US China Relations—Strategic Partner or Strategic Competitor? And the Challenges of Chinese Intelligence

 
Presented to the Joint Counterintelligence Academy
July 30, 2007

John J. Tkacik, Jr.

US China Relations—Strategic Partner or Strategic Competitor? And the Challenges of Chinese Intelligence

China’s Current Domestic Affairs-- Overview:

The Emerging Chinese Communist Superpower

Within a decade, perhaps less, China will be America’s only global peer competitor for military and strategic influence. Director of National Intelligence, Michael McConnell told the Senate on February 27, 2007, that the Chinese are" building their military, in my view, to reach some state of parity with the United States," adding " they're a threat today, they would become an increasing threat over time."

That China is now a top global economic power is unquestioned. In 2006, China’s GDP was estimated at $10 trillion in purchasing power parity terms by the Central Intelligence Agency, second only to the United States at $12.98 trillion. This year, 2007, China's exchange-rate GDP will probably exceed $2.9 trillion and will push China's "ppp" GDP almost to the U.S. level.

In 2003 China’s average per capita GDP exceeded $1,000 for the first time, and in 2006, that figure had jumped to $2000 – almost double in three years, indicating and economic growth rate of about 22 percent – while China's published figures put growth at just about 10 percent. Some metropolitan areas in China now claim average per capita incomes in the $5000 to $10,000 range. While much of China is still backward, more than 65-75 million people in the coastal areas have experienced dramatic economic prosperity and form a consumer market larger than any European Union country except Germany. China’s industrial base has become one of the most technologically advanced in the world, and for most of the past 27 years China has experienced sustained double digit annual GDP growth. It is now the world’s second largest producer of electricity (after the United States) , the biggest producer of steel, copper, primary aluminum, and cement/concrete; China is the second-largest consumer of oil. By any standard, China’s economy and domestic consumer market are massive -- and self-sustaining.

Many in the Chinese leadership already see their country in this role and they shape its policies accordingly. Over the coming decade, China will demand and will secure for itself an increasingly influential military and security role in global affairs. It will shake off any pretense to be an international “rule-taker” and assert itself as a proactive global “rule-maker” in such strategic and security areas as nonproliferation, space, law of the sea, counter terrorism, and the development of multilateral security architectures near and abroad. At the Chinese Communist Party’s 16th Congress in November of 2002, Party leaders not only reiterated that they “oppose hegemonism and power politics” (i.e., the United States) and will “boost world multipolarization” (i.e., opposing America’s role as the sole superpower), but also equated “terrorism” and American “hegemonism” as equal threats. As recently as the December 2006, China’s military strategists declared that “Hegemonism and power politics remain key factors undermining international security.” Moreover, China’s leaders believe that the principal forces of instability in the region are America which is “accelerating its realignment of military deployment to enhance its military capability” and Japan which “seeks to revise its constitution and exercise collective self-defense” with a “military posture [that] is becoming more externally-oriented.” A secondary factor which makes the Northeast Asia security situation “more complex and challenging” is North Korea which “has launched missile tests and conducted a nuclear test.” China also sees “territorial disputes, conflicting claims over maritime rights and interests” – presumably with Japan – “undermine trust and cooperation among states.”

For the Chinese leadership, “comprehensive national power” (guojiade zonghe liliang) has supplanted absolutist Marxist dialectics as the organizing principle for the Chinese state, although China’s Marxist theoreticians are still trying to explain how 21st Century China fits into Karl Marx’s vision of a state in the “preliminary stage of socialism.” Even without the legitimacy of Marxist absolutism, the People’s Republic of China remains a Leninist one-party state which retains authority over all facets of human society. It is led by a single supreme leader; internal power is exerted through an unchecked police force that has unfettered access to all means of communication. The party/state propaganda arms have monopolistic control of all media and publication. The Chinese Communist Party believes it has found the key to perpetuating itself in power: allow some (though hardly all) forms of private economic activity as long as these do not compromise the Party’s role as ultimate arbiter of what is permissible; through Party nominees, retain control of the “commanding heights” of the economy; and co-opt the urban bourgeoisie through Party membership and favors, so that they do not become an opposing force. In this way, the Beijing regime has been hugely successful in translating the country’s massive new economic muscle into political legitimacy at home, influence abroad, and military power to prevail against even the United States in Asian regional confrontations.

