Engaging China
Fifty Years of Sino-American Relations
Published on 13. July 2021
Book
Hardback
472 pages
978-0-231-20128-5 (ISBN)
Description
The importance of the relationship between the United States and the People's Republic of China has only grown since Richard Nixon's epochal visit in 1972. By the early twenty-first century, when the rise of China had become an inescapable fact, most American policy makers and experts saw bilateral ties with China as the most consequential foreign-relations priority for the United States.
In recent years, even before the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S.-China relationship has rapidly deteriorated-and the whole world has felt the consequences. This book brings together leading China specialists to offer a retrospective on relations between the United States and China over the last half-century and consider what might be next. The contributors-including academics, leaders of China-related nongovernmental organizations, and former diplomats and government officials-analyze the relationship from a range of perspectives: political, diplomatic, economic, social, cultural, commercial, educational, medical, and military. They reassess American engagement with China from the late Mao years onward, covering leaders from Deng Xiaoping through Xi Jinping. The contributors highlight not only the accomplishments and hard-won successes of engagement but also the mistakes and misunderstandings, acknowledging the well-earned distrust and genuine frictions that plague the relationship today.
Multidisciplinary and comprehensive, Engaging China is a vital reconsideration for a time when the stakes of U.S. policy toward China have never been higher.
In recent years, even before the coronavirus pandemic, the U.S.-China relationship has rapidly deteriorated-and the whole world has felt the consequences. This book brings together leading China specialists to offer a retrospective on relations between the United States and China over the last half-century and consider what might be next. The contributors-including academics, leaders of China-related nongovernmental organizations, and former diplomats and government officials-analyze the relationship from a range of perspectives: political, diplomatic, economic, social, cultural, commercial, educational, medical, and military. They reassess American engagement with China from the late Mao years onward, covering leaders from Deng Xiaoping through Xi Jinping. The contributors highlight not only the accomplishments and hard-won successes of engagement but also the mistakes and misunderstandings, acknowledging the well-earned distrust and genuine frictions that plague the relationship today.
Multidisciplinary and comprehensive, Engaging China is a vital reconsideration for a time when the stakes of U.S. policy toward China have never been higher.
Reviews / Votes
China is confronting the United States with its biggest international challenge. If there is one book that can help readers understand China's transition, in American eyes, from a quasi-ally against the Soviet Union to the biggest threat to U.S. interests in the global arena, this is the one. -- J. Stapleton Roy, former U.S. ambassador to China Immensely readable and rich with perspective and detail, Engaging China reckons with the rise and fall of one of history's most pivotal diplomatic strategies. From esteemed American scholars and practitioners who grappled with China in real time, this is a clear-eyed account of what happened-and a roadmap for what lies ahead. -- Evan Osnos, author of <i>Age of Ambition: Chasing Fortune, Truth, and Faith in the New China</i> This wonderful volume, composed of contributions from an all-star lineup of talented and experienced China hands, reminds us of the richness of the past fifty years of engagement and the benefits accrued to both countries and their peoples. A must-read for all who want to understand the crucial importance of the U.S.-China nexus. -- Jan Berris, vice president of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations Engaging China offers a nuanced understanding that there was no single framework, assumption, or motivation behind the increasing interdependence with China that developed after 1971. Moreover, the volume demonstrates that there was connectivity and thinking about relations well before 1971. It will be an essential text for students, a resource for policy makers, and a good read for the general public. -- Michael J. Green, author of <i>By More Than Providence: Grand Strategy and American Power in the Asia Pacific Since 1783</i>More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
New York
United States
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Trade binding
Illustrations
14 b&w figures
Dimensions
Height: 235 mm
Width: 156 mm
ISBN-13
978-0-231-20128-5 (9780231201285)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
09/2021
1st Edition
Columbia University Press
€33.99
Available for download
Person
Anne F. Thurston is the former director of the Grassroots China Initiative and senior research professor at the Johns Hopkins University's School of Advanced International Studies. She has written or edited many books about China, including Enemies of the People: The Ordeal of the Intellectuals in China's Great Cultural Revolution (1987); A Chinese Odyssey: The Life and Times of a Chinese Dissident (1991); Li Zhisui's The Private Life of Chairman Mao (1994), and, with Gyalo Thondup, The Noodle Maker of Kalimpong: The Untold Story of My Struggle for Tibet (2015).
