China & Taiwan

The United States foreign policy toward the People’s Republic of China originated during the Cold War. At that time, the U.S. had a containment policy against communist states. The leaked Pentagon Papers indicated the efforts by the U.S. to contain China through military actions undertaken in the Vietnam War. The containment policy centered around an island chain strategy. President Richard Nixon‘s China rapprochement signaled a shift in focus to gain leverage in containing the Soviet Union. Formal diplomatic ties between the U.S. and China were established in 1979, and with normalized trade relations since 2000, the U.S. and China have been linked by closer economic ties and more cordial relations. In his first term as U.S. president, Barack Obama said, “We want China to succeed and prosper. It’s good for the United States if China continues on the path of development that it’s on”.^[3]

During the 2010s and early 2020s, there was a significant shift in America’s China policy. U.S. military presence in the region, efforts to improve relations with India^[4] and Vietnam,^[5] and the Obama administration‘s 2012 “Pivot to Asia” strategy for increased American involvement in the Western Pacific, have been associated with a policy aimed at countering China’s growing clout. Current U.S. military presence in the region includes military alliances with South Korea,^[5] with Japan,^[6] and with the Philippines. The Indo-Pacific region has become the focus of competition between the two powers.^[7]

As strategic competition is often used by the United States government to describe the economic, technological and geopolitical ties between the U.S. and China,^[8] U.S. Strategic Competition with China intensifies.^[7] The Trump administration stated, “The United States recognizes the long-term strategic competition between our two systems”. It designated China as a “revisionist power” seeking to overturn the liberal international order and displace the United States, and called for a whole-of-government approach to China guided by a return to principled realism. The Biden administration stated that previous optimistic approaches to China were flawed, and that China poses “the most significant challenge of any nation-state in the world to the United States”.^[9] China remains “the only competitor out there with both the intent to reshape the international order and, increasingly, a power to do so” according to the U.S.-released National Defense Strategy in 2022.^[10] However, the U.S. National Security Advisor, Jake Sullivan, has stated that the Biden administration does not pursue a fundamental transformation of the Chinese political system.^[11]

Strategic background

Cold War era

During the Cold War the United States tried to prevent the domino theory of the spread of communism and thwart communist countries including the People’s Republic of China.^[12] Washington assumed that Communist North Vietnam would be a puppet state of China. However those two later went to war.^[13]

Post-Cold War

In more contemporary times, with the Nixon rapprochement and the signing of the Shanghai Communiqué, improvement in U.S.-Sino relations was made possible. Formal diplomatic ties were established in 1979, and with normalized trade relations since 2000, the US and China have been linked by closer economic ties.^[14]

The United States’ 2006 Quadrennial Defense Review stated that China has “the greatest potential to compete militarily with the United States and field disruptive military technologies that could over time offset traditional U.S. military advantages absent U.S. counter strategies”.^[15] The 2006 National Security Strategy stated that the U.S. wanted China to continue down the road of reform and openness. It said that as economic growth continues, China would face a growing demand from its own people to follow the path of East Asia’s many modern democracies, adding political freedom to economic freedom. The document continues by stating that China cannot stay on this peaceful path while holding on to “old ways of thinking and acting” that exacerbate regional and international security concerns. The U.S. referred to the “old ways” in terms of non-transparent military expansion, mercantilism, and supporting resource-rich regimes with a record of unacceptable behavior.^[16]

The United States’ political leadership began to shift policy stances in 2011, starting with the Obama administration‘s “pivot” toward Asia. Then-secretary of state Hillary Clinton called for “increased investment—diplomatic, economic, strategic, and otherwise—in the Asia-Pacific region”, which was seen as a move to counter China’s growing clout.^[14] Supporters of increased American involvement in East Asia have cited the United States as a counterbalance to the excesses of Chinese expansion. Relevant to the argument is the fact that countries in territorial disputes with China, such as in the South China Sea and the Diaoyu/Senkaku Islands, have complained about China’s harassment in the disputed areas.^[17]^[18]^[19]^[20] Some experts have suggested that China may leverage their economic strength in such disputes, one example being the sudden restriction on Chinese imports of Filipino bananas during tensions over the Scarborough Shoal.^[21]

