US Foreign Policy and China

Bush's First Term

Guy Roberts

• Publisher: Taylor & Francis
• Year: 2014
• eBook ISBN: 9781317649922
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

This work is an exploration of how U.S.-China relations were managed by President George W. Bush. Roberts argues that contrary to conventional wisdom, President Bush conducted a calculated, pragmatic and highly successful strategy toward Beijing, which avoided conflict, resolved crisis and significantly increased economic and diplomatic ties.

Roberts identifies key players and polices of the Bush White House and the specific themes of engagement (successful and unsuccessful) that unfolded during Bush's first term. Research is based on analysis of primary and secondary documentation, as well as interviews with key White House actors (including Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage), and two former Australian Prime Ministers. Topics of discussion include China's changing attitude toward international engagement, China's rising economic power and the tensions this triggered in the American establishment, the nature of U.S. China relations, contemporary and ideological understanding of the Bush Presidency as well as the strengths and weaknesses of different sources of information.

US Foreign Policy and China will be of great interest to students and scholars of US foreign policy and China Studies.

1 President George W. Bush

The essential protagonist of the Bush administration was President George Walker Bush himself, and an analysis of Bush’s background and character is fundamental for a proper understanding of the ideas and motives with which he approached US-China relations.

Although many critics of the Bush Presidency sought (and will perhaps continue to seek) to portray Bush as a puppet, beholden to oil companies or controlled by Karl Rove or Dick Cheney, there is compelling evidence that Bush was his own man. Arguments to the contrary are unsustainable when set against Bush’s stated approach to leadership. Bush, as the first “MBA” President, did not want to micromanage. Instead, he saw himself as the “Decider” of his administration – the motivator of government policy. It was a role he was comfortable with – a role that required clear-cut decision making and a consistency of approach. Others could offer Bush suggestions, but these were suggestions alone, and action was conditional upon the President’s expressed intentions. The influence that advisors such as Rove and Cheney enjoyed was dependent upon their utility (or perceived utility) in the President’s decision-making process. Whether this involved Rove’s tested skills as a domestic political operative, or Cheney’s status as an experienced “elder statesman” of Republican politics, or an expert on National Defense issues, the extent of their influence and autonomy was decided by the President. If an advisor declared a new policy, it was generally because Bush wished them to do so. If a declaration was made that did not meet with Bush’s approval, it would have to be rescinded – as when Powell declared that Bush’s North Korea policy would pick up where the Clinton administration “left off.” Although Bush decided, and others implemented, this perspective did give his advisors a degree of latitude in the implementation of Bush’s goals. Yet too much latitude could put them at risk of losing their influence, if they went further with a policy than the President expected. Conversely, the presidential confidence that Rice famously enjoyed was a reflection of her consciously identifying with the President’s agenda rather than seeking the proclamation or implementation of her own. As will be discussed, Rice had decided that her tenure as National Security Agency (NSA) was best spent being reactive to the President’s demands – not seeking to preempt him, or to reroute or translate his wishes through the prism of her own agenda.¹ Doing so allowed Rice a more consistent, long-term influence with the President. This contrasts with the fate of other advisors who pursued a more independent agenda.

Bush, I argue, was the paramount force within his administration, steering policy as he chose. However, it is also important to recognize that the level of oversight depended to a large degree upon Bush’s interest or lack of interest in the policy or issue under consideration. If Bush was focused, he was decisive, and Bush did focus on US-China relations – at the same time as he let day-to-day coordination of that relationship to the hands of Powell and Armitage. If Bush thought an issue was unimportant (or was being adequately managed by subordinates) then he was happy to let it rest. As with many aspects of the Bush presidency, this seemingly hands-off attitude was open to misinterpretation or criticism.

In many ways, the negative perception of Bush – which is by now well established in the public consciousness – is because Bush himself was, and remains, a contradictory character. Bush certainly had an easily lampooned or caricatured personality, but such a persistent and simple one-dimensional dismissal ignores the very real contradictions and differing motives that went into his decision making and leadership style. Stephen Mansfield, a writer on presidential faith, has explained some of the reasons that Bush defies (or perhaps transcends) simple analysis:

He is, for example, a cowboy-hat-wearing Texan who does not read much, is not very articulate, and is no one’s idea of an intellectual. This makes him the Bubba-type: with all the low-brow, Southern cracker, “rifle-in-the-gun-rack-of-the-pickup-truck” image that label evokes. It puts a “handle” on him, making him easy to slot and easy to hate …

… However, he is also an Ivy League product whose administration is the most racially diverse in American history and who in mid-2003 travelled to Africa to acknowledge the sin of slavery…

… the challenge of Bush is that he does not play the role assigned to him.²

This is an essential point to appreciate when exploring Bush’s China policy – the ambiguities of his personality can make Bush’s motivations, leadership, and policy-making style difficult to properly and accurately assess. Brendon O’Connor agrees that Bush’s overall image is often tarnished by preexisting prejudice about his policies or decisions. O’Connor argues that Bush seems

perfectly cast to evoke this series of culturally received caricatures about Texans, Americans and evangelical Christians. His syntax mangling, his “dead or alive” threats to America’s enemies, his talk of “evildoers,” and the public expression of his evangelical Christian faith all make him a wellspring of negative stereotypes … as a result, preconceptions are reinforced and Bush’s undeniably flawed character and record escape proper examination.³

The key term is “proper.” O’Connor highlights the importance of discerning between objective and subjective historiographies – reviewing a number of early 2000s’ publications on the President, his ideological and social background, O’Connor concludes that many writers had been unable to avoid the trap of ‘uncritical criticism’ of the President.