Beijing’s diplomatic influence abroad also stems from its eagerness to lend propaganda cover to rogue states, dictatorships, sponsors of genocide, terrorism and nuclear blackmail. Such states find comfort in knowing that China will not judge their behavior, and China finds reaffirmation in a general principle of “noninterference” in the internal affairs of other states which are, after all, simply pursuing development models “suited to their own national conditions.”

Lacking a legitimacy grounded in the consent of the governed, it appears that Beijing’s leaders intend to leverage China’s international influence to promote a new “multipolar” world order in order to buttress regime legitimacy. Domestically, the party/state will continue and accelerate industrial policies designed to ensure that Chinese businesses, industries and financial interests directly support its global objectives.

China’s Rise as a Military Power

The declared strategy of the Chinese leadership has been to turn its economic growth, via the "Four Modernizations" (agricultural, industrial, science and technology, and military) and the "Prosperous Nation, Strong Military" (fu guo, qiang bing) model, into military power. Ironically, with the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union – China’s only existential threat – China’s military spending increased while the United States and virtually all U.S. allies immediately set about reaping a “peace dividend,” with defense expenditures dropping over ten percent (from $298 billion in fiscal year 1992 down to $268 billion in fiscal year 1997). In the same period, Chinese defense spending sustained annual double-digit increases. That pace of Chinese military spending increases persist to this day. The Pentagon estimates total defense-related expenditures in 2005 to be between $85 and $125 billion, ranking China third in nominal dollar defense spending after the United States and Russia. On March 4, 2007, China announced that it would increase military spending another 17.8 per cent, the biggest reported annual increase ever.

The resources that Beijing devotes to its armed forces put China in the top stratum of global military powers. With China’s 2006 gross domestic product (GDP) in excess of $2.5 trillion (about $10 trillion in purchasing power parity terms) and military spending estimated in 2006 by the Central Intelligence Agency at 4.3 percent of China’s GDP, China’s military spending is more accurately pegged at about $430 billion than $45 billion. Earlier this year, I published three separate papers pointing out this rather startling mathematical conclusion from the intelligence community in 2006 -- i.e. that China's "ppp" GDP in 2006 was about $10 trillion, times 4.3 percent, equals $430 billion.

(I noted with some irony that earlier this month, the CIA's most recent World Factbook for 2007 now estimates China's 2006 GDP at $10.17 trillion, but reduced its estimate of China's military spending to 3.8 percent of GDP. In other words, CIA apparently reduced its estimation of the percentage of GDP spent on China's military by more than 11 percent between 2006 and 2007 -- although the Chinese themselves declared their military spending was increasing by 18 percent.)

At any rate, it is clear that the People's Liberation Army gets quite a bit more "bang" for its "buck" than the Defense Department. Each Type-99 Main Battle Tank reportedly costs the PLA about $1.9 million while the cost of a similarly equipped Abrams M1A2 MBT to the Pentagon is about $6.7 million. A PLA private in one of the Army's top units will get a base pay and allowances of about $1100 a year, while a private in the U.S. army gets about $28,000 per year. An Aimpoint red-dot rifle sight which is now de rigeur for marksmen in Iraq costs the U.S. Army about $430.00 dollars, while identical copies are available on e-bay from a seller in "Shanghai, China" for less than $42.00. The point being that the Chinese PLA's costs of equipment and manpower are substantially below the Pentagon's, and often, the equipment is of comparable quality.

American intelligence analysts in both Republican and Democratic administrations have been surprised in recent years at the breathtaking pace and scope of China’s military development. As the 2006 Department of Defense report on “The Military Power of the People’s Republic of China” notes, the transformation of the People’s Liberation Army has included new doctrines, reform of military institutions and systems, improved exercise and training standards, and the acquisition of new foreign and domestic weapons systems. Already, China’s military expansion has altered regional military balances. The long-term trends in China’s military have the potential to pose credible threats to modern militaries.

So what are the Chinese getting for their $430 billion, or $380 billion? 40 new diesel electric submarines over the past five years, and ten new nuclear submarines in China's shipyards and design houses now; Anti satellite weapons; new ICBM's by the dozen, new tanks, landing ships, fighter aircraft. In short, China is engaged in an across-the-board military modernization effort.

2) Current State of China-US Relations—Overview:

The Sino-American relationship has evolved in the over 30 years since President Richard Nixon first visited China. For the first two decades, the relationship was one built exclusively around a common enemy in the U.S.S.R. But the Soviet threat has been dead and buried for fourteen years, and so too is the entire logic of any U.S.-China “strategic partnership.” Indeed, China seeks to reclaim its ancient place as the preeminent power in Asia – and in the process, to displace the United States.

