China lobby in the United States

Flag of the Republic of China

Flag of the United States

In American politics, the China lobby (Chinese: 中國遊說團; pinyin: Zhōngguó yóushuì tuán; Wade–Giles: Chung¹-kuo² yu²-shui⁴ t'uan²) consisted of an informal network of advocacy groups, politicians, journalists, Protestant missions in China, Chinese diplomats, and Chinese Americans calling for the United States to support the Republic of China and the Kuomintang during World War II and later the Chinese Civil War along with the broader Cold War.

The China lobby emerged in the Second Sino-Japanese War advocating for the United States to intervene against Japanese aggression in China. They successfully campaigned for the United States to support China by donating supplies via the Lend-Lease program and directly supporting Chinese forces via deploying the Flying Tigers, which became the backbone of the Fourteenth Air Force. The China lobby also dramatically shifted the public in favor of the Nationalist government and its leader Chiang Kai-shek, who they portrayed as China’s wartime hero.

After the end of World War II and the resumption of the Chinese Civil War, the China lobby began campaigning for the United States to support the Government of the Republic of China against the Chinese Communist Party. However, due to the American focus in Europe at the time and President Harry S. Truman’s fear of provoking the Soviet Union, not enough support was given to the Republic of China and its government was forced to retreat to Taiwan. The start of the Korean War and the First Taiwan Strait Crisis shifted American attention back to Asia which resulted in the deployment of the United States Seventh Fleet to the Taiwan Strait and the signing of the Formosa Resolution of 1955 and the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty by President Dwight D. Eisenhower. This saw the peak of the China lobby’s influence in American foreign policy and culminated in 1960, when President Dwight D. Eisenhower visited Taipei and met with President Chiang Kai-shek.

However, as it became increasingly unlikely that the Republic of China would be able to retake the mainland, the influence of the China lobby gradually began to wane. Their failure to prevent the United Nations’ removal of the Republic of China in 1971 and Nixon’s visit to communist China in the year after further weakened their position. In 1979, they failed to prevent President Jimmy Carter from recognizing the People’s Republic of China and terminating the Sino-American Mutual Defense Treaty. However, in the same year, the remnants of the China lobby with overwhelming bipartisan support in Congress secured the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act, which still heavily influences Taiwan–United States relations to this day.

Since 1979, the China lobby has ceased to exist in its original form and became the basis of the influential Taiwan lobby in United States. Instead of advocating that the Republic of China is the sole legitimate government of China and that it would one day reclaim the mainland, its position shifted to that of assisting Taiwan defend against mainland China. Like its predecessor, the Taiwan lobby enjoys overwhelming bipartisan support in both federal and state levels.

History

Founding and World War II

Throughout the 1920s and the Warlord Era, Chinese lobbying in the United States was sporadic and mainly conducted by American missionaries and educators in China. However, with the unification of China under the Nationalist government in the wake of the Northern Expedition and the beginning of Japanese encroachment of Chinese territory, those missionaries and educators began advocating for the United States to support China in its path to modernization and its defense against Japanese aggression.

With the outbreak of the Second Sino-Japanese War in 1937, the China lobby in the United States rapidly began to gain influence in American foreign policy. One of the most prominent groups that were organized was the American Committee for Non-Participation in Japanese Aggression, more widely known as the Price Committee, after its founders, Frank and Harry Price, who were the sons of the Presbyterian missionary Philip Frank Price. They called for an embargo on supplies that could be used for military purposes on Japan in response to its actions in China. In 1937, Chiang Kai-shek and his wife, Soong Mei-ling, were named Time Man and Wife of the Year by Henry Luce, the editor of the magazine.

After the Attack on Pearl Harbor and the formal entry of the United States into World War II, many affiliates of the Price Committee began to raise money to support China’s war effort. These groups were consolidated under the United China Relief, which facilitated private aid towards China. Not only did they lobby government officials and Congressmen but they also persuaded the American public to support the Nationalist government and the fight for Free China against Japan.