Recent development

In April 2019, the fourth iteration of the influential neoconservative think tank, the Committee on the Present Danger, was unveiled, as the Committee on the Present Danger: China (CPDC) in a press conference in Washington.^[22] The organization was reformed by former Trump administration White House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon and former Reagan administration official Frank Gaffney to “educate and inform American citizens and policymakers about the existential threats presented from the Peoples Republic of China under the misrule of the Chinese Communist Party“.^[23] The CPDC takes the view that there is “no hope of coexistence with China as long as the Communist Party governs the country”.^[22] Charles W. Freeman Jr. at the Watson Institute called the CPDC “a Who’s Who of contemporary wing-nuts, very few of whom have any expertise at all about China and most of whom represent ideological causes only peripherally connected to it.”^[23]

In a May 2019 opinion piece published by Foreign Policy, Paul Musgrave, an assistant professor at the University of Massachusetts Amherst commented that the Trump administration revealed details about a long-term strategy in dealing with the rise of China via a “slip” by then-director of policy planning Kiron Skinner at the US State Department. In a speech at the Future Security Forum on April 29, 2019, Skinner characterized the Cold War as “a huge fight within the Western family” and due to that shared heritage and value-system, breakthroughs could be made; on China however, she argued there can be no accommodation or cooperation because it is “… a fight with a really different civilization and a different ideology” and “it’s the first time that we will have a great-power competitor that is not Caucasian“.^[24]

A study on China produced by a small working group within the department led by Skinner reportedly envisioned a world of constant, unavoidable civilizational conflict.^[24]^[25] The study was informally called “Letter X” in reference to George F. Kennan‘s X Article that advocated for a containment strategy against the Soviet Union.^[25] In August 2019, The New York Times reported that Skinner had been forced out of her job at the United States Department of State, and that Trump administration officials privately dismissed her comments.^[25] Earlier in the year, an open letter titled “China is not an enemy” was released by five China-focused scholars and foreign policy experts, and was endorsed by some business leaders, in which they decried what they saw in the U.S. approach as “counterproductive”, and urged the Trump administration to continue the more “cooperative” approach.^[26]^[27]

With questions about the continued purpose of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) in the post–Cold War era, NATO countries have refrained from re-orienting toward and labeling the PRC an outright “enemy”, but NATO chief Jens Stoltenberg said the organization needs to recognize the “challenges” posed by China at a NATO event in 2019, saying “China will soon have the world’s biggest economy. And it already has the second largest defense budget, investing heavily in new capabilities.”^[28] He also said that NATO did not want to “create new adversaries”. The United States’ NATO representative at the event referred to China as a “competitor”.^[29]

On May 20, 2020, in accordance with the John S. McCain National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2019, the Trump administration delivered a report, “U.S. Strategic Approach to the People’s Republic of China” to members of the U.S. Congress. The report states a whole-of-government approach to China under the 2017 National Security Strategy, which says it is time the U.S. “rethink the failed policies of the past two decades – policies based on the assumption that engagement with rivals and their inclusion in international institutions and global commerce would turn them into benign actors and trustworthy partners”.^[30]^[31] The report says it “reflects a fundamental reevaluation of how the United States understands and responds to” the leaders of China, adding “The United States recognizes the long-term strategic competition between our two systems.”^[32]

In February 2021, U.S. president Joe Biden said that China is the “most serious competitor” that poses challenges on the “prosperity, security, and democratic values” of the U.S.^[33] U.S. secretary of state Antony Blinken stated that previous optimistic approaches to China were flawed, and that China poses “the most significant challenge of any nation-state in the world to the United States”. Blinken also agreed that Biden’s predecessor, Donald Trump, “was right in taking a tougher approach to China”.^[9]

In April 2021, the U.S. Senate introduced major legislation in response to China’s growing clout in international affairs. The bill, titled “Strategic Competition Act of 2021”, reflects hardline attitude of both congressional Democrats and Republicans, and sets out to counter the Chinese government’s diplomatic and strategic initiatives.^[34] Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Bob Menendez (D-NJ) said, “The Strategic Competition Act of 2021 is a recognition that this moment demands a unified, strategic response that can rebuild American leadership, invest in our ability to out-compete China, and reground diplomacy in our core values”, adding “The United States government must be clear-eyed and sober about Beijing’s intentions and actions, and calibrate our policy and strategy accordingly.”^[35]