Content
Part I: The Making and Unmaking of the U.S.-China Relationship
1. Engaging China: Fifty Years of Sino-American Relations, by Anne F. Thurston
2. The Logic and Efficacy of Engagement: Objectives, Assumptions, and Impacts, by Thomas Fingar
3. Mismanaging China's Rise: The South China Sea Dispute and the Transformation of Sino-American Relations from Strategic Partners to Strategic Rivals, by John W. Garver
Part II: Thinking About How We Think About China
4. A Half-Century of Engagement: The Study of China and the Role of the China Scholar Community, by Andrew Mertha
5. The American Dream and the China Dream: Unpeaceful Evolutions, by Richard Madsen
6. U.S.-China Retrospective: Forty Years of Commercial Relations, by Craig Allen
7. A Perspective on Chinese Economics: What Have We Learned? What Did We Fail to Anticipate?, by Barry Naughton
Part III: On the Ground, Nongovernmental, People-to-People Cooperation
8. Strategic Adaptation: American Foundations, Religious Organizations, and NGOs in China, by Mary Brown Bullock
9. U.S.-China Relations: A Public Health Perspective, by Yanzhong Huang
10. Thinkers. Builders. Symbols. Spies? China-U.S. Educational Relations in the Engagement Era, by Robert Daly
Part IV: Fault Lines, Threats to Peace, and Reflections on the Future
11. U.S.-China Military Relations: From Enmity to Entente and Maybe Back Again, by Chas W. Freeman Jr.
12. China's Periphery: A Rift Zone in U.S.-China Relations, by Carla P. Freeman
13. Forty-Plus Years of U.S.-China Diplomacy: Realities and Recommendations, by Kenneth Lieberthal and Susan Thornton
14. Engagement with China: A Eulogy and Reflections on a Gathering Storm ,, by David M. Lampton
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Index
1. Engaging China: Fifty Years of Sino-American Relations, by Anne F. Thurston
2. The Logic and Efficacy of Engagement: Objectives, Assumptions, and Impacts, by Thomas Fingar
3. Mismanaging China's Rise: The South China Sea Dispute and the Transformation of Sino-American Relations from Strategic Partners to Strategic Rivals, by John W. Garver
Part II: Thinking About How We Think About China
4. A Half-Century of Engagement: The Study of China and the Role of the China Scholar Community, by Andrew Mertha
5. The American Dream and the China Dream: Unpeaceful Evolutions, by Richard Madsen
6. U.S.-China Retrospective: Forty Years of Commercial Relations, by Craig Allen
7. A Perspective on Chinese Economics: What Have We Learned? What Did We Fail to Anticipate?, by Barry Naughton
Part III: On the Ground, Nongovernmental, People-to-People Cooperation
8. Strategic Adaptation: American Foundations, Religious Organizations, and NGOs in China, by Mary Brown Bullock
9. U.S.-China Relations: A Public Health Perspective, by Yanzhong Huang
10. Thinkers. Builders. Symbols. Spies? China-U.S. Educational Relations in the Engagement Era, by Robert Daly
Part IV: Fault Lines, Threats to Peace, and Reflections on the Future
11. U.S.-China Military Relations: From Enmity to Entente and Maybe Back Again, by Chas W. Freeman Jr.
12. China's Periphery: A Rift Zone in U.S.-China Relations, by Carla P. Freeman
13. Forty-Plus Years of U.S.-China Diplomacy: Realities and Recommendations, by Kenneth Lieberthal and Susan Thornton
14. Engagement with China: A Eulogy and Reflections on a Gathering Storm ,, by David M. Lampton
Afterword
Acknowledgments
Contributors
Index