Henry Kissinger describes the policy process of the 1969 opening to China. One view, he said, opposed the opening because it “would make Soviet-American cooperation impossible”, while another view held that relations with the USSR “should not be a major factor in shaping our China policy.” A third view, which he called “a kind of ‘Realpolitik’ approach” argued that the Soviets “would be more conciliatory if they feared that we would otherwise seek a rapprochement with Peking”. He concludes, “Not surprisingly, I was on the side of the Realpolitikers.” Henry Kissinger is probably a bit uncomfortable with the revelation that, in a conversation February 14, 1972, between Nixon and Kissinger at the White House, he told Nixon: "....and I think in 20 years your successor, if he is as wise as you, will wind up leaning toward the Russians against the Chinese. For the next 15 years we have to lean toward the Chinese against the Russians.

We have to play this balance of power game totally unemotionally."

Today, the perception of Washington policy-makers of America’s relationship with China no longer coheres in any strategic alignment, but rather it is built upon short term economic – primarily trade and investment – interests. To be sure, in many other areas American and Chinese interests in the 21st century will be congruent and our nations will have opportunities for meaningful cooperation. The economic sphere – where American and Chinese prosperity are so closely intertwined – will likely be the arena of growing but manageable contention. In security, political and ethical terms, it is clear that America and China view their interests from substantially differing perspectives.

For America, the interdependence of its economy with China’s is such that an abrupt divorce would have serious consequences. For the Chinese leadership, the cash-flow from the American market continues to be essential to China’s economic development and a vital source of technology. At the same time, China’s leaders see America as a constraining, menacing specter determined to undermine the regime's legitimacy. Many, perhaps most, within the ruling group, and almost all in their military, view the United States as a chief obstacle to China's preeminence in East Asia and its strategic competitiveness globally. Still, even within these groups, there is broad appreciation that, for the time being, China lacks the capability to directly challenge American power except in areas very close to China’s shores. Therefore, Chinese policy, in a sophisticated manner, combines the facade of cooperation in international arenas with substantive resistance in virtually all policy areas.
America still has a "most vital" interest – as does the entire world – in seeing China develop into a free, prosperous, and democratic nation committed to acting as a responsible stakeholder within the existing international framework. If this were ever to come to pass, America should welcome and encourage it. Indeed, it is widely accepted in decision-making circles in Washington (though far less so in Beijing) that expanding areas of US-China cooperation is important to both countries.

Consequently, this view holds that the United States should work to “persuade” the Chinese leadership that their own interests require working in common, rather than at cross purposes, to solve global problems that affect all, whether these are WMD proliferation or global warming, or AIDS prevention and treatment, or competition for finite energy resources.
Yet, China’s “peaceful rise” or its evolution into a “responsible global stakeholder, is in no way inevitable. Rather, it seems unlikely. Indeed, since 1989, China has pursued a set of international policies inconsistent with the “responsible stakeholder” vision that some U.S. policy-makers have for China: grave nonproliferation violations, rapid military, naval, nuclear and space weapons expansion, threats against Taiwan, state-sponsored campaigns of anti-Japanese hostility, support for rogue regimes, supplies of advanced weapons to Middle East extremists and scant engagement in the War on Terror, to name a few.

And despite the fact that “responsible stakeholder-hood” is a declared U.S. goal for China, American policy-makers have been woefully unable to articulate just what they mean by “responsible stakeholder” much less are they capable of devising a strategy sufficient to nudge China in that direction.

Some suggest, by way of defining the matter, that the “opposite” of a “responsible stakeholder” is a “free rider”, i.e. a nation that partakes of the stability that rises from existing international regimes without actually doing anything to support them. Yet, in truth, America would be ecstatic if China were merely a “free rider.”