In May 2021, the Strategic Competition Act of 2021 was consolidated into a larger bill, the United States Innovation and Competition Act (USICA), authorizing US$110 billion for basic and advanced technology research over a five-year period.^[36] In June 2021, the USICA passed 68–32 in the Senate with bipartisan support.^[37]

Military strategy

The United States’ Indo-Pacific strategy has broadly been to use the surrounding countries around China to blunt its influence. This includes strengthening the bonds between South Korea and Japan^[38] as well as trying to get India, another large developing country to help with their efforts.^[39] Additionally, with the US withdrawal from the Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces Treaty with Russia (in part because China wasn’t a party to it), the US has reportedly wanted to find a host in the Asia-Pacific region to point the previously banned weapons at China.^[40] In addition to soft power diplomacy within the region, the US is physically surrounding China with military bases in the event of any conflict.^[41] The United States has developed many military bases in the Asia Pacific equipped with warships, nuclear missiles and nuclear-capable strategic bombers as a deterrent and to achieve full spectrum dominance in a strategy similar to that of the Cold War.^[42]

In October 2023, President Joe Biden asked Congress for 4 billion to counter China in the Indo-Pacific.^[43]

Sanctions

The use of economic sanctions has always been a tool of American foreign policy and has become used more frequently in the 21st century, from targeting individuals and sometimes whole countries by using the centrality of the US financial system and the position of the US dollar as the world’s reserve currency to limit trade and cashflow.^[44]

Xinjiang

In the area of human rights and international law, the U.S. has worked to put pressure on China internationally by drawing attention to its human rights record. In particular, U.S. policymakers have focused on the status of China’s internment camps for those accused of religious extremism in China’s Xinjiang Autonomous Region, the region inhabited by the Muslim Uyghur minority, as well as the protests in Hong Kong.^[45] These camps, which some NGOs such as the Washington-based Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation^[46] and East Turkistan National Awakening Movement^[47] estimated to have a population of over one million people, have been described as “indoctrination camps” that are reportedly run like prisons to eradicate Uyghur culture and religion in an attempt at Sinicization.^[48] The United States Congress has responded to these reports with calls for the imposition of sanctions under the Global Magnitsky Human Rights Accountability Act; in December 2019, the House of Representatives and Senate passed the Uighur Human Rights Policy Act.^[49]

Hong Kong

U.S. policy toward Hong Kong had been governed by the United States-Hong Kong Policy Act which said that the U.S. would continue to treat Hong Kong apart from the People’s Republic of China even after the 1997 transfer of sovereignty. This changed drastically in 2020 when the U.S. passed the Hong Kong Autonomy Act and Executive Order 13936 in response to the 2019–2020 Hong Kong protests and imposition of the Hong Kong national security law by the Standing Committee of the National People’s Congress of China. Under EO13936, the U.S. government has no longer treated Hong Kong as separate from China.^[50]^[51]

Economic strategy

With China entering the World Trade Organization in 2001 with approval from the US, China and the world economy benefited from globalization and the access to new markets and the increased trade that resulted. Despite this, some in the United States lament letting China in the WTO because part of the motivation to do so, the political liberalization of the PRC’s government along the lines of the Washington Consensus never materialized. The US hoped economic liberalization would eventually lead to political liberalization to a government more akin to the then recently repatriated Hong Kong Special Administrative Region under “One country, two systems.”^[52]

Trans-Pacific Partnership

In part, the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), geopolitically was thought by some to likely bring China’s neighbors closer to the United States and reduce its economic leverage and dependence on Chinese trade.^[53]^[54]^[55]^[56]^[57]^[58]^[59] If ratified, the TPP would have strengthened American influence on future rules for the global economy. US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter claimed the passage of the TPP to be as valuable to the United States as the creation of another aircraft carrier.^[60] President Barack Obama has argued “if we don’t pass this agreement—if America doesn’t write those rules—then countries like China will”.^[61] However, on January 23, 2017, the newly elected President Donald Trump formally withdrew the United States from the Trans-Pacific Partnership.

