This book considers Chinese foreign policy and China's future role in world affairs in the context of the country's recent past. Robert Sutter shows that although it appears to be in U.S. interests for post-Mao leaders to continue moving toward international norms, a post-Deng leadership backed by growing economic and military power and reflecting profound changes in China's economy and society could move in markedly different directions. Most foreign powers appear willing to accommodate China, avoiding actions that could prompt a sharp shift in Chinese foreign policy, but Sutter argues that current U.S. policy intrudes on so many issues that are particularly sensitive for Beijing and for China's future that it represents perhaps the most critical variable determining how China will position itself in world affairs. Concluding that there is no guarantee the United States will use this influence wisely, Sutter examines the uncertainty and unpredictability of U.S. foreign policy in the post-Cold War environment that work against the creation of an effective U.S. policy toward China.
The West's strategy of engagement with China has failed. More than three decades of trade and investment with the advanced democracies have left that country far richer and stronger than it would otherwise have been. But growth and development have not caused China's rulers to relax their grip on political power, abandon their mercantilist economic policies, or accept the rules and norms of the existing international system. To the contrary: China today is more repressive at home, more aggressive abroad, and more obviously intent on establishing itself as the world’s preponderant power than at any time since the death of Chairman Mao. What went wrong? Put simply, the democracies underestimated the resilience, resourcefulness, and ruthlessness of the Chinese Communist Party. For far too long, the United States and its allies failed to take seriously the Party's unwavering determination to crush opposition, build national power, and fulfill its ideological and geopolitical ambitions. In this timely and powerfully argued study, Aaron Friedberg identifies the assumptions underpinning engagement, describes the counterstrategy that China's Communist Party rulers devised in order to exploit the West's openness while defeating its plans, and explains what the democracies must do now if they wish to preserve their prosperity, protect their security, and defend their common values.
This title was first published in 2002: Utilizing the case of the 1994 US decision to delink China’s human rights record from most favoured nation status, Susan C. Morris addresses the critical issues where commercialism and human rights converge. This insightful addition to the literature on US foreign policy on human rights draws on both political and economic theory, touching upon the relationships between labour conditions and production, business and freedom of association, management and bargaining and ultimately the relationship between economics and human justice. Empirically, the work draws on US Congressional proceedings and debates throughout the decade of the 1990s. Although the trade and human rights debate has long been ingrained in the rhetoric of scholars, the research approaches the issue within the context of communism’s last major threshold, making it a valuable contribution to the field of international relations.