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In 1867, Taiwanese natives attacked shipwrecked American sailors from the U.S.S. Rover, killing the entire crew. They later fought and defeated a retaliatory expedition by the American military and killed another American during the battle.
In 1868, the Qing government appointed Anson Burlingame as their emissary to the United States. Burlingame toured the country and lobbied for support for equitable treatment for China and for Chinese emigrants. The 1868 Burlingame Treaty was signed to allow for Chinese immigration to the United States. In 1871, the Chinese Educational Mission brought the first of two groups of 120 Chinese boys to study in the United States. They were led by Yung Wing, the first Chinese man to graduate from an American university.
During the California Gold Rush and the construction of the transcontinental railroad, large numbers of Chinese migrated to the U.S., causing animosity from American citizens. Most of these immigrants settled in "Chinatowns" in cities such as San Francisco. Unable to work in mines, they took up low-end wage jobs, such as restaurant and cleaning work. With the post-Civil War economy in decline by the 1870s, anti-Chinese animosity became politicized by labor leader Denis Kearney and his party, as well as by the California governor John Bigler. Both blamed these Chinese immigrants for depressed wages overall.
Congress passed the Chinese Exclusion Act on May 6, 1882, following revisions made in 1880 to the Burlingame Treaty. Those revisions allowed the United States to suspend immigration, and Congress quickly implemented the suspension of Chinese immigration and excluded Chinese skilled and unskilled laborers from entering the country for ten years, under penalty of imprisonment and deportation. The ban was renewed a number of times, lasting for over 60 years.
The American China Development Company, founded in 1895 by J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie, started building the Hankow-Canton Railroad, to link central and southern China. It only managed to finish 30 miles of line. The venture did not appear profitable, and the company sold out to a rival Belgian syndicate. On the whole, the American get rich schemes by investing in China or selling to hundreds of millions of Chinese generally failed. Standard Oil did succeed in selling kerosene to the China market, but few others made a profit.
In 1899, a movement of Chinese nationalists calling themselves the Society of Right and Harmonious Fists started a violent revolt in China, referred to by Westerners as the Boxer Rebellion. They rebelled against foreign influence in trade, politics, religion, and technology. The campaigns took place from November 1899 to September 7, 1901, during the final years of Manchu rule in China under the Qing dynasty. They protested foreign westerners seizing land from locals, and the granting of immunity to criminals who converted to Catholicism. The insurgents attacked foreigners, who were building railroads and Christians, who were held responsible for the foreign domination of China. In June 1900, the Boxers entered Peking, and ransacked the area around the Foreign Legations. On June 21, Empress Dowager Cixi declared war against all Western powers. Diplomats, foreign civilians, soldiers, and Chinese Christians were besieged during the Siege of the International Legations for 55 days. A coalition called the Eight-Nation Alliance, made up of Austria-Hungary, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia, Britain and the United States, sent 20,000 troops to their rescue. The multinational forces were initially defeated by a Chinese Muslim army at the Battle of Langfang, but the second attempt in the Gaselee Expedition was successful. The Chinese government was forced to indemnify the victims and make many additional concessions. This led to the end of the Qing dynasty and the establishment of the modern Chinese Republic.
The United States played a secondary but significant role in suppressing the Boxer Rebellion, largely due to the presence of US ships and troops deployed in the Philippines after the Spanish–American War. Within the United States Armed Forces, the suppression of the Boxer Rebellion was known as the China Relief Expedition. After the rebellion, American Protestants sent a large number of missions to China. They sent 500 missionaries in 1890, over 2000 in 1914, and 8300 in 1920. By 1927 they opened 16 American universities, six medical schools, and four theology schools, together with 265 middle schools and a large number of elementary schools.
Japan and Russia fought the Russo-Japanese War in 1904, in which the U.S. mediated a peace. Japan presented its Twenty-One Demands in 1915 made on the then-Republic of China. Japan also made secret treaties with the Allied Powers promising Japan the German territories in China. In 1931, Japan invaded and occupied Manchuria. The United States along with other countries condemned the action, leading to U.S. support for China in its war with Japan after 1937.
After the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, the United States government recognized the Republic of China (ROC) government as the sole and legitimate government of China despite a number of governments ruling various parts of China. China was reunified by a single government, led by the Kuomintang (KMT) in 1928.
The outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937 saw aid flow into China from the United States under President Franklin D. Roosevelt. A series of Neutrality Acts had been passed in the US with the support of isolationists who forbade American aid to countries at war. Because the Second Sino-Japanese War was an undeclared war, Roosevelt sent the aid to China. American public sympathy for the Chinese grew as the result of reports from missionaries, novelists such as Pearl S. Buck, and Time Magazine of Japanese brutality in China, including reports surrounding the Nanking Massacre, also known as the 'Rape of Nanking'. Though war had not yet been declared, American public opinion overwhelmingly favored China and denounced Japan.
The United States formally declared war on Japan in December 1941 following the Japanese surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. The Roosevelt administration gave massive amounts of aid to the Chinese government, now headquartered in Chungking. Madame Chiang Kai-shek, who had been educated in the United States, addressed the US Congress and toured the country to rally support for China. Congress amended the Chinese Exclusion Act and Roosevelt moved to end the unequal treaties by establishing the Treaty for Relinquishment of Extraterritorial Rights in China.
After World War II ended in 1945, the hostility between the Republic of China and the Communist Party of China exploded into open civil war. Communists took control of mainland China in the Chinese Civil War in 1949. American general George Marshall had spent most of the year 1946 in China trying to broker a truce between the Republic of China and the Communist Party of China, but he was unable to bring about a treaty. In February 1948, Marshall, now the Secretary of State, testified to Congress in secret session that he had realized from the start that the Nationalists could never defeat the Communists in the field, so some sort of negotiated settlement was necessary or else the United States would have to fight the war. He said in his testimony:
"Any large-scale United States effort to assist the Chinese Government to oppose the Communists would most probably degenerate into a direct U.S. undertaking and responsibility, involving the commitment of sizable forces and resources over an indefinite period. Such a dissipation of U.S. resources would inevitably play into the hands of the Russians, or would provoke a reaction which would possibly, even probably, we to another Spanish type of revolution or general hostilities....the cost of an all-out effort to see Communist forces resisted and destroyed in China would clearly be out of all proportion to the results to be obtained."
In 1949, when the Communists emerged victorious, they drove the Nationalists from the Chinese mainland onto Taiwan and other islands. Mao Zedong established the People's Republic of China in mainland China. Taiwan and other islands are still regarded by China as being under the Republic of China rule to this day, although Taiwan considers itself to be independent.
After the Korean War broke out, the Truman administration resumed economic and military aid to the nationalists. President Harry Truman sent the United States Seventh Fleet to stop a Communist invasion of Taiwan. Until the US formally recognized China in 1979, Washington provided Taiwan with financial grants based on the Foreign Assistance Act.
The United States did not formally recognize the People's Republic of China (PRC) for 30 years after its founding. Instead, the US maintained diplomatic relations with the Republic of China government on Taiwan, recognizing it as the sole legitimate government of China. When the People's Liberation Army moved south to complete the conquest of mainland China in 1949, the American embassy followed Chiang Kai-shek's Republic of China government to Taipei, while US consular officials remained in mainland China. The People's Republic of China was hostile to the American presence, and all US personnel were expelled from the mainland in early 1950. In December 1950, the People's Republic seized all American assets and properties, totaling $196.8 million, after the US had frozen Chinese assets in America.
The Truman administration announced on January 5, 1950, that the United States would not become involved in any dispute about the Taiwan Strait, and that he would not intervene in the event of an attack by the PRC. But when the Korean War began on 25 June with the invasion of the US-backed Republic of Korea by the communist Democratic People's Republic of Korea. A US-led international coalition of troops drove the North Korean forces from the South. In response to the Soviet-backed North Korean invasion of South Korea, the United Nations Security Council was convened and passed UNSC Resolution 82, declaring war on North Korea unanimously. The resolution was adopted mainly because the Soviet Union, a veto-wielding power, had been boycotting UN proceedings since January, in protest that the Republic of China and not the People's Republic of China held a permanent seat on the council.
In the war, the Chinese came to the aid of the North Koreans. The Chinese warned the UN forces not to venture too close to their border, but the warning was ignored and in November 1950, a massive Chinese counterattack was launched. The Chinese army struck in the west along the Chongchon River and completely overran several South Korean divisions. The defeat of the US Eighth Army resulted in the longest retreat of any American military unit in history. Both sides sustained heavy casualties before the allied forces were able to push Chinese forces back, near the original border. On April 5, the US Joint Chiefs of Staff released orders for immediate retaliatory attacks using nuclear weapons against Manchurian bases to prevent new Chinese troops from entering the battles or bombing attacks originating from those bases. Presdient Truman gave his approval for transfer of nine Mark IV nuclear capsules to the Air Force's Ninth Bomb Group. Two years of continued fighting ended in a stalemate, until the Korean Armistice Agreement was signed on July 27, 1953. Since then, a divided Korea has become a significant factor in US-China relations.