Trade War

In what would become the China–United States trade war, President Donald Trump began setting tariffs and other trade barriers on China in 2018 with the goal of forcing it to make changes to what the U.S. says are “unfair trade practices”.^[62] The US says those trade practices and their effects are the growing trade deficit, the theft of intellectual property and the forced transfer of American technology to China.^[63] Jeff Spross, an economics and business correspondent at TheWeek.com, commented that China is pursuing economic development much in the same way as many other modern industrialized economies before it, except in a world where the rules of the global free trade order are enforced by institutions like the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and the World Trade Organization, ensuring economic development is driven by private investors.^[64]

At the Bretton Woods Conference, the US representative, Harry Dexter White, insisted that the world reserve currency be the United States dollar instead of a proposed new international unit of currency and that the IMF and World Bank be under the purview of the United States.^[65] The Reagan administration and US Trade Representative Robert Lighthizer, and Donald Trump as a private citizen, made identical claims in the 1980s when Japan was undergoing its economic miracle which led Japan to signing the Plaza Accord.^[66] Like the TPP, it has been argued that the trade war is simply a more direct attempt to stifle China’s development and is indicative of a shift in the US public perception of China as a “rival nation to be contained and beaten” among the two major political parties in Congress, the general public and even the business sector.^[67] It has been argued however that employing the Cold War playbook for the seemingly destined-to-fail Soviet Union, a state-run and largely closed economy will not work in the case of China because of its sheer size, growing wealth and vibrant economy.^[68] To halt development progress, particularly the Made in China 2025 plan, the US has responded by making it harder for Chinese tech companies from obtaining US technologies by investing in or acquiring US tech companies, and even attempting to stifle specific companies, namely Huawei, ZTE and ByteDance, from doing business domestically and abroad allegedly due to unspecified or speculative national security risks.^[69]^[65] With senior Trump administration officials such as John Bolton, Peter Navarro and Robert Lighthizer demanding any comprehensive trade deal feature “structural changes” which would essentially entail China surrendering its sovereignty over its economic system and planning (its Made in China 2025 industrial plan) and permanently ceding technology leadership to the US-an untenable situation to the Chinese- some see trade tensions continuing long into the future.^[65]

In the face of the US tariffs in the trade war and the sanctions on Russia following the annexation of Crimea, China and Russia have cultivated closer economic ties as well as security and defense cooperation to offset the losses.^[70]^[71]^[72]

Belt and Road Initiative

Another high-profile debate among some people in the United States and China on the international stage is the observation about China’s growing geopolitical footprint in “soft power diplomacy” and international development finance. Particularly, this surrounds China’s Belt and Road Initiative (formerly “One Belt, One Road”), which U.S. officials have labeled as “aggressive” and “debt trap diplomacy“.^[73]

Indo-Pacific Economic Framework

The Biden administration and major regional economies such as India and Japan have participated in the Indo-Pacific Economic Framework to varying degrees, which is seen as a way to increase ties between friendly countries economically.^[74]

Bilateral relationships

Australia

Starting in 2012, US marines began deploying to Australia on a rotational basis.^[75]^[76] In 2017, Australia rejoined the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue after leaving the strategic grouping in 2008 and in 2021, it became a member of AUKUS.

India

Against the backdrop of the ongoing border dispute between India and the People’s Republic of China, the United States and India signed the Basic Exchange and Cooperation Agreement in October 2020 which enabled greater information-sharing and facilitated defense cooperation.^[77] In December 2022, based on BECA, the United States provided real-time location information of the PLA soldiers to help India rout China, during a confrontation in Arunachal Pradesh.^[78] As with Australia, Japan and the United States, India is a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.

India’s relationship with Russia has emerged as an impediment to the US in forming a fully-developed united front with India against China. Policymakers in New Delhi see maintaining ties with Moscow as a way to limit China’s influence over Russia and thwart any coordinated action the two might take against India.^[79]^[80]

Japan

As treaty allies, both Japan and the United States have deepened their security alliance since the late 1990s in response to the rise of China which has emerged as a top geopolitical threat to both countries.^[81] In 2018, members of the Amphibious Rapid Deployment Brigade held joint exercises with American marines^[82] and in 2023, Japan approved an American plan to station a new marine unit in Okinawa.^[83] As with Australia, India and the United States, Japan is a member of the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue.

