U.S. Policy Toward China: An Introduction to the Role of Interest Groups (review)

U.S. Policy Toward China assesses the impact that interest groups in the United States have had on debates leading to the formulation and implementation of U.S. policy toward China, especially since 1989. According to Robert Sutter, in 1989 there was a collapse of consensus over U.S. relations with the People's Republic of China due in part to the end of the Cold War (which ended the strategic imperative in Washington-Beijing ties) and in part to Beijing's changed image in the United States as a result of the Tiananmen Massacre.

Sutter focuses on several "hot button" issues: most favored nation status, which became very controversial and the cause of conflict between the White House and Congress during both the Bush and Clinton administrations; relations with Taiwan in 1995 and 1996; and the period of ups and downs in U.S.-China relations in 1997 and 1998.

The author believes, as do most other China scholars, that U.S. policy toward China was elitist, that is, made by a very few "insiders" without much input from Congress, interest groups, or the public, from the time of the Washington-Beijing rapprochement during the Nixon administration up to 1989. After 1989 it was different: Congress assumed a bigger role, and interest groups gained leverage in considerable part because they could make their views and desires for change in U.S.-China relations known to Congress, though they also sought influence to a lesser extent through the media and through the executive branch of government.

This "new situation" is more salient than one might at first have thought. Sutter, in fact, says that it helps explain why George Bush was not reelected in 1992 and why Bill Clinton's foreign policy vacillations led to the 1996 Taiwan Strait crisis. Bush tried to ignore Congress in making China policy, hurting his public image; Clinton developed the reputation for both insulting (and possibly selling out) Taiwan and for having a poor foreign-policy team, resulting in vastly increased Congressional pressure to make specific decisions affecting U.S. China policy. After 1996, Sutter says, the White House tried to take back control of China policy, but because of "donorgate" and Congress' low opinion of foreign-policy making by the Clinton team, it was not at all successful.

In somewhat academic terms, the author defines the elitist model (favored by Nixon and Kissinger and practiced by subsequent presidents including George Bush and to some degree Bill Clinton) and the pluralist model that has in considerable measure replaced it. He makes a comparison between "America first" views and "U.S. leadership" advocates; the latter, he says, ignore America's decline and press Congress on special issues such as human rights, democracy, and coercive birth control.

Engagement, he argues, is the "moderate approach," though he, like a host of U.S. leaders who use the term, do not define it adequately. Sutter suggests it is the antithesis of containment, even though this seems to be a straw man since containment is obviously outdated and unworkable (China has almost five times the population of the United States and has been growing economically four- to five-fold in comparison), and hardly anyone considers it a realistic or serious choice.

Sutter writes extensively about how business interests affect China policy. He notes that business interests have become more powerful as China's economy has boomed and so has their lobbying influence. This, in fact, is one of the most interesting facets of this book and will probably be the most informative to a majority of readers.

Sutter also cites the impact of Chinese Americans, human rights groups, unions, and think tanks. The impact of these lobbying "groups" is not well understood, and Sutter has some enlightening things to say about them. This reviewer, however, does...