The United States Policy towards China: A Dossier

Journal Articles

Disclaimer: The materials in this section are from sources outside the U.S. Government and should not be construed as an endorsement of the views or privacy policies contained therein or as official U.S. policy.

China in the Year 2020: Three Political Scenarios. Cheng Li. Asia Policy, July 2007. pp. 17-29. Progressing toward the year 2020, China's political structure is unlikely to develop along a direct, linear trajectory. Just as China's rapid economic development and global integration shocked the world over the past two decades, so too might the country's future political course defy projected expectations. Three possible scenarios for 2020 are presented in this essay. READ MORE

The Fact and Fiction of Sino-African Energy Relations. Erica S. Downs. China Security, Summer 2007. pp. 42-68. This article examines a number of widely accepted "facts" about the growing involvement of China's NOCs in Africa. While some of these have some validity, others simply do not. Contrary to public opinion, China's NOCs are not "lock-ing up" the lion's share of African oil as part of a centralized quest for energy. READ MORE

China's Power and Will: The PRC's Military Strength and Grand Strategy. June Teufel Dreyer. Orbis, August 2007. pp. 651-664. China's international behavior exhibits elements of both threat and peaceful intentions. Even assuming that the leadership's motives are not benign, a combination of domestic weaknesses and foreign resistance could thwart them. The future is not predictable. READ MORE

CHINA EYES AFRICA: THE NEW IMPERIALISM? Walden Bello. Multinational Monitor, January/February 2007. pp. 23-26. "FIRST, EUROPE AND AMERICA took over our big businesses. Now China is driving our small and medium entrepreneurs to bankruptcy," Humphrey Pole-Pole of the Tanzanian Social Forum said at the World Social Forum (WSF), held in Nairobi in January. "You don't even contribute to employment because you bring in your own labor," he told Chinese speakers at a packed panel discussion organized by the semi-official "China NGO (nongovernmental organization) Network for International Exchanges." READ MORE

China's Military Space Strategy. Ashley J. Tellis Survival, September 2007.  pp. 41-72. This article by Ashley J. Tellis challenges the conventional wisdom that China's antisatellite test (ASAT) was a protest against U.S. space policy, arguing instead that it was part of a loftier strategy to combat U.S. military superiority and one that China will not trade away in any arms-control regime. READ MORE

AMERICA’S GRAND DESIGN IN ASIA. Twining, Daniel. Washington Quarterly. Summer 2007, pp. 79-94. The author believes that U.S. policymakers are employing a radically different strategy in Asia to facilitate the ascent of friendly Asian centers of power that will both constrain, not contain, China and allow the U.S. to retain its position as Asia's decisive strategic actor. READ MORE

CHINA IS MAKING FRIENDS AND INFLUENCING PEOPLE. Joshua Kurlantzick. Usnews. July 2007. n.p. Joshua Kurlantzick disscusses why Beijing's rising power is good—and Bad—for America. READ MORE

Lee, Henry; Shalman Dan A. SEARCHING FOR OIL: CHINA'S INITIATIVES IN THE MIDDLE EAST. Environment, June 2007. pp. 8-22. Full text available via ProQuest

The profitability of the state oil companies is critical to China's efforts to meet its long-term energy security goals while supplying a significant percentage of the total revenues realized from the struggling state sector. China's government may leave the management and many of the investment decisions to professional executives, but clearly it has the legal means to intervene if it so decides. The experiences with Sudan have taught it important lessons, and many of its recent actions are characterized more by caution than aggressive opportunism. Henry Lee is the Jassim M. Jaidah Family Director of the Environment and Natural Resources Program within the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard's John F. Kennedy School of Government. Dan A. Shalmon is a student in the Security Studies Program at Georgetown University's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service.

Yetiv, Steve A.; Lu, Chunlong. CHINA, GLOBAL ENERGY, AND THE MIDDLE EAST. The Middle East Journal, Spring 2007. pp. 199-219. Full text available via ProQuest

China has significantly enhanced its position and interest in the Persian Gulf region over the past 25 years, making it an important newcomer in regional dynamics. Evidence clearly shows that it has expanded, in some cases dramatically, its diplomatic contacts, economic ties, and arms sales to regional states. This represents a novel development which is likely to accelerate in the future as China's dependence on Persian Gulf oil grows. China's rising position in the region has put Beijing and Washington at odds and could generate serious friction points in the future. Policy recommendations are sketched to avoid such an outcome. Steve A. Yetiv is a Professor of Political Science at Old Dominion University, Chunlong Lu is a Ph.D. candidate in International Studies at Old Dominion University.

