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Jiang's visit: New chapter in Sino-U.S. relations?
October 27, 1997
Web posted at: 4:19 p.m. EST (2119 GMT)From World Affairs Correspondent Ralph Begleiter
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Washington and Beijing spent three decades at odds, after Mao Tse-tung's Communists took over China in 1949.
The United States' former Chinese allies fled to Taiwan and thus created a political division that still haunts relations between the world's largest democracy and the world's largest communist nation.
In the 1950s, the United States whipped itself into an anti-communist frenzy: Washington began the search for communists under every bed and demonized "Red China" in the eyes of Americans.
Fear of communist domination grew with the construction of the Berlin Wall in 1961 and during the Cuban missile crisis the next year.
And suddenly, communism was spreading throughout Asia. Right next door to China, communists fought for control in Vietnam in a struggle which President Lyndon Johnson said was an attempt "to erode and discredit America's ability to help prevent Chinese domination over all of Asia."
Amid the ashes of the Vietnam war, Chinese-American relations began a historic improvement. President Richard Nixon had already sent private signals to Beijing indicating that Washington would accept "peaceful coexistence" with China.
Mao said he would welcome a visit by the conservative American president, and an exchange of pingpong teams broke the ice for Nixon's Secretary of State Henry Kissinger to make a secret visit to Beijing in the summer of 1971.
Nixon's subsequent trip to China laid the foundation for today's Sino-American relationship, in which the issue of Taiwan is a key element.
The United States accepts Beijing's tenet that there is only one China and that Taiwan is part of that.
But the legacy of Washington's alliance with the anti-communist Chinese means continuing U.S. weapons deliveries and military protection for Taiwan.
Congressional backing -- and the fact that Taiwan is an important trading partner of the United States -- keeps Washington merely paying lip service to Beijing's belief that Taiwan is not a distinct nation.
Nevertheless, that "deal" on Taiwan propelled Sino-American relations on an upswing through the 1980s. "I remain confident that Chinese-American cooperation will grow and strengthen in the years ahead," President Ronald Reagan said in 1984.
One incentive for good relations was China's backward economy which offered enormous business opportunities for Americans.
But Chinese and American human rights advocates continued portraying the Beijing leadership as ruthless exploiters of helpless people.
That image was reinforced by China's government itself during the showdown with pro-democracy demonstrators in Tiananmen square in 1989, and the still unacknowledged massacre and imprisonment of hundreds, perhaps thousands of people.
Chinese authorities are still living down these events: "Differences in social and economic systems and ideology should not constitute obstacles to our relations," commented Yu Shuning of the Chinese Embassy in Washington.
But the Tiananmen crackdown sent Sino-American relations into a nose dive. Eight years later, the United States is the only industrialized nation which still punishes China for those events. Washington, for instance, refuses Beijing's requests for up-to-date nuclear power technology that could help modernize China. The United States has also effectively blocked China's entry into the World Trade Organization by demanding that Beijing meet tough fair-trade standards.
While the Bush administration tried to break out of the post-Tiananmen chill with secret visits to Beijing, Bill Clinton swept into office with tough words about not "coddling dictators," and continued sanctions.
Just two years later, Clinton reversed himself and said that human rights issues should not scuttle relations with Beijing.
Unlike Russia, which remains a bit player in the world economy, China is a huge global trading partner. But China is also a critically important political player, for instance in trouble spots like the Korean Peninsula, where the United States still has 37,000 troops. And in the Persian Gulf, where Chinese missiles in Iran could affect the supply -- and the price -- of oil worldwide.
During the Cold War, U.S. presidents met regularly with enemy Soviet communist leaders. Washington officials hope that this week's summit is the start of similarly regular talks with Chinese leaders.
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