The People's Republic of China provided resources and training to North Vietnam, and in the summer of 1962, Chairman Mao Zedong agreed to supply Hanoi with 90,000 rifles and guns free of charge. After the launch of the America's Operation "Rolling Thunder", China sent anti-aircraft units and engineering battalions to North Vietnam to repair the damage caused by American bombing, rebuild roads and railroads, and perform other engineering work, freeing additional hundreds of thousands North Vietnamese army units for combat in American supported South Vietnam. President Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara ruled out the possibility of a ground invasion of North Vietnam early on, for fear of repeating the Korean War.
The United States continued to work to prevent the communist government from taking China's seat in the United Nations and encouraged its allies not to deal with the PRC. The United States placed an embargo on trading with the PRC, and encouraged allies to follow it. The PRC developed nuclear weapons in 1964.
Relations with China remained hostile until the Nixon administration. Richard M. Nixon mentioned in his inaugural address that the two countries were entering an era of negotiation after an era of confrontation. Nixon said that there was "no reason to leave China angry and isolated". Nixon believed it was in the American national interest to forge a relationship with China. In 1971, an unexpectedly friendly encounter between the American and Chinese ping-pong athletes called Glenn Cowan and Zhuang Zedong in Japan opened the way for a visit to China, which Chairman Mao personally approved. In April 1971, the athletes became the first Americans to officially visit China since the communist takeover. The smooth acceptance of this so-called "ping-pong diplomacy" led to further negotiations. In July 1971, Henry Kissinger feigned illness while on a trip to Pakistan and did not appear in public for a day. He was actually on a top-secret mission to Beijing to negotiate with Zhou Enlai.
Kissinger and his aides did not receive a warm welcome in Beijing at first, but the meeting with Zhou Enlai was productive. On July 15, 1971, President Richard Nixon revealed the mission to the world and that he had accepted an invitation to visit the PRC. This announcement was supported for the most part and Nixon saw the jump in the polls. Internationally, reactions varied. In the communist world, the Soviets were very concerned that two major enemies seemed to have resolved their differences, and the a world alignment would follow. From February 21 to February 28, 1972, President Nixon traveled to Beijing, Hangzhou, and Shanghai. At the conclusion of his trip, the US and the PRC issued the Shanghai Communiqué, a statement of their respective foreign policy views. In the Communiqué, both nations pledged to work toward the full normalization of diplomatic relations.
In May 1973, the US and the PRC established the United States Liaison Office (USLO) in Beijing and a counterpart PRC office in Washington. President Gerald Ford visited the PRC in 1975 and reaffirmed American interest in normalizing relations with Beijing. Shortly after taking office in 1977, President Jimmy Carter again reaffirmed the goals of the Shanghai Communiqué. Secretary of State Cyrus Vance, Carter's National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski, and senior staff member of the National Security Council Michel Oksenberg encouraged Carter to seek full diplomatic and trade relations with China. The United States and the People's Republic of China announced on December 15, 1978 that the two governments would establish diplomatic relations on January 1, 1979.
Vice Premier Deng Xiaoping's January 1979 visit to Washington initiated a series of important, high-level exchanges which continued until the spring of 1989. This resulted in many bilateral agreements, especially in the fields of scientific, technological, and cultural interchange, as well as trade relations. On March 1, 1979, the two countries formally established embassies in each other's capitals.
In 1979 American arms sales to China were initiated, and in 1981 it was revealed that a joint Sino-US listening post had been opened in Xinjiang, near the Soviet border. In 1983, the US State Department changed its classification of China to "a friendly, developing nation". President Ronald Reagan and Premier Zhao Ziyang made reciprocal visits in 1984. Reagan's visit to Beijing went well.
On December 15, 1978, Taiwan condemned the United States, leading to rampant protests in both Taiwan and in the US. In April of 1979, the US Congress signed into law the Taiwan Relations Act, permitting unofficial relations with Taiwan.
