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The United States foreign policy toward the People's Republic of China originated during the Cold War. At that time, the U.S. had a containment policy against communist states. The leaked Pentagon Papers indicated the efforts by the U.S. to contain China through military actions undertaken in the Vietnam War. The containment policy centered around an island chain strategy. In 1972, President Richard Nixon's China rapprochement signaled a shift in focus to gain leverage in containing the Soviet Union. Formal diplomatic ties between the U.S. and China were established in 1979, and with normalized trade relations since 2000, the U.S. and China have been linked by closer economic ties and more cordial relations. In his first term as U.S. president, Barack Obama said, "We want China to succeed and prosper. It's good for the United States if China continues on the path of development that it's on".
During the 2010s and early 2020s, there was a significant shift in America's China policy. U.S. military presence in the region, efforts to improve relations with India and Vietnam, and the Obama administration's 2012 "Pivot to Asia" strategy for increased American involvement in the Western Pacific, have been associated with a policy aimed at countering China's growing clout. Current U.S. military presence in the region includes military alliances with South Korea, with Japan, and with the Philippines. The Indo-Pacific region has become the focus of competition between the two powers. The term "strategic competition" has been frequently used by the United States government to describe the economic, technological, and geopolitical relationship between the U.S. and China, which had intensified in recent years. The first Trump administration stated, "The United States recognizes the long-term strategic competition between our two systems". It designated China as a "revisionist power" seeking to overturn the liberal international order and displace the United States, and called for a whole-of-government approach to China guided by a return to principled realism.
The Biden administration assessed that previous optimistic approaches to China were flawed, and that China poses "the most significant challenge of any nation-state in the world to the United States". China remains "the only competitor out there with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, a power to do so" according to the U.S.-released National Defense Strategy in 2022. However, the U.S. National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, has stated that the Biden administration does not pursue a fundamental transformation of the Chinese political system. The second Trump administration again saw a shift in China policy. The administration de-emphasized ideological and political conflict as well as concerns about China's human rights issues, and put the focus mainly on economic and military competition.
Strategic background
Cold War era After their defeat in the Chinese Civil War, parts of the Nationalist army retreated south and crossed the border into Burma. The United States supported these Nationalist forces because the United States hoped they would harass the People's Republic of China from the southwest, thereby diverting Chinese resources from the Korean War. The Burmese government protested and international pressure increased. Beginning in 1953, several rounds of withdrawals of the Nationalist forces and their families were carried out. In 1960, joint military action by China and Burma expelled the remaining Nationalist forces from Burma, although some went on to settle in the Burma-Thailand borderlands.
During the Cold War the United States tried to prevent the domino effect of the spread of communism and thwart communist countries including the People's Republic of China. Meanwhile, China supported North Vietnam and North Korea from 1950 onward as part of a strategy to establish a "security buffer zone" against the United States and the West. Washington assumed that communist North Vietnam would become a puppet state of China. The two former allies, however, eventually clashed in the 1979 Sino-Vietnamese War.Evelyn Goh, and Rosemary Foot, From containment to containment? Understanding US relations with China since 1949 ( Blackwell, 2003).
Post-Cold War
In more contemporary times, with the Nixon rapprochement and the signing of the Shanghai Communiqué, improvement in U.S.-Sino relations was made possible. Formal diplomatic ties were established in 1979, and with normalized trade relations since 2000, the US and China have been linked by closer economic ties.
The United States' 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review stated that China has "the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technologies that could over time offset traditional U.S. military advantages absent U.S. counter strategies". The 2006 National Security Strategy stated that the U.S. wanted China to continue down the road of reform and opening up. It said that as economic growth continues, China would face a growing demand from its own people to follow the path of East Asia's many modern democracies, adding political freedom to economic freedom. The document continues by stating that China cannot stay on this peaceful path while holding on to "old ways of thinking and acting" that exacerbate regional and international security concerns. The U.S. referred to the "old ways" in terms of non-transparent military expansion, mercantilism, and supporting resource-rich regimes with a record of unacceptable behavior.
