A Domestic Political Analysis Of U.S. Human Rights Policy Toward China After The Cold War (1989-1996)

U.S. human rights policy toward China from 1989 to 1996 experienced the dramatic change. At the beginning of Bush Administration, U.S. conducted quiet diplomacy concerning Chinese human rights situation. After the tragic Tiananmen incident, U.S. quickly turned to impose sanctions on China to punish its human rights violations. When Bill Clinton took office in 1993, U.S. designed a new policy to link human rights conditions in China to its MFN status in the United States. Contrary to expectation of Americans, the linking policy did not work due to various factors. Given this background, President Clinton had to delink Chinese human rights and its MFN status and announced the more pragmatic human rights policy toward China. U.S. human rights policy toward China during this period greatly demonstrated how international and internal factors influenced U.S. foreign policy making and deserved further studies.This paper analysed U.S. human rights policy toward China since the end of the Cold War from the perspective of American domestic politics. The main internal variables shaping U.S. human rights policy included two parts naming policy thoughts and policy making procedure. Policy thoughts referred to traditional debates between idealism and realism in American international history. Policy making procedure referred to power struggle between the president and the Congress. It was also necessary to note the function of other players in foreign policy making procedure including NGOs, interested groups, mass media and public. When the human rights policy design was took into reality, the policy makers must consider the priority among foreign goals which meant whether human rights should prevailed other important national interests.This study made such conclusions as a) Concerning the policy debates between idealism and realism, although idealism resurged after the short end of the Cold War, realism balanced idealism later and remained the dominant policy thought determining U.S. human rights policy toward China. b)Concerning the power struggles between the president and the Congress, although the U.S. Congress had emergenced in foreign policy since the 1970s, U.S. President remained the dominant foreign policy maker of course including U.S. human rights policy toward China. c)Concerning the foreign priority among different goals, although human rights concerns sometime occupy the top priority, this type of human rights policy would not be sustainable because Americans could not pursue human rights at the expense of other important national interests(security, economy and strategy).Finally, after this period of policy change, U.S. has formed the more balancing, stable and pragmatic human rights policy toward China. The new policy emphasizes more realism, more management and more coordination among other foreign policies toward China. This trend continued to the present.