United States-China Relations, 1949-present
- LAST REVIEWED: 14 October 2020
- LAST MODIFIED: 27 June 2022
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199920082-0140
- LAST REVIEWED: 14 October 2020
- LAST MODIFIED: 27 June 2022
- DOI: 10.1093/obo/9780199920082-0140
Introduction
In broad-brush terms, United States-China relations since 1949 have passed through four phases. In the first phase, shaped in the United States by the residue of the World War II alliance with Chiang Kai-shek and the emergence of McCarthyism, and in China by Mao Zedong’s policy of “leaning to one side” (strengthening the alliance with Russia), relations moved quickly to the deep hostility of the Korean and Vietnam Wars. The second phase lasted from President Nixon’s “historic handshake” with Mao in 1972 to the collapse of the USSR in 1991. During this period, Beijing and Washington cooperated closely on some geostrategic issues, based on a shared fear of the Soviet Union, but this collaboration was troubled by the unresolved status of Taiwan. The third phase was a deeply uneasy period. The fourth phase emerged with the rise of Donald Trump as America’s leader and Xi Jinping as China’s leader. In this continuing period, important policies in both countries have shifted dramatically; conflict between the two countries has become much more explicit. Although Trump is no longer in office, the conflict continues (though somewhat restrained) under successor President Joe Biden, and Trump may return to office in 2024. Not surprisingly, the complexities of US-PRC relations have given rise to an enormous literature, which can be characterized as comprising three concentric circles. At the core is the academic discipline known as international relations (IR), a subset of political science. A central subject in IR (the central subject for many IR scholars) is the struggle for power between nation-states, including the closely related topic of warfare: what causes it, how to prevent it, but also how to win it. This is discussed within IR as a topic for rational analysis—hence the term strategy science. The dark emotional drivers of nation-state friction (greed, racial prejudice, religious intolerance, hyper-patriotism, etc.) are mostly barely acknowledged, especially in descriptions of one’s own national interests. Surrounding the IR core are other academic disciplines, such as economics and history, which are also important in understanding US-China relations. Finally, but not unimportantly, there is the outer circle of nonacademic writings, both fiction and nonfiction. In brief, the IR discipline has important insights, but it also omits much, and it is important to keep this failing in mind when exploring the vast literature of US-China relations. Some commentators discuss US-China relations primarily in terms of bilateral issues (such as military rivalry, economic friction, and human rights issues). Others, however, focus on global issues (such as climate change, pandemics, and the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction). Topics of both types are covered in this bibliography.
Overviews of the Relationship
As can be readily seen from both the monographs and the anthologies reviewed in this section, the complex US-China relationship is shaped by many difficult issues. Arguably, these overviews should all be read. They are all important, either because they are emotionally appealing and influential or because they are logically appealing and persuasive, or both. Some of these authors suggest that the topic of US-China relations is emerging as the most significant issue in foreign affairs in the 21st century. This may be untrue, because conflicts in the Middle East may be more urgent and more tragic. Nevertheless, there is no doubt that US-China relations demand careful attention.
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Article
- 1989 People's Movement
- Aesthetics
- Agricultural Technologies and Soil Sciences
- Agriculture, Origins of
- Ancestor Worship
- Anti-Japanese War
- Architecture, Chinese
- Assertive Nationalism and China's Core Interests
- Buddhism
- Buddhist Monasticism
- Buddhist Poetry of China
- Budgets and Government Revenues
- Calligraphy
- Central-Local Relations
- Ceramics
- Chiang Kai-shek
- Children’s Culture and Social Studies
- China and Africa
- China and Peacekeeping
- China and the World, 1900-1949
- China's Agricultural Regions
- China’s Soft Power
- China’s West
- Chinese Alchemy
- Chinese Communist Party Since 1949, The
- Chinese Communist Party to 1949, The
- Chinese Diaspora, The
- Chinese Nationalism
- Chinese Script, The
- Christianity in China
- Classical Confucianism
- Collective Agriculture
- Concepts of Authentication in Premodern China
- Confucius