Philippines

The Philippines and the United States are treaty allies and their security alliance has deepened in light of the ongoing territorial dispute between the Philippines and the People’s Republic of China in the South China Sea. In 2014, both countries signed the Enhanced Defense Cooperation Agreement which allows the United States to rotate troops into the Philippines for extended stays and allows the United States to build and operate facilities on Philippine bases for both American and Philippine forces.

South Korea

In accordance with the ROK–U.S. Mutual Defense Treaty, the U.S. has maintained a military presence in the South since the end of the Korean War. In late 2016, the United States and South Korea jointly announced the deployment of the Terminal High-Altitude Area Defense (THAAD) in response to nuclear and missile threats by North Korea.^[84] South Korea’s decision to host the weapon system on its territory led to a significant deterioration in relations between South Korea and China, which viewed the deployment as a threat to its security.

Taiwan (ROC)

While the United States has had formal relations with the PRC government which was recognized as the sole legitimate representative of China in 1979, it has simultaneously maintained unofficial relations with Taiwan over which, it emphasizes that it does not take any official position regarding sovereignty over Taiwan.^[85] The US only “acknowledges” but does not “endorse” PRC’s position over Taiwan,^[86]^[87]^[88]^[89] and has considered Taiwan’s political status as “undetermined”.^[90]

The position of the United States, as clarified in the China/Taiwan: Evolution of the “One China” Policy report of the Congressional Research Service (date: 9 July 2007) is summed up in five points:

The United States did not explicitly state the sovereign status of Taiwan in the three US-PRC Joint Communiqués of 1972, 1979, and 1982.
The United States “acknowledged” the “One China” position of both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
U.S. policy has not recognized the PRC’s sovereignty over Taiwan;
U.S. policy has not recognized Taiwan as a sovereign country; and
U.S. policy has considered Taiwan’s status as unsettled.

These positions remained unchanged in a 2013 report of the Congressional Research Service.^[91]

The US has consistently held to its version of One China policy and has stated that in regards to Cross-Strait relations;

We oppose any unilateral changes to the status quo from either side; we do not support Taiwan independence; and we expect cross-Strait differences to be resolved by peaceful means. We continue to have an abiding interest in peace and stability across the Taiwan Strait.^[92]
– US Department of State

A cornerstone in the bilateral relationship is the Taiwan Relations Act through which the United States has maintained its policy of strategic ambiguity. Prior to the normalization of diplomatic ties with the PRC, the US was a treaty ally of Taiwan under the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty. The treaty essentially prevented the People’s Liberation Army from taking over the island of Taiwan, prolonged and assisted the Republic of China in maintaining legitimacy as the sole government of the whole of mainland China until the early 1970s and also helped US policymakers to shape the policy of containment in East Asia together with South Korea and Japan against the spread of communism.

The recent decade has seen an increasing frequency of US arms sales to Taiwan alongside expanding commercial ties. On December 16, 2015, the Obama administration announced a deal to sell $1.83 billion worth of arms to the Armed Forces of Taiwan, a year and eight months after U.S. Congress passed the Taiwan Relations Act Affirmation and Naval Vessel Transfer Act of 2014 to allow the sale of Oliver Hazard Perry-class frigates to Taiwan. The deal would include the sale of two decommissioned U.S. Navy frigates, anti-tank missiles, Assault Amphibious Vehicles, and FIM-92 Stinger surface-to-air missiles, amid the territorial disputes in the South China Sea.

A new $250 million compound for the American Institute in Taiwan was unveiled in June 2018, accompanied by a “low-key” American delegation. The Chinese authorities denounced this action as violation of the “one China” policy statement and demanded the US to stop all relations with Taiwan without intercession of China. In 2019, the US approved the sale of 108 M1A2 Abrams tanks and 250 Stinger missiles for $2.2 billion and 66 F-16V fighter jets for $8 billion. With the sale, China vowed to sanction any companies involved in the transactions.^[93] In May 2020, the U.S. Department of State approved a possible Foreign Military Sales of 18 MK-48 Mod 6 Advanced Technology heavy weight torpedoes for Taiwan in a deal estimated to cost $180 million.^[94]

Multilateral relationships

US–Japan–Australia

Then-U.S. secretary of state Condoleezza Rice visited Australia in March 2006 for the “trilateral security forum” with the Japanese foreign minister Taro Aso and his Australian counterpart Alexander Downer.^[95]^[96]

US–Japan–Australia–India (the “Quad”)

In May 2007, the four nations signed a strategic military partnership agreement, the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue. In 2017, with the support of then Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, the United States restarted the “Quad”.

