Engaging a State that Resists Sanctions Pressure: US Policy toward China, 1992−1994
| Author | Chi-hung Wei |
| Published date | 01 January 2015 |
| Date | 01 January 2015 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/0305829814550324 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Millennium: Journal of
International Studies
2015, Vol. 43(2) 429 –449
© The Author(s) 2014
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DOI: 10.1177/0305829814550324
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MILLENNIUM
Journal of International Studies
Engaging a State that Resists
Sanctions Pressure: US Policy
toward China, 1992−1994
Chi-hung Wei
University of Florida, USA
Abstract
Why did President Bill Clinton, while having linked human rights to China’s most-favoured-nation
(MFN) status in 1993, delink the two issues in 1994, despite the fact that China had not improved
its human rights record? This article explains Clinton’s linkage-delinkage policy reversal in terms
of ‘strategic co-constitution’. After Tiananmen, Washington was concerned about China’s human
rights abuses, arms proliferation and unfair trade practices. During 1992−3, Clinton initiated a
‘strategic social construction’ process that translated human rights into the linkage policy. Clinton
stressed that a humane, democratic China would neither proliferate weapons nor engage in unfair
trade practices. In 1994, however, a pro-MFN coalition persuaded Clinton that open trade could
better advance US security, economic and human rights interests in China. Framing their rhetoric
in ways that resonated with the exiting US concerns over China, pro-MFN actors led a strategic
social construction process that redefined Clinton’s China policy toward engagement.
Keywords
US–China relations, economic statecraft, constructivism, human rights, strategic social
construction, strategic co-constitution
Introduction
After the 1989 Tiananmen Square massacre, the United States announced the so-called
‘Tiananmen sanctions’ against China. In the early 1990s, Washington applied another
sanctions package after China was reported to have proliferated missile technologies and
nuclear weapons abroad. Meanwhile, US trade deficits with China skyrocketed because
China, while exporting its products to the United States, limited US access to its markets.
In response, Washington threatened to impose punitive tariffs on Chinese products. To
Corresponding author:
Chi-hung Wei, Department of Political Science, University of Florida, Gainesville FL 32607, USA.
Email: chwei@ufl.edu
550324MIL0010.1177/0305829814550324Millennium: Journal of International StudiesWei
research-article2014
Article
430 Millennium: Journal of International Studies 43(2)
1. For the US–China disputes over human rights, arms control and trade imbalance, see Harry
Harding, A Fragile Relationship: The United States and China since 1972 (Washington, DC:
Brookings Institution, 1992); James Mann, About Face: A History of America’s Curious
Relationship with China, from Nixon to Clinton (New York: Alfred Knopf, 1999); Robert
L. Suettinger, Beyond Tiananmen: The Politics of U.S.-China Relations, 1989−2000
(Washington, DC: Brookings Institution Press, 2003).
2. Under the Trade Expansion Act of 1951, MFN treatment was withdrawn from most commu-
nist countries. To promote the freedom of emigration, in particular of Jews from the Soviet
Union, the Jackson-Vanik amendment to the 1974 Trade Act granted MFN to communist
countries. US presidents could grant a one-year waiver of the application of emigration free-
dom if they determined that extension of the waiver would promote emigration freedom.
3. After the delinkage decision, pro-engagement forces were dominant in Congress. In 1995,
for example, the House voted 107–321 against a resolution disapproving of Clinton’s deci-
sion to renew China’s MFN. In 2000, the House and the Senate passed a bill that granted
China permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) status, by 237–197 and 83–25, respec-
tively. Therefore, the delinkage decision was a critical juncture in the sanctions-engagement
policy reversal. For MFN votes, see Charan Devereaux, Robert Z. Lawrence and Michael
D. Watkins, Case Studies in US Trade Negotiation. I. Making the Rules (Washington, DC:
Institute for International Economics, 2006), 257−8.
4. Stephen Walt, The Origins of Alliances (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1987).
5. John J. Mearsheimer, The Tragedy of Great Power Politics (New York: Norton, 2001),
397−402; Richard Bernstein and Ross H. Munro, The Coming Conflict with China (New
York: A.A. Knopf, 1997); Robert Kagan, ‘The Illusion of “Managing” China’, Washington
Post, 15 May 2005.
address China’s human rights abuses, proliferation activities and unfair trade practices,
Washington frequently used, or threatened to use, sanctions.1 In particular, Congress
sought to condition China’s most-favoured-nation status (hereafter, China’s MFN) on
China’s policy on human rights, arms control and trade.2 While President George H. W.
Bush renewed China’s MFN unconditionally, President Bill Clinton, upon taking office
in 1993, linked human rights to China’s MFN, threatening to revoke it in 1994 unless
China made ‘overall, significant’ human rights progress (hereafter, the linkage policy).
In 1994, however, he backed down and delinked human rights from China’s MFN,
despite the fact that China had made no such human rights progress (hereafter, the delink-
age policy). This conciliatory approach normalised US–China economic relations and
paved the way for a policy of engagement that integrated China into the World Trade
Organisation (WTO).3
Why did Clinton make such a linkage-delinkage policy reversal? According to bal-
ance-of-threat theorists, states balance against those that pose threats to the established
international order.4 Indeed, Washington primarily used sanctions after Tiananmen to
deal with a China that had violated such international norms as human rights, arms con-
trol and trade reciprocity. However, why did Clinton lift sanctions and instead proffer
carrots toward a China that had not changed its behaviour in line with US expectations?
According to offensive realists, US–China relations might be zero-sum as a result of
China’s rise.5 In this view, Washington should have contained China’s growth by isolat-
ing it from the world economy. However, the fact was that Clinton integrated China into
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