gained control of the mainland, the US would not recognize the newly-formed Peopleâs Republic of China. For over 20 years, the US government considered Chiangâs Republic of China (now confined to the island of Taiwan) the legal representative of all of China.3
Right on the heels of the Chinese Civil War came the Korean War, another Cold War-motivated conflict pitting Soviet-backed Communist forces against a US-backed democracy. When Kim Il Sung invaded South Korea in June 1950, the US was able to get a United Nations Security Council resolution authorizing military force to defend South Korea. Though the mission was under the UN banner, the United States provided the vast majority of troops and aid.
On the other side, sources indicate that both Stalin and Mao supported and encouraged Kim Il Sung to invade the south.4 Apparently Stalin, Mao, and Kim all believed that the United States was unlikely to become involved in the conflict. When the US did lead troops to the region, the Soviet Union continued to provide Kimâs forces with material aid, while China entered the war alongside North Korea.
As an interesting side-effect, the Korean War cemented the policy of US military protection for the island of Taiwan. Before then, President Truman had been unwilling to offer firm US support to Chiang Kai-shek and his remaining forces. But as the United States took a more aggressive anti-Communist stance in 1950, Truman warned that the US would not tolerate any attempt by PRC forces to take Taiwan.5 The Cold War battle lines had effectively been drawn.
In the aftermath of the Korean War, the US would continue a policy of containment in the Asia-Pacific, based around maintaining its alliance system to counter any potential Soviet moves.6 As early as 1950, the then Secretary of State Dean Acheson publicly shared his vision of a âdefensive perimeterâ stretching âalong the Aleutians to Japan and then [going] to Ryukyus ⊠[and] to the Philippines Islands.â7
At the time, US allies in the region included Australia, Japan, the Philippines, South Korea, Taiwan, and Thailand. Each of these alliance treaties was signed in the early 1950s, as the US was beginning to hedge against Communist expansion. At this point, the US government had little interest in differentiating between Soviet expansion and more-or-less independent national Communist movementsâany pro-Communist force was taken as the enemy.8 The alliance system would be the USâs primary mechanism for limiting Soviet influence in the Asia-Pacific region. US involvement in Asia during the Cold War was primarily centered on either maintaining alliance relations or directly countering perceived Soviet threats.
In April 1954, less than a year after the end of the Korean War, the US already had its eye on another potential conflict, this time in Vietnam. The success of the Soviet-backed Viet Minh against French forces concerned US policymakers. In this context, US President Dwight Eisenhower introduced what would become known as the âdomino theory.â When asked at a press conference about the âstrategic importance of Indochina to the free world,â Eisenhower replied, âYou have broader considerations that might follow what you would call the âfalling dominoâ principle. You have a row of dominoes set up, you knock over the first one, and what will happen to the last one is the certainty that it will go over very quickly.â
Eisenhower painted a picture of Soviet-dominated Communism sweeping across Southeast Asia and beyond:
[W]hen we come to the possible sequence of events, the loss of Indochina, of Burma, of Thailand, of the Peninsula, and Indonesia following, now you begin to talk about areas that not only multiply the disadvantages that you would suffer through loss of materials, sources of materials, but now you are talking really about millions and millions and millions of people [brought under Communist rule].9
This perspectiveâthat the countries in East and Southeast Asia were strategically important mostly because the region was a battleground in the Cold Warâdominated US policy for over 30 years.
The most clear-cut example of US Asia policy during this period is the decision to become involved in Vietnam, resulting in a conflict that would span over the better part of two decades. As Eisenhower explained in 1954, the Vietnam War was an attempt to prevent the âdomino effectâ that leaders feared would result from the country falling completely under communist influence. This view was also shared by Eisenhowerâs successor, John F. Kennedy. Kennedy continued and even expanded the practice of sending economic and military aid to South Vietnam.10
After Kennedy was assassinated, Lyndon B. Johnson expanded US involvement even further. In 1964, Johnson told Congress of an unprovoked attack by North Vietnamese forces on American destroyers. The resulting Gulf of Tonkin resolution allowed Johnson unprecedented freedom in involving American troops in the conflict without actually declaring war (for which he would have needed congressional approval). To Johnson, as to his predecessors, âThe contest in Vietnam [was] part of a wider pattern of aggressive purposeâ on the part of global communism.11 Johnson also believed that the United Statesâ stance on Vietnam was being closely watched by friends and allies across the globe. To abandon South Vietnam was tantamount to destroying US credibility.
However, the war dragged on and on, becoming increasingly unpopular domestically. By the time President Nixon was elected in 1968, he was looking for a way to extricate the US from the situation. Nixon introduced what would become known as the âNixon Doctrine,â whereby US allies would take on responsibility for their own security, with the US acting mostly as a safeguard against nuclear escalation. Nixon called for the United States to withdraw from Vietnam and to avoid any similar situations. In the future, Nixon believed US involvement in Asia should be limited to economic aid, unless treaty partners were under attack.12
Despite his promise to bring US troops home and leave the fighting to South Vietnamese forces, Nixon was reluctant to leave the war in a way that smacked of American defeat. At the same time, Nixon and his advisors had noticed that China, previously one of North Vietnamâs main supporters, was beginning to withdraw from the conflict to focus its energy on the threat posed by Chinaâs increasingly rocky relationship with the Soviet Union. These two trendsâa desire to quickly end the Vietnam War and the realization that there was a growing rift between China and the USSRâdetermined the radical next step in Nixonâs foreign policy: an active outreach to the Peopleâs Republic of China.
US Asia Policy during the Late Cold War (1972â1988)
Nixonâs outreach to Beijing was motivated largely by a desire to counterbalance the Soviet Union. Chinaâs ties with the USSR had become strained in 1956, when new Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev denounced Stalinâs legacy. By the early 1960s, Soviet interpretations of Communism were officially declared ârevisionistâ by Chinese Communist Party leaders. As a result, the USSR withdrew its technicians and other experts from China, effectively cutting China off from material aid. The split continued even after Khrushchev was deposed.
As ideological ties deteriorated, tensions grew over the demarcation of the SovietâChinese border. The USSR began amassing troops along the border, which eventually led to sporadic fighting in 1969, with the most notable clash occurring at Zhenbao Island on the Ussuri River. To US leaders, the conflict was a clear sign that there was a serious rift in Sino-Soviet relations, one that could be exploited to advance US goals in the region. Further, Nixon was hopeful that he could convince the Chinese to stay out of further hostilities in Vietnam, thus making an American victory more likely.13
From the beginning, then, the restoration of Washington-Beijing relations was a calculated geopolitical strategy designed to advance the United Statesâ Cold War interests. In his book About Face, James Mann described the relationship as a â...