Resettling China Policy Game Rules

A Confidential Memorandum from Brent Scowcroft to President Bush Sr.

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.13135/1592-4467/10781

Keywords:

Sino-American Relations, Most Favorite Nation Status, Human Rights Imperatives, Post-Cold War

Abstract

The document under examination is a confidential memorandum addressed to President George H. W. Bush by his National Security Advisor, Brent Scowcroft, in early April 1990. In the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in June 1989, and the intense emotional response it provoked within the United States, the memorandum sought to alert President Bush to the growing domestic dissatisfaction with what was perceived as the Administration’s overly cautious stance toward the Chinese leadership. The memorandum foresaw a range of dynamics and critical challenges that would subsequently unfold in Washington over the course of President Bush’s presidency.

Author Biography

Stefano Chessa Altieri, Scuola Superiore Meridionale, Università degli Studi di Napoli “Federico II”/Center for History, Sciences Po

Stefano Chessa Altieri is a PhD candidate in Global History at the Scuola Superiore Meridionale (Italy) and Sciences Po (France). His doctoral research investigates the complexities of post-Cold War U.S. foreign policy towards China in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Square crackdown in June 1989, focusing on the challenging dilemma faced by policymakers as they sought to balance economic integration with the promotion of human rights. His work builds on his MSc thesis, which critically reassessed the historiographical debate surrounding the perceived inconsistency between Jimmy Carter’s human rights rhetoric and the formal establishment of diplomatic relations with China in 1979. Stefano graduated with distinction from LSE. At Sciences Po, Stefano has served as a teaching assistant for courses on global history and transatlantic relations and has co-convened the annual LSE-Sciences Po Seminar in International History. He has also been awarded the Columbia University Alliance Visiting Program and the Yale Fox Fellowship.

Downloads

Published

2024-08-13

Issue

Vol. 35 No. 1 (2024): Books Erased: Printed Word Censorship and US National Identity

Section

First Editions

License

RSAJournal applies a CC BY-NC-ND license to all its contributions. This license enables reusers to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the creator. CC BY-NC-ND includes the following elements:

  • BY: credit must be given to the creator.
  • NC: Only noncommercial uses of the work are permitted.
  • ND: No derivatives or adaptations of the work are permitted.

Authors who publish with this journal agree to the following terms:

  • Authors retain the copyright and full publishing rights for their submissions to the journal.  
  • Authors grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License that allows others to share unedited work for non-commercial purposes with an acknowledgement of the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal.
  • Authors are able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the non-exclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), with an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.