Influential Chinese politicians, such as T. V. Soong, helped obtain funding for the lobbying and public relations campaigns by the China lobby networks in the United States. Soong Mei-ling, the First Lady of China greatly swayed American public opinion towards that of the Republic of China as a result of her speeches during her tour of the United States.

The Cold War

The Committee of One Million Against the Admission of Red China to the United Nations, later changed its name to The Committee of One Million Against the Admission of Communist China to the United Nations. The committee was established by Marvin Liebman, a political activist. Congressman Walter Judd (1898–1994) was an important spokesman for the Lobby.

It was the dominant lobby on China issues until the 1970s. During the 1970s, the China Lobby campaigned furiously to prevent American recognition of the People's Republic of China (PRC), but its efforts proved to be unsuccessful. President Richard Nixon opened the door to mainland China in 1972 and the PRC was recognized by the United States in 1979.

Notable people and organizations

People

• Soong Mei-ling
• T. V. Soong
• H. H. Kung
• William Knowland
• Walter Judd (politician)
• Joseph McCarthy
• Pat McCarran
• Henry Luce
• Clare Boothe Luce
• Alfred Kohlberg
• Freda Utley

Organizations

• Committee of One Million Against the Admission of Communist China to the United Nations
• American China Policy Association
• Friends of Free China Association

See also

• Republic of China
• Kuomintang
• Chiang Kai-shek
• Blue Team (U.S. politics)
• McCarthyism
• One China
• Two Chinas

Further reading

• Bachrack, Stanley D. The Committee of One Million: "China Lobby" Politics, 1953-1971 [ New York: Columbia University Press, 1976) online.
• Blackwell, Jeff. "'The China Lobby': Influences on US-China Foreign Policy in the Post War Period, 1949-1954." The Forum: Journal of History 2#1 (2010) online.
• Crean, Jeffrey. "'Nixon is With Us on China': Raging against the Dying of the Lobby" Journal of American-East Asian Relations 26:4 (2019): 368–396. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/18765610-02604003 online review of this article in H-DIPLO.
• Davis, Forrest, and Robert A. Hunter. The Red China Lobby. (New York: Fleet, 1963).
• Erskine, Kristopher C. "American Public Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics: The Genesis of the China Lobby in the United States, and how Missionaries Shifted American Foreign Policy between 1938 and 1941." Journal of American-East Asian Relations 25.1 (2018): 33–59.
• Hrebenar, Ronald J., and Clive S. Thomas. "The Rise and fall and rise of the China Lobby in the United States." in Interest Group Politics (CQ Press, 2011): 297+.
• Hung, Ho-fung. "The periphery in the making of globalization: the China Lobby and the Reversal of Clinton’s China Trade Policy, 1993–1994." Review of International Political Economy (2020): 1-24.
• Keeley, Joseph Charles. The China Lobby Man: The Story of Alfred Kohlberg. (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1969). online
• Koen, Ross Y., ed. The China Lobby in American Politics. (1974) online.
• Mao, Joyce. " No Such Thing: The China Lobby." in Asia First (U of Chicago Press, 2015) pp. 44–77.
• Mao, Joyce. Asia First: China and the Making of Modern American Conservatism (U of Chicago Press, 2015). viii, 226 pp.
• Marshall, Jonathan. "Cooking the Books: The Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the China Lobby and Cold War Propaganda, 1950–1962." Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 11 (2013) online.
• Stueck Jr, William W. The Road to Confrontation: American Policy Toward China and Korea (UNC Press Books, 2017).
• Yin, Xiao-huang. "From the China Lobby to the Taiwan Lobby: Movers and Shakers of the US–China–Taiwan Triangular Relationship." in The Expanding Roles of Chinese Americans in US-China Relations: Transnational Networks and Trans-Pacific Interactions (Routledge, 2015) pp. 148–164.