{"title":"The Changing U.S. China Watching Community and the Demise of Engagement with the People’s Republic of China","authors":"David M. McCourt","doi":"10.1163/18765610-29010001","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"\nRecent years have seen the rapid descent of relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (prc). Hopes for cooperation in places of common concern like climate change gave way to strains in almost all areas. In place of “engagement,” the administration of Donald J. Trump adopted a tougher approach of “strategic competition” that its successor so far has continued. This article explores the relationship between the demise of engagement and opinions coming from the American China expert community. Specifically, it questions the impact on engagement of five secular dynamics that these China authorities have experienced—generational turnover; the field’s vast expansion and diversification; increased disciplinary specialization; the enhanced prominence of the generalist in national security discussions in place of China specialists; and changes in the media leading to more skeptical journalistic voices on U.S.-prc relations. Without over-emphasizing either the influence of the expert community on U.S. decision-making, or underplaying the more repressive and authoritarian actions of the Chinese Communist Party, this article suggests that the China expert community has been more of a factor in the end of engagement than current accounts of academics and commentators acknowledge.","PeriodicalId":158942,"journal":{"name":"The Journal of American-East Asian Relations","volume":"193 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0000,"publicationDate":"2022-05-13","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":"1","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"The Journal of American-East Asian Relations","FirstCategoryId":"1085","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.1163/18765610-29010001","RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":null,"ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"","PubModel":"","JCR":"","JCRName":"","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 1
Abstract
Recent years have seen the rapid descent of relations between the United States and the People’s Republic of China (prc). Hopes for cooperation in places of common concern like climate change gave way to strains in almost all areas. In place of “engagement,” the administration of Donald J. Trump adopted a tougher approach of “strategic competition” that its successor so far has continued. This article explores the relationship between the demise of engagement and opinions coming from the American China expert community. Specifically, it questions the impact on engagement of five secular dynamics that these China authorities have experienced—generational turnover; the field’s vast expansion and diversification; increased disciplinary specialization; the enhanced prominence of the generalist in national security discussions in place of China specialists; and changes in the media leading to more skeptical journalistic voices on U.S.-prc relations. Without over-emphasizing either the influence of the expert community on U.S. decision-making, or underplaying the more repressive and authoritarian actions of the Chinese Communist Party, this article suggests that the China expert community has been more of a factor in the end of engagement than current accounts of academics and commentators acknowledge.
近年来,美国和中华人民共和国之间的关系迅速恶化。在气候变化等共同关心的问题上进行合作的希望几乎被所有领域的紧张局势所取代。唐纳德·j·特朗普(Donald J. Trump)政府取代了“接触”,采取了一种更强硬的“战略竞争”方式,其继任者迄今仍在继续这种做法。本文探讨了接触的消亡与来自美国中国专家群体的观点之间的关系。具体来说,它质疑了这些中国当局所经历的五种长期动态对参与的影响:代际更替;该领域的巨大扩张和多样化;增加学科专业化;在国家安全讨论中,多面手取代中国问题专家的地位得到加强;以及媒体的变化导致更多对美中关系持怀疑态度的新闻声音。这篇文章没有过分强调专家团体对美国决策的影响,也没有低估中国共产党更加专制和专制的行为,而是表明中国专家团体在结束接触方面的作用比学者和评论员目前所承认的要大。