U.S.-Chinese Relations

Foreign relations between the United States and China in the modern era began in the early 1970s. Shut off from one another for decades, President Richard Nixon's historic visit to the People's Republic of China in 1972 marked the beginning of a series of political and economic developments that persist in affecting our world today. In 1973, two issues impacted Sino-US relations most acutely. On the one hand, the problem of Taiwanese independence would demand delicate diplomacy and ginger negotiations; on the other, facing the challenge of undoing a 20 history of near-total embargo on US business with China (Theroux S2). The reverberations of the Shanghai Communique which addressed Taiwan, and the creation US-China Business Council, which signified the first trade delegation in the region, are felt to this day.

Because Nixon's monumental first visit to China took place in February of 1972, the relevance of 1973 must, in large part, be understood to be a product of that critical diplomatic venture. Were it not for the action taken by President Nixon and Secretary of State Henry Kissinger in 1972, the events of 1973 simply could not have been (Manning & Przystup 13). The Nixon proposal that the US and China undertake a "long march together" was introduced in 1972; the first steps of this march would be taken in 1973 (Buckley, Jr. 58). The idea that the United States and China might form a strategic union to countervail the might of the Soviet Union was not novel. I

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with China would catapult to a staggering $805.1 (Auerbach F1). Though political considerations continued to affect all ties between the United States and China, economic relations included, 1973 was a seminal year in crafting lasting stand-alone business agreements between the world's richest and the world's most populous nations (Lieberthal 10). The opening of China to American economic interests represented an ideological openness that must not be overlooked. Under Mao's rigid leadership, China assumed a posture of fierce economic independence at any cost. Subsequently, China had refused "to assume foreign debt and lacked the legal infrastructure necessary to receive foreign investment" (Lieberthal 11). Further, China's communist ideology emphasized national self-reliance; as such, domestic knowledge of foreign lifestyles was discouraged for ethical reasons as well as economic ones. And, the United States had been eager to oblige China's isolationist wishes, having led an international effort to isolate China economically that had spanned decades. The Department of Treasury in the US implemented many laws designed to bar or at least heavily regulate business relations with China. A "closed-off" China constituted a for

Category: Foreign - U