Following China's violent suppression of political protests in June 1989, the US and other governments enacted a number of measures against China's violation of human rights. The US imposed a number of economic sanctions. In the summer of 1990, at the G7 Houston summit, the West called for renewed political and economic reforms in mainland China, particularly in the field of human rights. The Tiananmen square incident disrupted the US-China trade relationship, and US investment in mainland China dropped dramatically. Tourist traffic also declined sharply. The Bush administration denounced the repression and suspended certain trade and investment programs on June 5 and 20, 1989. Military ties and arms sales were abruptly terminated in 1989 and have never been restored.
China's paramount leader Jiang Zemin visited the United States in the fall of 1997, the first state visit to the US by a PRC president since 1985. In connection with that visit, the two sides came to a consensus on implementation of their 1985 agreement on Peaceful Nuclear Cooperation, as well as a number of other issues. President Clinton visited the PRC in June 1998. He traveled extensively in mainland China, and had direct interaction with the Chinese people, including live speeches and a radio show which allowed the President to convey a sense of American ideals and values.
Relations between the two countries suffered following the United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade in May 1999. This was stated by the White House to be miscoordination between intelligence and the military, although which some Chinese believed to be deliberate. By the end of 1999, relations began to gradually improve. In October 1999, the two countries reached an agreement on compensation for families of those who were victims, as well as payments for damages to respective diplomatic properties in Belgrade and China.
Sino–American relations improved following the September 11 terrorist attacks. Two Chinese citizens died in the attacks on the World Trade Center. Chinese companies and individuals sent expressions of condolences to their American counterparts. The PRC voted in favor of UNSCR 1373, publicly supported the coalition campaign in Afghanistan and contributed $150 million of bilateral assistance to Afghan reconstruction following the defeat of the Taliban.
The People's Republic of China has stressed its opposition to North Korea's decision to withdraw from the Treaty on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons, its concerns over North Korea's nuclear capabilities, and its desire for a non-nuclear Korean Peninsula.
The 2008 US presidential election centered on issues of war and economic recession, but candidates Barack Obama and John McCain also spoke extensively regarding US policy toward China. Both favored cooperation with China on major issues, but they differed with regard to trade policy. Obama expressed concern that the value of China's currency was being deliberately set low to benefit China's exporters, while McCain argued that free trade was crucial and was having a transformative effect in China.
On November 8, 2008, Hu Jintao and Barack Obama had a phone conversation in which the Chinese President congratulated Obama on his election victory. Obama visited China from November 15 to 18, 2009 to discuss economic worries, concerns over nuclear weapon proliferation, and the need for action against climate change. In January 2010, the US proposed a $6.4 billion arms sale to Taiwan. In response, the PRC threatened to impose sanctions on US companies supplying arms to Taiwan and suspend cooperation on certain regional and international issues. In March 2012, China reduced its purchases of oil from Iran, a decision believed to have been influenced by the Obama administration. In March 2013, the US and China agreed to impose stricter sanctions on North Korea for conducting nuclear tests.
President Obama met President Xi Jinping for two days of meetings, between 6 June and 8 June 2013, at the Sunnylands estate in Rancho Mirage, California. The leaders agreed to combat climate change and also found strong mutual interest in curtailing North Korea's nuclear program. But they could not reach agreement on cyber espionage and U.S. arms sales to Taiwan.
President-elect Donald Trump spoke with Tsai Ing-wen, President of Taiwan, on December 2, 2016, the first such contact with Taiwan by a U.S. president-elect or president since 1979.This provoked the People's Republic of China to lodge a diplomatic protest. Trump later told Fox News, "I fully understand the 'one China' policy, but I don't know why we have to be bound by a 'one China' policy unless we make a deal with China having to do with other things, including trade."
On 9 February, Trump spoke with China's leader Xi Jinping over the phone discussing a wide range of issues; Trump was said to have re-iterated the United States' commitment to the 'one-China' policy. They spoke again on July 3, 2017 and President Xi Jinping said that "China-US relations have made great progress in recent days, but they have also been affected by some negative factors." One of the things he was referring to was the presence of American military vessels in the Chinese territorial waters of Xisha (Paracel) Islands.
On November 8, 2017, President Trump visited Beijing as part of the Asian tour. At a meeting, the two leaders discussed the de-nucleariziation on the Korean peninsula and the stabilization of China–United States relations. President Trump reiterated the importance of trade development between the two countries and reaffirmed the American support for the One-China policy. On March 13, 2018, the out-going US Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, said: "Much work remains to establish a clear view of the nature of our future relationship with China, how shall we deal with one-another over the next fifty years, and ensure a period of prosperity for all of our peoples, free of conflict between two very powerful nations."