Instead, China has become an irresponsible non-stakeholder in the global community. It covertly – sometimes overtly –undermines international nonproliferation regimes by providing nuclear and chemical weapons and advanced ballistic missile designs, material, manufacturing equipment and technology to Pakistan, directly and indirectly to Syria, Iran and Libya. It gives diplomatic succor to genocide in Sudan, to violent political repression in Zimbabwe, slavery in Burma. It furnishes anti-ship missiles to Hizb’ollah terrorists in Lebanon via Iran’s Republican Guard and small arms to rebels and bandits across the Middle East and Africa, and seems intent on supplying man-portable anti-aircraft missiles to dodgy states in Latin America. It has spun-up an anti-satellite space program – aimed exclusively at the U.S. – and seems unfazed by the debris cloud left in the wake of its first successful test. China offers comfort and legitimacy to rogue nations and enemies of freedom lurking in the shadows in many of the world’s infant democracies which otherwise endure the opprobrium of the community of democracies. The list goes on.

a. a.
b. Economic and trade issues:
a. Trade imbalance.
b. Energy competition.
c. Currency debate.
c. Global issues:
a. Afghanistan.
b. War on Terrorism.
c. Iraq.
d. Korea problem.
e. Third World relations.
d. Taiwan problem.
1) Chinese military buildup and US response.

3) .Chinese Intelligence Threat—Overview:

a. A strategic evaluation of the Chinese intelligence threat—how critical?

First let me say that a superpower that allows its manufacturing and industrial base to erode cannot long remain a superpower. China's strategic focus is on becoming a superpower and, in the process, undermining the U.S. position. Secondarily, the Chinese leadership looks at Taiwan as the touchstone of their legitimacy, and hence, undermining Taiwan's support worldwide, and particularly in the United States is a tactical objective.

How does intelligence collection fit into this?

My own belief is that China's intelligence priorities center on industrial and strategic modernization, both to gain denied intellectual property (dual-use and military specific), and to develop the industrial base necessary to manufacturing the hardware necessary for military modernization.

What are they doing and how are they doing it? I am persuaded that traditional, conventional intelligence collection is a small part of the effort. Certainly the Ministry of State Security and the PLA Second Department, and other agencies are tasked with political, diplomatic and foreign policy collection, as well as infiltrating the overseas Chinese communities worldwide -- and particularly in the U.S. -- to identify possible threats to the State, and to recruit intelligence assets, not just for political and military intelligence but for industrial and scientific intelligence, as well.

But increasingly, Chinese industrial ministries and major state corporations have their own tasking priorities for technology and scientific collection. They will formally task business delegations as well as students and scholars to do this work. Students and academics are (or at least "were" in my day) notified -- at the time of their passport applications -- by the Public Security Bureaus and their work unit security cadres of their obligation to assist the state in gathering important information for the motherland.

There are eight million stories in the Naked City, and here are a few: A professor at the University of Michigan had a Chinese post-doctoral student steal aerospace samples from his office. A Chinese political science researcher at American University and her husband were held in China by police for four months in 2001, even Secretary Powell interceded for her, she was released and a year later was arrested by U.S. customs for exporting $100,000 worth of radiation-hardened microchips to a PLA semiconductor lab in Nanjing. She had been recruited before going to the U.S. and who knows? Perhaps she was getting additional training during the period she was incommunicado. The fact that Senator George Allen supported her apparently was a cynical tactic to improve her cover. There are hundreds of stories, thousands.

How successful have they been and what does the future hold?

I have to say that Chinese intelligence activities in the United States are much more effective than our efforts to penetrate China. We aren't a "denied area": there is a large population of Chinese in the United States; Chinese citizens are indoctrinated on their obligations to the motherland before they depart China; Chinese visitors generally have at least a rudimentary knowledge of English. And there are literally hundreds of thousands of Chinese students in the United States. Moreover, there is a large portion of overseas Chinese from Taiwan, as opposed to ethnic Taiwanese from Taiwan, who are loyal to the PRC.

What measures as a community should we be taking or have we taken to counter the Chinese intelligence threat?

From an operational perspective, what in your view has worked against the threat?

What operational and other mistakes have we made against the threat that should not be repeated?

Notes

1. It is evident that American leaders already see China as an emerging “superpower”. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, not one to use the term “superpower” lightly, observed as long ago as June 2005 that China is becoming a “military superpower,” Neil King, Jr., “Rice Wants U.S. to Help China Be Positive Force,” The Wall Street Journal, June 29, 2005, p. A13.

2. Director of National Intelligence John Negroponte testified that “China is a rapidly rising power with steadily expanding global reach that may become a peer competitor to the United States at some point.” Bill Gertz, “China’s Emergence as Military Power Splits Strategists on Threat to U.S.” The Washington Times, February 7, 2006, p. A3.