Cliff, Roger; Medeiros, Evan; Crane, Keith. KEEPING THE PACIFIC: AN AMERICAN RESPONSE TO CHINA'S GROWING MILITARY MIGHT.  RAND Review, Spring 2007. n.p.  Full text available from publisher website

If the U.S. military does not continue to upgrade its technological capabilities, China could challenge the United States for military dominance in East Asia by 2020. As of today, China’s military and rapidly advancing defense industries are focused on finding ways to defeat the United States in the event of a conflict between the two countries, the most likely one being over Taiwan. Roger Cliff and Evan Medeiros are RAND political scientists.

Griffin, Christopher; Pantucci, Raffaello. A TREACHEROUS TRIANGLE? CHINA AND THE TRANSATLANTIC ALLIANCE. SAIS Review, Winter 2007. pp. 166-175  Full text available via ProQuest

The United States and Europe avoided diplomatic disaster last year when the European Union narrowly decided not to lift its arms embargo on the People's Republic of China (PRC). Brussels was handed a convenient pretext for shelving the question when China passed an "Anti-Secession Law" to ratchet up tension in the Taiwan Strait, but the transatlantic alliance cannot rely on such luck next time the issue arises. Although the United States and Europe initiated a senior level dialogue on Asia following last year's arms embargo crisis, these talks should be expanded to cover a wider range of working-level operational questions. Christopher Griffin is a research associate in Asian studies at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC.

Grinter, Lawrence E. CHINA AND THE UNITED STATES, AND MAINLAND SOUTHEAST ASIA: OPPORTUNISM AND THE LIMITS OF POWER.  Contemporary Southeast Asia, December 2006. pp. 447-465  Full text available via ProQuest

The US, China and Japan are often portrayed as three giant states dominating the region of East Asia in perpetual potential conflict. This article proposes that such assessments should be tempered in the light of changing regional and global dynamics and, in particular, in view of the growing centrality of the region of East Asia itself for foreign policy agendas. Julie Gilson is a Senior Lecturer at the University of Birmingham.

Dorn, James A. U.S.-CHINA RELATIONS: THE CASE FOR ECONOMIC LIBERALISM. Cato Journal, Fall 2006. pp. 425-443. Full text available from publisher website

There is no doubt that financial repression in China has led to an undervalued currency, but that in itself does not pose a national security risk to the US. US economic security, as well as China's, will depend on promoting economic liberalism, rather than fostering protectionism. Trade liberalization and the growth of the nonstate sector have been the keystones of China's new economy. It is now time to get rid of the last legacy of central planning and end financial repression. James A. Dorn is a China specialist at the Cato Institute.

Thornton, John L, CHINA'S LEADERSHIP GAP. Foreign Affairs. November/December 2006. No pages. Full text available via ProQuest

After 28 years of reform, China faces challenges of an unprecedented scale, complexity, and importance. China has already liberalized its markets, opened up to foreign trade and investment, and become a global economic powerhouse. Now its leaders and people must deal with popular dissatisfaction with local government, environmental degradation, scarce natural resources, an underdeveloped financial system, an inadequate health-care system, a restless rural population, urbanization on a massive scale, and increasing social inequality. Because China's government is a one-party system with minimal popular participation, success depends on the energy and ideas of its leaders.  John L. Thornton is a Professor at Tsinghua University's School of Economics and Management.

Fullilove, Michael. ANGEL OR DRAGON? CHINA AND THE UNITED NATIONS. The National Interest, September/October 2006. pp. 67-71. Full text available via ProQuest

In the past fifteen years, China has partly overcome its allergy to resolutions passed under Chapter VII of the UN Charter, joining with the rest of the Council on September 12, 2001, for instance, to condemn the 9/11 attacks as a threat to international peace and security and to recognize the right of self-defense against such attacks. After the atrocities in Rwanda and the felling of the twin towers, not to mention the endorsement by heads of government of an international responsibility to protect individuals in cases of genocide, ethnic cleansing and widespread violations of human rights, China's doctrine will need to develop further. Michael Fullilove directs the global issues program at the Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney. He was an adviser to the former prime minister of Australia.
 

Petras, James. PAST, PRESENT AND FUTURE OF CHINA: FROM SEMI-COLONY TO WORLD POWER? Journal of Contemporary Asia, 2006.Vol.36, Iss. 4. pp. 423-441. Full text available via ProQuest

This article raises serious methodological, conceptual, historical and empirical questions concerning the notion of China as the next world superpower. Contradictions in the current neo-liberal economy are leading to increased class struggle especially in the countryside and increasing tension between the super-rich Chinese bourgeois allied to foreign capital and 'national statist' sectors of the governing-class. The efforts by the new leadership to ameliorate the contradiction through increased social spending are too little and too late. James Petras is Emeritus Professor of Sociology at the University of Bingharruon, Binghamton, NY, USA.