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viewed such “engagement” as too often taking place at the expense of more important interests, the Congress has usually been more wary than the White House of allowing hopes for a more positive US-China relations to determine our policy. At times, such as during the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979 and in reaction to the Chinese crackdown around Tiananmen Square in 1989, Congress has actively resisted the White House and sought to turn American policy in directions both the Chinese leadership and the US administration have opposed. However, often Congress has played a somewhat passive role, especially in recent years. Still, the control it formally exercises over US government budget outlays, legislation, and the approval of appointments of senior administration officials makes Congress not only important in the formation of US-China policy but also a prime target for Chinese influence efforts.
By providing historical background, the review that follows informs contemporary US concerns about Chinese government efforts to influence American leaders and public opinion. The record over the past four decades shows some success in Chinese efforts to win influence over congressional opinion. However, more often than not, whatever positive results they have won have not lasted in the face of enduring differences between the two countries.
Congressional Visits to China, 1972-1977
President Nixon’s second term featured the Watergate scandal, which forced his resignation in 1974 and resulted in a lull in high-level communication with China. This circumstance gave more prominence to the reports issued by the approximately eighty members of Congress who traveled to China in the period between President Nixon’s visit in 1972
and the start of the Carter administration in January 1977. The visits of these congressional delegations—including (repeatedly) top leaders from both parties—were by far the most active channel of high-level communications between the United States and the PRC during this time. And most of the members who went to China wrote reports that were published as official documents. At the time, these congressional reports, as well as the media’s coverage of their visits, became important vehicles through which American congressional leaders voiced their views and opinions on domestic Chinese politics and on Sino-American relations, both of which were having an increasingly important impact on American interests in Asia and the world.
By and large, these American visitors were pleased by the post-1972 developments in US-China relations, seeing them as likely to be both a source of strategic leverage against the Soviet Union and a stabilizing influence in Asian affairs. The government in Beijing was seen as preoccupied with domestic affairs, no longer opposed to the presence of American forces in East Asia, and anxious to work with the United States and other noncommunist countries to offset Soviet pressure against China. The Americans saw the Taiwan question as the main impediment to improved bilateral relations, but they differed
Congress
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