- Confucius Institutes
- Consumer Society
- Contemporary Chinese Art Since 1976
- Corruption
- Criticism, Traditional
- Cross-Strait Relations
- Cultural Revolution
- Daoism
- Daoist Canon
- Deng Xiaoping
- Dialect Groups of the Chinese Language
- Disability Studies
- Drama (Xiqu 戏曲) Performance Arts, Traditional Chinese
- Dream of the Red Chamber
- Early Imperial China
- Economic Reforms, 1978-Present
- Economy, 1895-1949
- Emergence of Modern Banks
- Energy Economics and Climate Change
- Environmental Issues in Contemporary China
- Environmental Issues in Pre-Modern China
- Establishment Intellectuals
- Ethnicity and Minority Nationalities Since 1949
- Ethnicity and the Han
- Examination System, The
- Fall of the Qing, 1840-1912, The
- Falun Gong, The
- Family Relations in Contemporary China
- Fiction and Prose, Modern Chinese
- Film, Chinese Language
- Film in Taiwan
- Financial Sector, The
- Five Classics
- Folk Religion in Contemporary China
- Folklore and Popular Culture
- Foreign Direct Investment in China
- Gardens
- Gender and Work in Contemporary China
- Gender Issues in Traditional China
- Great Leap Forward and the Famine, The
- Guanxi
- Guomindang (1912-1949)
- Han Expansion to the South
- Health Care System, The
- Heritage Management
- Heterodox Sects in Premodern China
- Historical Archaeology (Qin and Han)
- Hukou (Household Registration) System, The
- Human Origins in China
- Human Resource Management in China
- Human Rights in China
- Imperialism and China, c. 1800-1949
- Industrialism and Innovation in Republican China
- Innovation Policy in China
- Intellectual Trends in Late Imperial China
- Islam in China
- Journalism and the Press
- Judaism in China
- Labor and Labor Relations
- Landscape Painting
- Language, The Ancient Chinese
- Language Variation in China
- Late Imperial Economy, 960-1895
- Law in Late Imperial China
- Law, Traditional Chinese
- Legalism
- Li Bai and Du Fu
- Liang Qichao
- Literati Culture
- Literature Post-Mao, Chinese
- Literature, Pre-Ming Narrative
- Liu, Zongzhou
- Local Elites in Ming-Qing China
- Local Elites in Song-Yuan China
- Macroregions
- Management Style in "Chinese Capitalism"
- Manchukuo
- Mao Zedong
- Marketing System in Pre-Modern China, The
- Marxist Thought in China
- Material Culture
- May Fourth Movement
- Media Representation of Contemporary China, International
- Medicine, Traditional Chinese
- Medieval Economic Revolution
- Mencius
- Middle-Period China
- Migration Under Economic Reform
- Ming Dynasty
- Ming Poetry 1368–1521: Era of Archaism
- Ming Poetry 1522–1644: New Literary Traditions
- Ming-Qing Fiction
- Modern Chinese Drama
- Modernism and Postmodernism in Chinese Literature
- Mohism
- Museums
- Music in China
- Needham Question, The
- Neo-Confucianism
- Neolithic Cultures in China
- New Social Classes, 1895–1949
- One Country, Two Systems
- Opium Trade
- Orientalism, China and
- Palace Architecture in Premodern China (Ming-Qing)
- Paleography
- People’s Liberation Army (PLA), The
- Philology and Science in Imperial China
- Poetics, Chinese-Western Comparative
- Poetry, Early Medieval
- Poetry, Traditional Chinese
- Political Art and Posters
- Political Dissent
- Political Thought, Modern Chinese
- Polo, Marco
- Popular Music in the Sinophone World
- Population Dynamics in Pre-Modern China
- Population Structure and Dynamics since 1949
- Porcelain Production
- Post-Collective Agriculture
- Poverty and Living Standards since 1949
- Printing and Book Culture
- Prose, Traditional
- Qi Baishi
- Qing Dynasty up to 1840
- Regional and Global Security, China and
- Religion, Ancient Chinese
- Renminbi, The
- Republican China, 1911-1949
- Revolutionary Literature under Mao
- Rural Society in Contemporary China
- School of Names
- Shanghai
- Sino-Hellenic Studies, Comparative Studies of Early China ...
- Sino-Japanese Relations Since 1945
- Social Welfare in China
- Sociolinguistic Aspects of the Chinese Language
- Su Shi (Su Dongpo)
- Sun Yat-sen and the 1911 Revolution
- Taiping Civil War
- Taiwanese Democracy
- Technology Transfer in China
- Television, Chinese
- Terracotta Warriors, The
- Tertiary Education in Contemporary China
- Texts in Pre-Modern East and South-East Asia, Chinese
- The Economy, 1949–1978
- The Shijing詩經 (Classic of Poetry; Book of Odes)
- Township and Village Enterprises
- Traditional Historiography
- Transnational Chinese Cinemas
- Tribute System, The
- Unequal Treaties and the Treaty Ports, The
- United States-China Relations, 1949-present
- Urban Change and Modernity
- Uyghurs
- Vernacular Language Movement
- Warlords, The
- Water Management
- Women Poets and Authors in Late Imperial China
- Xi, Jinping
- Xunzi
- Yan'an and the Revolutionary Base Areas
- Yuan Dynasty
- Yuan Dynasty Poetry
- Zhu Xi