Containment and engagement: U.S. China policy in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations.

Abstract

This study argues that despite the basic inertia in U.S. China policy during the Kennedy and Johnson years, the period nonetheless witnessed a fundamental evolution in the strategic presumptions underlying Washington’s approach to the China “problem.” By increments, U.S. policymakers began to seriously question the wisdom of a policy predicated on the idea that the containment of the People’s Republic of China necessitated its political and economic isolation. Inversely, a basic consensus emerged in interested corners of the U.S. foreign policy bureaucracy that considered attempts to engage the Chinese—on levels bilateral and multilateral, official and unofficial—could serve to socialise China’s revolutionaries, thereby facilitating a reduction in Sino-American tensions and paving the way to a bilateral rapprochement. Critically, in this analysis “engagement” was seen as a means of enhancing, rather than simply supplanting, the larger effort to contain China. The dynamics involved in the emergence of this consensus are manifold and complex, and cannot be properly understood without close reference to changes in both the international strategic environment and the domestic political context through the 1960s. At the heart of this process, however, were advocates of policy moderation within the U.S. bureaucracy, mediating external pressures for policy movement, and championing the case for a more conciliatory approach to Sino-American relations. The growing acceptance of what was sometimes articulated as “containment without isolation”—shorthand for a policy framework that implicitly rejects the either/or choice between containment and engagement—found expression in, and was in turn fostered by, basic adjustments in Washington’s posture toward Mao’s China. By the end of 1968 senior U.S. officials had repeatedly signalled that Washington was reconciled to the reality of a Communist-controlled mainland China, and would in fact welcome expanded efforts toward bilateral accommodation and even cooperation. These postural shifts may not have been matched by concrete policy changes, yet they remain significant. In the most immediate sense, the less provocative posture toward China enhanced Washington’s capacity to communicate U.S. intent to China’s leadership, thereby helping avert a direct Sino-American conflict in the 1960s, even as the two sides pursued antithetical objectives in the Asian region. In a longer-term frame of reference, the more flexible posture adopted in the 1960s played an important role in challenging the domestic politicisation of China policy, while establishing a rhetorical framework and conceptual foundation for more substantive policy movement. In the course of tracing these developments, this study also provides new interpretative insights on a number of specific issues pertaining to U.S. China policy in the Kennedy and Johnson years, including the policy preferences, relationships, and roles of key U.S. officials in shaping the policy process; the impact of domestic politics, alliance politics, and various Cold War strategic concerns on policy outcomes; the question of how to deal with China’s nuclear development; and the manner in which major China-related events and developments in the 1960s—such as the failure of Mao’s Great Leap Forward, the 1962 Taiwan Strait crisis, the Sino-Indian border war, China’s involvement in Vietnam, and the Cultural Revolution— were interpreted by U.S. officials, and, in turn, shaped understandings of and responses to the China problem.