The United States' political leadership began to shift policy stances in 2011, starting with the Obama administration's "pivot" toward Asia. Then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton called for "increased investment—diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise—in the Asia-Pacific region", which was seen as a move to counter China's growing clout. Supporters of increased American involvement in East Asia have cited the United States as a counterbalance to the excesses of Chinese expansion. Relevant to the argument is the fact that countries in territorial disputes with China, such as in the South China Sea and the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, have complained about China's harassment in the disputed areas. Some experts have suggested that China may leverage their economic strength in such disputes, one example being the sudden restriction on Chinese imports of Filipino bananas during tensions over the Scarborough Shoal.
Recent development
In April 2019, the fourth iteration of the Committee on the Present Danger was launched as the Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) in a press conference in Washington. The organization was reformed by former Trump administration White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and former Reagan administration official Frank Gaffney with the stated goal of "educate and inform American citizens and policymakers about the existential threats presented from the Peoples Republic of China under the misrule of the Chinese Communist Party". The CPDC takes the view that there is "no hope of coexistence with China as long as the Communist Party governs the country". Charles W. Freeman Jr. at the Watson Institute criticized the CPDC, describing it as what he believed to be a group of people with strong ideological leanings who lack expertise on China.
In a May 2019 opinion piece published by Foreign Policy, Paul Musgrave, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst commented that the first Trump administration hinted at a long-term strategy in dealing with the rise of China via a "slip" by then-director of policy planning Kiron Skinner at the US State Department. In a speech at the Future Security Forum on April 29, 2019, Skinner characterized the Cold War as "a huge fight within the Western family" where shared heritage allowed for breakthroughs; on China however, she argued that competition would be more complex, describing it as "... a fight with a really different civilization and a different ideology" and noting that "it's the first time that we will have a great-power competitor that is not Caucasian".
A study on China produced by a small working group within the department led by Skinner reportedly framed the U.S.-China competition in civilizational terms. The study was informally called "Letter X" in reference to George F. Kennan's X Article that advocated for a containment strategy against the Soviet Union. In August 2019, The New York Times reported that Skinner had departed from her role at the Department of State, and that Trump administration officials distanced themselves from her remarks. Earlier in the year, an open letter titled "China is not an enemy" was released by five China-focused scholars and foreign policy experts, and was endorsed by some business leaders, in which they decried what they saw in the U.S. approach as "counterproductive", and urged the Trump administration to continue the more "cooperative" approach.
With evolving discussions on the role of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the post–Cold War era, NATO countries have not officially labeled the PRC an outright "enemy", but former NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg acknowledged the "challenges" posed by China's growing global influence at a NATO event in 2019, stating, "China will soon have the world's biggest economy. And it already has the second largest defense budget, investing heavily in new capabilities." He also said that NATO did not seek to "create new adversaries". The United States' NATO representative at the event referred to China as a "competitor".
According to a report by Reuters, in 2019 the United States CIA engaged in efforts on Chinese social media to highlight criticisms of the General secretaryship of Xi Jinping in an effort to shape Chinese public opinions. The campaign reportedly focused on narratives that included allegations of Communist Party leaders' financial activities overseas and concerns regarding transparency in the Belt and Road Initiative. As part of the campaign, the CIA also targeted other countries where the United States and China were competing for influence.
On May 20, 2020, in accordance with the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, the Trump administration delivered a report, "U.S. Strategic Approach to the People's Republic of China" to members of the U.S. Congress. The report states a whole-of-government approach to China under the 2017 National Security Strategy, which says it is time the U.S. "rethink the failed policies of the past two decades – policies based on the assumption that engagement with rivals and their inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn them into benign actors and trustworthy partners". The report says it "reflects a fundamental reevaluation of how the United States understands and responds to" the leaders of China, adding "The United States recognizes the long-term strategic competition between our two systems."
In February 2021, U.S. president Joe Biden said that China is the "most serious competitor" that poses challenges on the "prosperity, security, and democratic values" of the U.S. U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken stated that previous optimistic approaches to China were flawed, and that China poses "the most significant challenge of any nation-state in the world to the United States". Blinken also agreed that Biden's predecessor, Donald Trump, "was right in taking a tougher approach to China".