A recurring criticism of Bush is that he was unintelligent, and this forms a core part of the negative assessment of his presidency. I contend that Bush was more intelligent than popularly appreciated. For example, although many commentators criticized Bush as a “cowboy,” it was an image that Bush himself reinforced; the artifice of portraying himself as a “good ole boy” was an essential part of his political persona because Bush knew he would get few votes if he was portrayed as a Yale-educated scion of an East Coast political dynasty. Presenting himself as a red-blooded oilman appealed to the US public, and allowed Bush to create a sharp contrast with his opponent, the “Beltway insider” Democratic Vice President Al Gore. Bush’s provincial caricature was eagerly adapted by the media and this drew attention away from Bush’s own elite status as a Governor of Texas and the brother of the Governor of Florida (Jeb Bush), the son of a President (George H. W. Bush), and grandson of a Senator (Prescott Sheldon Bush).

But while this false persona would become cherished by critics as evidence of genuine intellectual inferiority, Bush actively utilized the image during his election campaigns to secure “product differentiation.”⁴ Playing the “log- cabin” outsider has a long pedigree of political utility; consider Gaius Marius, running for Consul of Rome around 100 bc, who also painted himself as the Roman equivalent of a straight-shooting country boy:

My words are not carefully chosen. I attach no importance to such artifices, of which true merit stands in no need, since it is plainly visible to all. It is my adversaries who require oratorical skill to help them cover up their turpitude … The lessons I have learnt are such as best enable to me serve my country – to strike down an enemy … to endure winter’s cold and summer’s heat with equal patience … to work hard on an empty stomach.⁵

I contend that Bush, like Marius, consciously and successfully downplayed his elitism in the popular imagination. An example of this may be found with regard to the famous problems Bush had with words. University of California Berkeley Professor of Linguistics Geoffrey Nunberg has argued that Bush’s pronunciation of nuclear as “nu-ku-ler” may have been a deliberate attempt to foster a “folksy” image in public, and to differentiate himself from the military experts and scientists who might pronounce the word nuclear in the correct manner, but who nonetheless did not carry ultimate responsibility for the US nuclear arsenal.⁶ Robert Lieber argues that a similarly deceptive simplicity was fostered by President Reagan, a simplicity which belied that President’s actual mastery of complex issues:

In retrospect Reagan looks much more impressive than he did at the time … Reagan (as Anderson and others of his biographers have shown) had in fact extensively prepared himself for domestic and foreign policy, had written thousands of letters and hundreds of radio scripts over the years which showed he had thought long and hard about these issues. To some extent his “aw shucks” sayings was a disarming trope on his part. He wasn’t just a tool of his advisors.… [Bush is also a victim of a] tendency to portray him as stupid or ill-informed or not very bright … and somebody who mangled the English language.⁷

Lieber also rejects any interpretation of Bush as anything less than a capable and intelligent leader. After John Lewis Gaddis wrote Surprise, Security and the American Experience, he was invited to the White House for what he thought would be a quick photo opportunity with the President. Instead, Lieber accounts:

Cheney was there with him, the meeting lasted, according to Gaddis, at least 45 minutes, Bush did all the speaking, it was clear he had read the book and he asked [Gaddis] about Bismarck … Bush was nobody’s fool. I mean, you can agree or disagree with his policies, his grand strategy, the Iraq war, but the notion that he was a dolt or inattentive and that he was just a creature of his advisors was just not accurate.⁸

However, criticism of Bush’s character had little impact upon his personality or choices. This is unsurprising, given that Bush’s background was not one to foster vacillation or self-doubt. Although born in New Haven Connecticut, Bush grew up amid the oilfields of Texas. As Mansfield describes it, “George W. lived from the age of two until the age of twelve in a forward-looking, achievement-oriented, back-slapping, competitive, loud, hard-drinking, big- eating, hard-playing culture. And he thrived on it.”⁹ The young George W. Bush eventually moved to the elite Kinkaid School, and then Phillips Academy, Andover, both exclusive private schools. Although he was a problematic student, Bush did find his own niche, becoming “Head Cheerleader” at Phillips, Andover, and one could argue that a link can be drawn between this focus on team spirit and his subsequent views (as will be discussed) of leadership as the “calcium” in the bones. Although describing himself as an average student at Yale University, Bush’s social personality, along with his father’s status in national politics, no doubt eased his entry into Yale’s elite and secretive “Skull and Bones” society. After leaving Yale, the young Bush visited Beijing for seven weeks, where his father was the Chief of the US Liaison Office in Beijing – the US “Ambassador” to China. As will be discussed, this visit was unknown, or dismissed as irrelevant, by many commentators during the 2000 campaign, but nonetheless, it is important to highlight and acknowledge that Bush spent seven weeks travelling the country – cycling in the countryside at times, but also meeting with VIPs and gaining remarkable access to Chinese leaders. As will be discussed, I suggest that this experience may have been a beneficial influence on Bush’s later dealing with Chinese leaders.

Bush returned to Texas where he eventually founded Arbusto Energy (later named Bush Exploration). Dan Twining argues this business-oriented background would have given Bush a pragmatic outlook on engag...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Introduction
• 1 President George W. Bush
• 2 Bush's primary advisors
• 3 Formulating a China agenda
• 4 The first year
• 5 Economic and social case studies
• 6 Strategic and military case studies
• 7 Third party nation case studies
• 8 Conclusion
• Bibliography
• Index