Since 1998, the Central Intelligence Agency’s World Factbook has listed China as second largest national economy behind the United States in “purchasing power parity” terms (a quantitative measure of equivalent goods and services rather than nominal dollar values at official exchange rates). Data for 2006 indicate that, in nominal dollar terms, China now has the world’s fourth largest economy (after the U.S., Japan, and Germany) if new revised figures for China’s service sector and Hong Kong’s GDP are included. Joe McDonald, “China Says Economy Much Bigger Than Thought,” Associated Press, December 20, 2005.

Bill Gertz, “China expands sub fleet,” The Washington Time, March 2, 2007 page A1, at http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20070302-012440-4462r.htm.
The CIA uses the World Bank "ppp" multiplier of 3.94 to calculate current values of China's GDP. See "World Development Indicators." The latest published World Bank "ppp" figures for China are for the year 2004. The World bank calculated a $7.634 trillion "ppp" GDP in with nominal exchange rate GDP as $1.938 trillion, for a "ppp" ratio of 3.94. See http://devdata.worldbank.org/wdi2006/contents/Table1_1.htm. Other "ppp" figures are a bit lower. The Penn World Tables at the University of Pennsylvania calculate China's 2004 "ppp" ratio at 2.14. See http://pwt.econ.upenn.edu/php_site/pwt62/pwt62_retrieve.php.) $2.512 trillion at nominal exchange rates. See Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook – 2006 at https://www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html#Econ.
This would be a 10 percent increase on China's 2006 GDP of $2.518 trillion and add an additional 8 percent for the upward dollar valuation of the renminbi.
"Beijing Renjun GDP tupo 6000 Meiyuan," [Per Capita Income in Beijing breaks US$6,000 mark], Shijie Ribao, January 8, 2007, at http://www.worldjournal.com/wj-ch-news.php?nt_seq_id=1469404. "Sui Guan Foren GDP yu wan Meiyuan; Tongji Ju: Ying yi Changzhu renkou Jisuan," [Guangzhou officials deny per capita GDP exceeds US$10,000; Statistics Bureau says only long-term residents were calculated], Shijie Ribao, January 5, 2007, at http://www.worldjournal.com/wj-ch-news.php?nt_seq_id=1468805. See also, David Barboza, "China Says Its Economy Grew by 10.7% in 2006, With Little Inflation," The New York Times, January 26, 2007, at http://www.nytimes.com/2007/01/26/business/worldbusiness/26yuan.html?_r=....
Jonathan Anderson, chief Asia economist at UBS in Hong Kong, said the real size of China's middle class is between 65 million and 75 million, not the 250 million to 300 million reflected in government figures. See Le-Min Lim, "Luxury brands struggle to find profit in mainland China," Bloomberg News, January 2, 2007, at http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/01/bloomberg/sxlux.php.
With 2,500,000,000 megawatts of installed capacity in 2005 (est). See The World Factbook – 2006.
The Effects of Increasing Chinese Demand on Global Commodity Markets, released June 2006, U.S. International Trade Commission.
Jiang Zemin cautioned the 16th Party Congress that “the harm resulting from terrorism is increasing. Hegemonism and power politics have new manifestations.” see “Jiang Zemin's report delivered to China's 16th National Party Congress”, November 8, 2002, sourced to China Central TV, Beijing, monitored by
BBC Monitoring Service. That Jiang’s message was to equate “terrorism” and American “hegemonism” is explicated in Liu Jianfei, "Renqing Fankong yu fanbade guanxi" (Grasp Relation Between Antiterrorism and Anti-Hegemonism); Liaowang (Outlook) Beijing, China, February 24, 2003, pp 54-56; English translation by Foreign Broadcast Information Service (FBIS) at FBIS-CHI-2003-0307.
See “Security Environment” in China’s 2006 Defense “white paper” at "Full Text - China's National Defense in 2006" China Issues White Paper on National Defense 2006” published by Xinhua News Agency, disseminated by the Foreign Broadcast Information Service at FEA20061230063508, December 29, 2006.
The emergence of “initial stage of socialism” as the formula for addressing the “crisis of faith” in Marxism – a phrase that appeared in the People’s Daily on November 11, 1980, is described in Laszlo Ladany, The Communist Party of China and Marxism 1921-1985, a Self Portrait, Hoover Institution Press, Stanford, 1988, pp448-457. A fascinating account of the ideological battle within the Chinese Communist Party that resulted in abandoning “Marxism-Leninism and Mao Zedong Thought” in favor of “increasing the comprehensive strength of the nation” as the new definition of “Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” is chronicled in Ma Licheng and Ling Zhihui, eds. Jiaofeng: Dangshi Zhongguo San Ci Sixiang Jiefang Shilyu [Crossed Swords: A True Account of the Three Emancipations of Thought in Contemporary China], Jinri Zhongguo Publishers, Beijing, 1998, especially pp. 160-204.

