A political economy of contemporary United States-China relations

This study of postwar foreign relations between the United States and People's Republic of China governments is not a study of political economy in the traditional sense of the term. It takes the view that foreign policy making and explanation is an intellectual exercise informing a nation-state's citizenry of a foreign polity and its relationship to the Self. It investigates the meaning making enterprise which makes the anthro-political exotic of China identifiable to the American audience and American foreign policy toward China profitable for enriching the production and reproduction of the American identity.; The study scrutinizes the two intellectual convictions that have guided the American study of U.S.-China relations for the past half a century: China is important to America just by being China; China is not just different, but special. Through a critical re-reading of four familiar stories of postwar U.S.-China relations, namely, human rights, the Korean War, the Chinese business culture, and "Greater China," the dissertation concludes that China is important and peculiar to America because of the means through which China the other is selectively presented to the American audience by American intellectuals of statecraft deliberating on these and other areas of bilateral encounters.; Findings in this exercise imply that students of international relations should begin approaching the history of U.S.-China relations by beginning with a critical review of the intellectual history of the United States inscribing China. We should ask not "what is China?" but "what has China been understood to be?" We should also ask how U.S. foreign policies toward China can be understood in the broader context of America looking out for external dangers and how China fits into that search. Only with such a reorientation can we make sense of the cycle of Americans at times loving the Chinese to the heart's content and at other times hating/fearing them to death.