US–Japan–India

The three nations held their first trilateral meeting in December 2011.^[97]

Chinese response

The People’s Republic of China officially opposes using the term “competition” to define relations between it and the United States.^[98] China’s Xi Jinping claimed “Western countries led by the United States have contained and suppressed us in an all-round way, which has brought unprecedented severe challenges to our development”.^[99] In August 2022, U.S. politician Nancy Pelosi, serving as the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, visited Taiwan for the first time in 25 years. China announced plans for live-fire military drills soon after her visit.^[100]

In July 2023, at a trilateral forum with Japan and South Korea, China’s chief diplomat Wang Yi said it was important for the two countries to “remember their roots” and work with China “prosper together, revitalize East Asia, revitalize Asia and benefit the world” as “Europeans and Americans can’t distinguish between Chinese, Japanese and South Koreans” and that “no matter how blonde you dye your hair, how sharp you shape your nose, you can never become a European or American, you can never become a Westerner.”^[101]^[102] Wang’s speech was widely criticized as racist, especially by scholars, with some comparing his rhetoric to Imperial Japan‘s 20th century concept of Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere.^[103]

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^ Green, Michael J.; Goodman, Matthew P. (2 October 2015). “After TPP: the Geopolitics of Asia and the Pacific”. The Washington Quarterly. 38 (4): 19–34. doi:10.1080/0163660X.2015.1125827. ISSN 0163-660X. S2CID 155763676.
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1. The United States did not explicitly state the sovereign status of Taiwan in the three US-PRC Joint Communiques of 1972, 1979, and 1982.
2. The United States “acknowledged” the “One China” position of both sides of the Taiwan Strait.
3. U.S. policy has not recognized the PRC’s sovereignty over Taiwan;
4. U.S. policy has not recognized Taiwan as a sovereign country; and
5. U.S. policy has considered Taiwan’s status as undetermined. U.S. policy has considered Taiwan’s status as unsettled.
These positions remained unchanged in a 2013 report of the Congressional Research Service.
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China–United States relations
Diplomatic posts	Embassy of China, Washington, D.C. Ambassadors of China to the United States Embassy of the United States, Beijing Ambassadors of the United States to China Chinese Consulate-Generals Los Angeles Houston American Consulate-Generals Chengdu Guangzhou Hong Kong and Macau Shanghai Shenyang Wuhan Bureau of East Asian and Pacific Affairs Office of China Coordination
Diplomacy	Treaty of Wanghia Treaty of Tientsin Burlingame Treaty Gresham-Yang Treaty Shanghai International Settlement American Concession (Shanghai) United States Court for China Treaty between the United States and China for the Relinquishment of Extraterritorial Rights in China Treaty of Friendship, Commerce and Navigation between the United States of America and the Republic of China Marshall Mission Loss of China China White Paper PRC-US Ambassadorial Talks 1972 visit by Richard Nixon to China Shanghai Communiqué Three Communiqués One-China policy Nixon goes to China Nixon’s China Game Harvey Feldman Ling-Ling and Hsing-Hsing Joint Communiqué on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations Goldwater v. Carter State visit by Deng Xiaoping to the United States Presidential Rule of Law Initiative Beijing–Washington hotline State visit by Xi Jinping to the United States 2015 United States–China Cybersecurity Agreement Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action United States–China talks in Alaska United States–China Working Group
Conflicts	Boxer Rebellion Eight-Nation Alliance China Relief Expedition Chinese Civil War Korean War Allegations of biological warfare in the Korean War Cross-Strait conflict First Taiwan Strait Crisis Operation King Kong Second Taiwan Strait Crisis Third Taiwan Strait Crisis CIA Tibetan program Quadrilateral Security Dialogue
