A China Policy for the Next Administration

Jerome Alan Cohen

From Foreign Affairs, October 1976

Article preview: first 500 of 7,382 words total.

Summary:  "Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it." The old saw about the weather might well be applied to America's China policy. After the dramatic events of 1971-73 which initiated the long overdue process of "normalization" of relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China, the past three years have witnessed a lull in the relationship. At the start of President Richard Nixon's second term, the establishment of formal diplomatic relations was expected before the 1976 presidential election. The Sino-American joint communiqué of February 22, 1973, authorizing the parties to open liaison offices in each other's capital, and the termination of American military operations in Vietnam in early 1973 seemed to clear the path for a serious effort at normalization.

Jerome Alan Cohen is Professor of Law, Director of East Asian Legal Studies, and Associate Dean of the Harvard Law School. He is the author of The Criminal Process in the People's Republic of China, 1949-1963 and co-author of People's China and International Law and China Today.

"Everybody talks about it, but nobody does anything about it." The old saw about the weather might well be applied to America's China policy. After the dramatic events of 1971-73 which initiated the long overdue process of "normalization" of relations between the United States and the People's Republic of China, the past three years have witnessed a lull in the relationship. At the start of President Richard Nixon's second term, the establishment of formal diplomatic relations was expected before the 1976 presidential election. The Sino-American joint communiqué of February 22, 1973, authorizing the parties to open liaison offices in each other's capital, and the termination of American military operations in Vietnam in early 1973 seemed to clear the path for a serious effort at normalization.

What actually happened thereafter, of course, was rather different. First Watergate, then the collapse of our anti-communist allies in Indochina, and now our presidential election have prevented the Administration from moving forward to complete normalization in accordance with the Shanghai Communiqué of February 1972. Sino-American contacts have cooled and may deteriorate unless carefully nurtured.

What will happen after the November election? The media have been filled with analysis, prediction and speculation. Certain politicians and pundits claim the Ford Administration intends to complete the normalization process immediately after the election, whether it wins or loses. Other rumors suggest that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger may do the deed during a pre-election visit to Peking in a daring effort to capture the voters' imagination. New Chinese Premier Hua Kuo-feng has said that he does not expect progress on normalization prior to the election, but increasing Chinese pressure for post-election normalization has been felt in recent months. There have even been hints that if the United States does not act soon in fulfilling the terms of the Shanghai Communiqué, Peking cannot rule out the possibility of improving its relations with the Soviet Union.

Administration spokesmen reaffirm President Gerald Ford's commitment to complete the normalization process but deny that the United States has any timetable or formula for doing so. The Democratic nominee for the presidency, Governor Jimmy Carter, has announced a similar position, and the Democratic Platform calls only for "early movement toward normalizing diplomatic relations in the context of a peaceful resolution of the future of Taiwan."

High Foreign Ministry officials in Peking have told American journalists that improvement in Sino-American relations is unlikely until the United States severs all formal ties with the Republic of China on Taiwan. But public opinion polls show that while most Americans favor establishment of full diplomatic relations with the People's Republic, they oppose doing so at the price of eliminating U.S. diplomatic relations with the Nationalists on Taiwan. Secretary Kissinger has also been reported as believing that, if Washington yields to Chinese Communist demands that it sever formal diplomatic and defense ties to Taiwan, this would actually harm U.S. relations with the People's Republic because Peking would lose confidence in American resolve to live up to U.S. commitments elsewhere ...

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