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Congress
Copyright © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
began appearing that suggested a sea change. Congress passed the 2019
National Defense Authorization Act, which sought to bolster US defenses
against both Chinese military threats and China’s influence-seeking
operations inside the United States. Congress also passed the Foreign
Investment Risk Review Modernization Act of 2018, which empowered
CFIUS (the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States) to
expand its oversight of foreign direct investment from China. At the
same time, members of Congress also began expressing ever more
strenuous opposition to Chinese nonreciprocal practices in trade and
investment, such as putting w hole sectors of the Chinese economy out-
of-bounds to American investors; using Chinese companies to buy into
sensitive high-tech areas of the US economy through mergers and
acquisitions; and making the transfer of American advanced technology
to Chinese partners the price of American companies being given access
to Chinese markets. Congressional concern rose over Beijing’s contin-
ued expansion into and militarization of the South China Sea; the pred-
atory lending practices that can be involved in President Xi Jinping’s
signature Belt and Road Initiative; and Beijing’s continued persecution
of Taiwan and opposition to US support for the island.
This chapter reviews highlights of the Chinese government’s efforts
to influence the US Congress since the start of the normalization process
in 1972. As suggested above, because it has viewed such “engagement” as
too often taking place at the expense of more important interests,
Congress has usually been more wary than the White House of allowing
hopes for 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 Tiana nmen 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 Con-
-1— gress not only important in the formation of US-China policy but also
0— a prime target for Chinese influence efforts.
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Copyright © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
The number of the congressional staff delegat ions to China slowed fol-
lowing the collapse of congressional support for engagement with China
after the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989. Congressional anger and the
impulse to punish the Chinese government overrode past interest in con-
structive engagement. As a result, Beijing began relying more heavily
on the US business community and its organ izations, notably the
Emergency Committee for American Trade, to persuade Congress not to
end the most-favored-nation tariff treatment for Chinese imports. The
Chinese embassy and various lobbyists who w ere, or at least claimed to
be, supported by the Chinese government also tried to limit the damage
by seeking to convince congressional members that conditions in China
were much better than those depicted in American media at the time.5
Based on the reputation of its past efforts, the US-A sia Institute, pre-
sumably with the encouragement of its Chinese counterparts, strove to
resume the staff dialogues and attracted a wide range of senior staff and
support personnel, including some of t hose working for the harshest con-
gressional critics of China’s crackdown. One trip in December 1989 fea-
tured very heated debates with Chinese officials, especially a fter it was
announced that national security advisor Brent Scowcroft and deputy
secretary of state Lawrence Eagleburger w ere also in Beijing for talks
with Chinese leaders and that the two had made an e arlier secret trip in
July, soon after the crackdown. As the Bush administration had publicly
promised Congress that all such contacts would end, the staff delegates’
anger at and criticism of China’s repression was compounded by their
harsh reaction to the Bush administration’s actions.
As US-China relations continued during a tumultuous post-Tiananmen
crackdown period, Congress played important roles on such key issues
as the debate over most-favored-nation tariff treatment, the visit of
Taiwan’s president to the United States in 1995, and the decision to
approve China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. The Chinese
-1— government endeavored to build influence with and gain access to
0— Congress by encouraging US businesses to lobby Congress on China’s
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Copyright © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Current Era
Copyright © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Promote Transparency
Follow-on congressional oversight will go far toward educating Congress,
-1— the media, and the public about t hese important topics. The issues are
0— complicated and have no simple solutions. Various specialists within and
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Copyright © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.
Promote Integrity
Congress needs also to distinguish between issues that present a real
threat to the United States, such as Chinese espionage and Chinese-
directed monitoring of Chinese students on US campuses, and institu-
tions such as Confucius Institutes, which, as we have noted elsewhere in
this report, can be better regulated by universities themselves.
Promote Reciprocity
In coming up with remedial steps, Congress must consider the broader
bilateral relationship. It is asked to weigh carefully the continued impor
tant positive elements in the US-China relationship, the negative con-
sequences that might arise from a confrontational approach to China,
and America’s need to protect and foster its strengths and interests.
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Copyright © 2019 by the Board of Trustees of the Leland Stanford Junior University. All rights reserved.