Congress

During past presidential administrations, the US Congress has generally served as a brake on executive initiatives to "engage" China at the expense of other US interests that members have historically valued, such as maintaining good relations with Taiwan, interacting with the Tibetan government in exile, and expressing support for human rights. When President Donald Trump assumed office in 2017 and actively began courting Chinese President Xi Jinping, first at Mar-a-Lago and then at the Beijing summit, Congress took a wait-and-see posture. But as his own ardor for a partnership with Xi cooled and his administration became disenchanted with the idea of finding an easy new "engagement" policy, momentum began to shift. Soon Congress was working toward one of the most significant reevaluations of US policy toward China since the start of normalization fifty years ago. And with the White House increasingly skeptical about the prospects of winning President Xi's cooperation, a series of new initiatives began issuing forth from both the administration and Congress, suggesting a rapidly changing landscape for US-China relations.

What was telling was that this tidal shift now emanated not from Congress alone — where it had strong bipartisan support — but also from the White House and National Security Council, the Pentagon, the Office of the US Trade Representative, the Department of the Treasury, and even the Department of State. As sentiment shifted away from hopes of finding common ways to collaborate, a spate of new US policy initiatives 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 whole 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 continued expansion into and militarization of the South China Sea; the predatory 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 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.

The review that follows provides historical background to the 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 on how the United States should deal with the problem. Although most members of Congress accepted the Ford administration's cautious approach to China as wise, many were circumspect about the merits of China's political, economic, social, and value systems, then experiencing the last turmoil of the Cultural Revolution and the decline and death of Mao Zedong in 1976.

These congressional visits to China seemed...