For example, see “China's African Policy” issued by the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs on January 12, 2006, at http://www.fmprc.gov.cn/eng/zxxx/t230615.htm. (“. . . countries in Africa have been conscientiously exploring a road to development suited to their national conditions and seeking peace, stability and development by joint efforts.”] See also Luo Hui, “Jin Richeng hui Li Changchun: Chaozhong Renmin Chuantong Youyi Bu Ke Po”[Kim Jong Il sees Li Changchun: The traditional friendship between the peoples of the DPRK and China is unbreakable], Xinhua News Agency, September 12, 2004, at http://www.people.com.cn/GB/shizheng/1024/2778612.html. (“China will continue to support North Korea's party and people in their insistence on the socialist road to development, and support the North Korean comrades in their exploration for development models that are suitable to this nation's [DPRK's] actual situation.”) See also Mark Landler, “For Many Burmese, China Is an Unwanted Ally,” The New York Times, December 31, 2001, p. 1. (Chinese president Jiang Zemin said Burma "must be allowed to choose its own development path suited to its own conditions.") TK – cite quotations on North Korea, Burma, Sudan, Zimbabwe, Bolivia, Venezuela.
U.S. Office of Management and Budget, “The Budget for Fiscal Year 2005: Historical Tables,” pp. 49–51, select from menu at www.gpoaccess.gov/usbudget/fy05/browse.html. [Ed. note: the U.S. State Department lists China’s annual military expenditures as second only to the United States. See “World Military Expenditures and Arms Transfers 1999-2000” released June 2002, p. 38, at http://www.state.gov/t/vc/rls/rpt/wmeat/1999_2000/ and http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/18738.pdf.
The Military Power of the People’s Republic of China, Office of the Secretary of Defense, May 23, 2007, p. 25. The current and all previous reports are available at http://www.defenselink.mil/pubs/china.html. (Hereafter, 2007 China Military Power Report).
Audra Ang, “China to increase military spending,” The Associated Press, March 4, 2007.
Central Intelligence Agency, The World Factbook 2006 (Washington, D.C. 2006), s.v. “China,” at www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook/geos/ch.html (April 23, 2007).
See "ZTZ99 (Type 99) Main Battle Tank", Sinodefense.com website, (Last updated: 14 April 2007) http://www.sinodefence.com/army/tank/type99.asp.
http://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/issues/2002/Sep/Army_Marine.htm.
Kurt Campbell, former deputy assistant secretary of defense, noted "You look back on those studies, and it’s only been a decade, China has exceeded in every area military modernization that even the far-off estimates of the mid-1990s predicted." See Mike Shuster, “Growing Chinese Military Strength Stirs Debate,” Morning Edition, National Public Radio, October 17, 2005, at http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=4961290. Assistant Secretary of Defense Peter Rodman noted that “we are caught by surprise by the appearance of new systems that suddenly appear fully developed. See U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission, 2006 Report to Congress, November 2006, p. 130, at http://www.uscc.gov/annual_report/2006/annual_report_full_06.pdf. (2006 USCC Report)
Henry Kissinger describes the policy process of the 1969 opening to China. One view, he said, opposed the opening because it “would make Soviet-American cooperation impossible”, while another view held that relations with the USSR “should not be a major factor in shaping our China policy.” A third view, which he called “a kind of ‘Realpolitik’ approach” argued that the Soviets “would be more conciliatory if they feared that we would otherwise seek a rapprochement with Peking”. He concludes, “Not surprisingly, I was on the side of the Realpolitikers.” See White House Years, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1979, p. 182.
See White House Years, Little, Brown and Company, Boston, 1979, p. 182.
Foreign Relations of the United States 1969-1976, Vol. XVII, Government Printing Office, Washington, 2006, p. 663.
In December 1945, President Truman declared that a “strong, united and democratic China” was in “the most vital interests of the United States”. See President Truman’s instructions to General George C. Marshall in U.S. Department of State, United States Relations with China, with Special Reference to the Period 1944–49 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1949), p. 133 (emphasis added). This document is also known as the “China White Paper”.
"China Refutes Allegation about Chinese Enterprises Stealing Intelligence," Chinese Consulate Press Release, at http://www.nyconsulate.prchina.org/eng/xw/t31437.htm