For the Trump Presidency, one of the most sensitive issues in US-Chinese relations is that of tariffs. As part of President Trump's "America First" policy, the tariffs he has imposed have been met with tariffs in China on 128 categories of American goods. These took effect on April 1, 2018 in retaliation for the Trump Administration’s levies on steel and aluminum imports the previous month. In September 2018, the Trump Administration had placed tariffs on $250 billion dollars worth of Chinese goods, in an attempt to offset the trade imbalance between the two countries.
The two countries had resumed trade relations in 1972. Since then, direct investment by the US in mainland China covers a wide range of manufacturing sectors, several large hotel projects, restaurant chains, and petrochemicals. US companies have entered agreements establishing more than 20,000 equity joint ventures, contractual joint ventures, and wholly foreign-owned enterprises in mainland China. Over 100 US-based multinationals have projects in mainland China, some with multiple investments. Cumulative US investment in mainland China is valued at $48 billion. The US trade deficit with mainland China has exceeded $350 billion in the past, and is the United States' largest bilateral trade deficit.
China has restrictive trade practices which include a wide array of barriers to foreign goods and services, aimed at protecting state-owned enterprises. The Chinese government has imposed high tariffs, the requiring of foreign businesses to obtain special permission to import goods, inconsistent application of laws and regulations, and leveraging technology from foreign firms in return for market access.
Another contentious issues is China being a major currency manipulator. China has bought more than $300 billion annually to keep its currency low, improving its competitive position to attract outside trade and investment. Currency manipulation is the reason for China's large trade surpluses. Business leaders within the United States pressured the Obama administration to take a hard-line stance against China and compel them to raise the value of their currency, and legislation was introduced to the United States Congress calling on the President to impose tariffs on Chinese imports until China properly values its currency. The tariffs imposed by President Trump seek in part to address this problem. In 2014, China stopped artificially deflating its currency because growth in the Chinese economy slowed and Chinese investors made more investments outside the country, leading to a drop in the yuan's value in relation to the dollar.
Another issue on the President's desk is China's status as a major creditor and the second largest foreign holder of US public debt. China has been critical of US deficits and fiscal policy. China has advised the United States not to continue with the accumulation of debt, stating that America cannot continue to borrow to solve financial problems.
Yet another concern is Chinese military spending. According to the PRC government, China spent $45 billion on defense in 2007. In contrast, the United States had a $623-billion budget for the military in 2008, $123 billion more than the combined military budgets of all other countries in the world. Some very broad US estimates maintain that the PRC military spends between $85 billion and $125 billion. Concerns have been raised that China is developing a large naval base near the South China Sea and has diverted resources to air force and missile development. The Chinese continue to invest in modernization of their nuclear forces, purportedly to keep up with further improvement in American missile defenses.
The US State Department publishes an annual report on human rights around the world, which includes an evaluation of China's human rights record. The State Department has list China as one of the world's worst human rights violators. Since 1998, China has annually published a White Paper detailing the human rights abuses by the United States. The United States report on China's human rights practices for 2013 described the PRC as an authoritarian state and a place in which repression and coercion were routine. On February 28, 2014, China published a report on human rights in the United States citing surveillance on its own citizens, mistreatment of inmates, gun violence, and homelessness despite having a vibrant economy as important issues.
Finally, there is the issue of Cyberwarfare. In 2014, Chinese hackers hacked the computer system of the Office of Personnel Management, resulting in the theft of approximately 22 million personnel records handled by the office. Former FBI Director James Comey described it as "a very big deal from a national security perspective and from a counterintelligence perspective. It’s a treasure trove of information about everybody who has worked for, tried to work for, or works for the United States government." Last month, in October 2018, the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee held a hearing on the threat to the U.S. posed by China. Before the hearing, Bloomberg released an article saying that China is embedding technology in microchips sent to America that collect data on American consumers. However, both FBI Director Christopher Wray and Homeland Security Secretary Kirstjen Nielsen would not confirm that. Nielsen said that China has become a major threat to the U.S. Nielsen also confirmed, in an answer to a question from a senator, that China is trying to influence U.S. elections.
When dealing with powerful nations, Presidents have had to strike a balance between provocation and resignation. Like other problems discussed in this series, the issue of relations with China are complex and not solved by sound-byte answers. The modern president must look to the future and weight the consequences of every decision from an economic and national security perspective, as well as a moral one.