The Research On US "China Differential" Policy Between 1949—1971

The relationship between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is arguably one of the most delicate bilateral relationships in the international arena today. Historically, Sino-U.S. relations underwent a series of tense standoffs and acrimonious clashes since the suspension of diplomatic relations after the 1949 Communist victory, including fierce battles on the Korean Peninsula from 1950 to 1953, the Chinese Taiwan Strait Crises of the 1950s, and the escalation of Sino-U.S. tension over Vietnam in 1964. In December 1969, however, the United States approached the PRC through its Polish diplomatic channel, and in 1972, the Nixon Administration and Mao’s Communist China surprised the world with the Shanghai Communique, pledging the PRC and the United States to a normalized relationship. Over the next decade, the PRC and the United States established formal diplomatic ties.The chilly diplomatic relationship between the PRC and the United States from 1949 to 1969 is often taken for granted and regarded as natural. The volume of US trade with the USSR between the Wars had been small and after 1945 was even smaller, After the world war two, with the formation of the the US-USSR cold war, trade export control become the US-led western camp economically important means to contain the Soviet union group. Early in the establishment of the Soviet Union, the United States had taken a trade embargo policy, and this policy began to become more severe after the Cold War. Under US leadership, the West had already established the procedures for strictly controlling trade with the Soviet bloc (known as COCOM). At the same time, US trade with China had never been extensive and the US did not expect that the situation would change in post-war years. While concentrating on mounting economic warfare against the USSR and its allies, the US administration tended to ignore China, then embroiled in the chaos of civil war. After The People’s Republic of China was proclaimed on October 1949 and choose the USSR side, the US regard China as an enemy. With the commencement of the Korean War, the US imposed an embargo on all exports to North Korea on 28June. China was affected disadvantageously by this development. The US Navy demanded the immediate rewriting of NSC 48/2 agreed upon 12 months previously. This had all but banned trade totally with China, China continued to be a problem for US security planners and they gradually moved to set up a trade control organization which was established on 15 September 1952 to be known as CHINCOM. After the establishment of the Commission, the US has taken more stringent measures to carry out the trade embargo on China, China Trade Control Committee level significantly higher than the COCOM to the Soviet Union, Eastern European countries. This policy is the "China differential." Effects of this harsh trade embargo on China is self-evident, trade volume between China and the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe to increasing year after year, while trade with the United States、Western European countries is minimal. Development of trade not only affects China’s domestic and foreign policies, the United States and its allies also caused some impacts. It was to function within the COCOM body in Paris. China had to be treated as a special case for several reasons. First, China is puniness than the USSR, it’s easier to destroy China’s economic than destroy the USSR’s; second the fear of Communism was deeply rooted in US culture.Meanwhile the UK and Japan beginning to count the losses caused by the trade embargo. With the conclusion of the Korean War, Britain is the first country to cancel the differential embargo, the next country is Japan. Although some countries gradually recover its trade with China, the US is still persist in the "China Differential" policy. It is until 1969 while the United States and the PRC both felt weaker vis-a-vis a more threatening USSR, the US start to move to China and trade with China again.At the year of 1994 the CHINCOM is dismissed, that means the "China Differential" is finished. Why the US resist the discriminatory trade policy to China is the main line of this paper.