Incidents	Rover incident Chy Lung v. Freeman Cheong Ah Moy v. United States Chae Chan Ping v. United States Twain–Ament indemnities controversy 1905 Chinese boycott USS Monocacy incident Red Scare Qian Xuesen 1946 United States Air Force C-47 Crash at Yan’an Shen Chong case Lamont v. Postmaster General Hu Na Project Sabre II Yinhe incident 1996 United States campaign finance controversy Johnny Chung Liu Chaoying United States bombing of the Chinese embassy in Belgrade Hainan Island incident Operation Shady RAT Operation Aurora United States diplomatic cables leak 2012 China anti-Japanese demonstrations Murder of Shao Tong Disappearance of David Louis Sneddon Trump–Tsai call Havana syndrome Animal Science Products v. Hebei Welcome Pharmaceuticals China Initiative Trial of Anming Hu Concerns over Chinese involvement in 5G wireless networks Meng Wanzhou Extradition TikTok v. Trump U.S. WeChat Users Alliance v. Trump COVID-19 misinformation United States Department of Defense China Task Force 2022 visit by Nancy Pelosi to Taiwan Chinese espionage in the United States Cyberwarfare by China Alleged Chinese spy cases persecuted in the United States Cox Report Timeline of the Cox Report controversy American espionage in China Hugh Francis Redmond Uyghur detainees at Guantanamo Bay 2023 balloon incident
Military relations	Yangtze Patrol Alice Dollar incident Second Sino-Japanese War American Volunteer Group Black Cat Squadron Development of Chinese Nationalist air force (1937–1945) China Air Task Force China Marines Dixie Mission Flying Tigers Operation Beleaguer Sino-American Cooperative Organization Exercise RIMPAC
Legislation	United States sanctions against China U.S. immigration policy Magnuson Act Taiwan Relations Act Executive Order 12711 Chinese Student Protection Act of 1992 United States-Hong Kong Policy Act United States–Hong Kong Agreement for the Surrender of Fugitive Offenders Forced Abortion Condemnation Act Taiwan Security Enhancement Act United States–China Relations Act of 2000 Wolf Amendment Taiwan Travel Act EQUITABLE Act Hong Kong Be Water Act Hong Kong Human Rights and Democracy Act Tibet Policy and Support Act Taiwan Allies International Protection and Enhancement Initiative Act Proclamation 10043 Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act Hong Kong Autonomy Act Executive Order 13936 Executive Order 13959 Holding Foreign Companies Accountable Act Executive Order 14032 United States Innovation and Competition Act Uyghur Forced Labor Prevention Act
Economic relations	Old China Trade United States-China Economic and Security Review Commission Group of Two Strategic Economic Dialogue Summer Palace Dialogue U.S.–China Strategic and Economic Dialogue Senior Dialogue China–United States trade war (Trump tariffs) Permanent normal trade relations
Related	History of China–United States relations Hong Kong–United States relations Macau–United States relations Taiwan–United States relations Americans in China Chinese Americans Anti-American sentiment in mainland China Ruguanxue Anti-Chinese sentiment in the United States Chimerica China Lobby Asia First Chinese Century China Hands China watcher Cold War in Asia Second Cold War Artificial Intelligence Cold War Ping-pong diplomacy Triangular diplomacy Peaceful Evolution theory Linkage (policy) String of Pearls (Indian Ocean) Thucydides Trap Hong (business) Air route authority between the United States and China Blue Team TPE (cable system) Protestant missions in China Elijah Coleman Bridgman Divie Bethune McCartee The 1990 Institute Boxer Indemnity Scholarship China Aid Society Chinese Educational Mission Committee for a Democratic Far Eastern Policy Congressional-Executive Commission on China Hua Yuan Science and Technology Association Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China United States House Select Committee on Strategic Competition between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party Kissinger Institute on China and the United States National Committee on United States–China Relations Oberlin Shansi Memorial Association Sino-American Joint Commission on Rural Reconstruction US-China Business Council US–China Education Trust US–China Peoples Friendship Association Massachusetts International Academy Harvard Summit for Young Leaders in China International School of Beijing SARS conspiracy theory Yixian glazed pottery luohans Harvard Bixi William H. Hinton Human Rights Record of the United States USA pavilion at Expo 2010 New Federal State of China China Human Rights Biweekly Far East Reporter Duke-UNC China Leadership Summit The Coming Conflict with China A Great Wall: Six Presidents and China The New Chinese Empire The Art of Investing in America On China Peaceful War The Transpacific Experiment Stealth War: How China Took Over While America’s Elite Slept Red Chinese Battle Plan The China Hustle
Category:China–United States relations

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