Thirty Years of China - U. S. Relations by unknow

Author:unknow
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lexington Books/Fortress Academic
Published: 2010-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

THE OBSTACLE OF SINO-AMERICAN NORMALIZATION

Many Americans involved in China trade only belatedly began to realize that what affected their business more than China’s internal turmoil was the overdue American diplomatic recognition to the People’s Republic. In the mid 1970s, the U.S. was the only major Western country that had not established full diplomatic relations with Beijing. The recognition, or normalization as the Chinese preferred to call it, was more complex than just switching the embassy from Taipei to Beijing, for the U.S. had also committed to Taiwan’s security by a mutual defense treaty of 1955. As Washington was? unwilling to abandon its Nationalist allies by abrogating the treaty, the negotiation for normalization stalemated. The political difficulty inevitably affected every aspect of Sino-American relations; hence it became the ultimate obstacle in further development of U.S.-China trade. And American China traders experienced an increasing pressure from the Chinese to become actively involved in pushing Sino-American normalization.

Before 1975 few Americans seemed to give much thought that trade between the two countries existed not for its own sake but as an integral part of the whole process of Sino-American rapprochement. The rapid growth of commercial exchanges should not obscure the fact that political relations did not catch up. Even the commercial relationship itself was not fully normalized in terms of China’s lack of most-favored-nation status for tariffs and the unresolved issue of frozen claims and assets, which prohibited the establishment of direct banking, aviation, and shipping links between China and the U.S. Many Americans, believing that blocked assets and discriminatory tariffs were major obstacles in U.S.-China trade, strongly supported MFN for China and a fast settlement on frozen claims and assets. They did not realize, at least for a period of time, that the solutions of those issues hinged on the progress of normalization which was stuck with the thorny Taiwan question.

Not abruptly but still unmistakably, China let American businessmen know, through words and action, its evident discontent with the deadlock in normalization. Previously, the favorite topic in Chinese trade officials’ conversations with Americans had been how trade would strengthen the people-to-people friendship. Now the Chinese would lose no opportunity to point out that without normalization there was little prospect for trade to increase. Whereas some Americans tried to explain the sharp decline of trade since 1975 as caused by economic factors, the Chinese were blunt as to what should be blamed:

The prospect of trade growth can’t be decided solely by economic factors . . . If the relations and pace of normalization accelerate politically, trade growth will reflect this. If relations remain stagnant, trade growth will be at a slow pace.17

Lest someone might get the wrong idea that U.S-China trade had developed because of economic necessities rather than political needs, the Chinese told the Americans in unambiguous language:

As regards political considerations, since the Shanghai Communiqué, we really feel we should import something from the U.S. and increase the volume of our trade . . . (however), the theory that we will import the best needs at the best prices irrespective of political considerations is not true.

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