Description
In its careful reconstruction of evolving US positions on key issues in the relationship with China, this book is able to explain the change in American-Chinese relations after 1949 from hostility to rapprochement, and to the full normalization of ties in 1979. The author goes on to examine the relationship after normalization, a period when the United States has come to view China as less of a challenge, but still resistant to certain of the norms of the current international order.The book begins by examining US efforts to build, and then maintain an international and domestic consensus behind its China policy, and its notes the steady erosion of support in both policy arenas. It then looks at changing US perceptions of China's capabilities, and shows how US officials came to have a deeper appreciation of the overall restraints on Beijing's power, especially as a result of the Sino-Soviet rift and the failure of policies associated with the Great Leap Forward. Finally, it examines the effects on the relationship of China's fuller exposure after 1979 to the ideas and values that predominate in the global system.
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United States policy toward China after World War II presented a uniform front of overwhelming revilement. Today, however, while Chinese human rights violations often make headlines and trade restrictions are periodically threatened, the relationship between the countries is considered"normalized." How has this change taken place? A solid political history of United States/Chinese foreign relations, The Practice of Power traces the change from hostility to rapprochement, to normalization in 1979, to the current mutually wary cooperation. The major diplomatic issues traversed include United States opposition to Chineserepresentation at the United Nations, the China Trade Embargo, American public opinion about China, the Sino-Soviet alliance, and China's military capabilities, both conventional and nuclear. Rosemary Foot shows how, after normalization in 1979, the United States began to move toward viewing China as less of a threat, but still resistant to certain of the norms of the current international order. Previous explanations of American relations with China, Foot argues, have dwelt toosingle-mindedly on ideas associated with the strategic triangle. Her approach embeds our understanding of the evolution of American relations with China within a wider structure of relationships at the global and domestic levels, and suggests the direction that relations between the two giants willtake into the twenty-first century.
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