{ "id": "R45898", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "number": "R45898", "active": true, "source": "EveryCRSReport.com, CRSReports.Congress.gov", "versions": [ { "source": "EveryCRSReport.com", "id": 604339, "date": "2019-09-03", "retrieved": "2019-09-04T22:10:41.196738", "title": "U.S.-China Relations", "summary": "The United States and the People\u2019s Republic of China (PRC or China) are involved in a prolonged stand-off over trade and in competition that is spilling from political and military areas into a growing number of other spheres, including technology, finance, and education, severely straining ties on the 40th anniversary of the two countries\u2019 establishment of diplomatic relations. The two lead the world in the size of their economies, their defense budgets, and their global greenhouse gas emissions. Both countries are permanent members of the United Nations (U.N.) Security Council. In 2018, they were each other\u2019s largest trading partners.\nDuring the Trump Administration, competition has dominated the relationship and areas of cooperation have shrunk. The 2017 National Security Strategy (NSS) describes both China and Russia as seeking to \u201cchallenge American power, influence, and interests, attempting to erode American security and prosperity.\u201d To pressure China to change its economic practices, the United States has imposed tariffs on hundreds of billions of dollars of U.S. imports from China, with almost all imports from China scheduled to be subject to additional tariffs by December 15, 2019. U.S. tariffs and China\u2019s retaliatory tariffs have reordered global supply chains and hit U.S. farmers and manufacturers particularly hard. Twelve rounds of negotiations have not resolved the dispute. \nOn August 5, 2019, the U.S. Treasury Department labeled China a currency manipulator for the first time in a quarter century. The Administration has placed restrictions on the ability of U.S. firms to supply PRC telecommunications giant Huawei. The United States has also sought to warn other nations away from business dealings with Huawei and from cooperation with China on infrastructure projects under the framework of China\u2019s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). \nMany analysts ascribe the rising friction in the relationship today not only to the arguably more confrontational inclinations of the Trump Administration, but also to more assertive behavior by China under President Xi Jinping. Xi assumed the top posts in the Communist Party of China in November 2012 and added the state presidency in March 2013. Later in 2013, China began building military outposts in the South China Sea and Xi launched BRI, an ambitious effort to boost economic connectivity\u2014and China\u2019s influence\u2014across the globe. In 2015, China began enacting a suite of national security legislation that shrank the space for independent thought and civil society, subjected ordinary citizens to stepped-up surveillance, and imposed onerous conditions on foreign firms operating in China. The same year, China launched its \u201cMade in China 2025\u201d plan, seeking to reduce China\u2019s reliance on foreign technology and directing the considerable resources of the state toward supporting the development of \u201cnational champion\u201d Chinese firms in 10 strategic industries. In 2017, at the end of his first five-year term in his Party posts, Xi tasked China\u2019s military with turning itself into a \u201cworld-class\u201d force by mid-century. Also in 2017, his government began forcing more than 1 million of his Turkic Muslim fellow citizens in the northwest region of Xinjiang into reeducation camps. \nIncreasingly, the United States and China appear to be seeking to draw other countries into competing camps\u2014those who agree to sign (often vague) BRI cooperation agreements with China (some 125 countries as of April 2019, by China\u2019s count), and those who, at the U.S. government\u2019s behest, do not; those who do business with Huawei, and those who, similarly at the U.S. government\u2019s behest, do not; those who publicly censure China for its actions in Xinjiang, and those who offer support. U.S. allies are sometimes in China\u2019s \u201ccamp.\u201d China represents \u201ca new kind of challenge,\u201d Secretary of State Michael R. Pompeo has suggested, because \u201cIt\u2019s an authoritarian regime that\u2019s integrated economically into the West in ways the Soviet Union never was.\u201d Important areas of remaining U.S.-China cooperation include maintaining pressure on North Korea to curb its nuclear weapons and missile programs; supporting the Afghanistan peace process; managing international public health challenges, from tuberculosis to influenza; and stemming the flow into the United States of China-produced fentanyl, a class of deadly synthetic opioids.", "type": "CRS Report", "typeId": "REPORTS", "active": true, "formats": [ { "format": "HTML", "encoding": "utf-8", "url": "https://www.crs.gov/Reports/R45898", "sha1": "1c7b173b1174f65a0f94b6fe7135912e7a7cb829", "filename": "files/20190903_R45898_1c7b173b1174f65a0f94b6fe7135912e7a7cb829.html", "images": { "/products/Getimages/?directory=R/html/R45898_files&id=/1.png": "files/20190903_R45898_images_fea549a2ef82065ffa9eb1902b241a3cab0a126c.png", "/products/Getimages/?directory=R/html/R45898_files&id=/2.png": "files/20190903_R45898_images_9fcf182085d228e7afd18a5485b3653d38ac2abb.png", "/products/Getimages/?directory=R/html/R45898_files&id=/0.png": "files/20190903_R45898_images_ffe19f1399d987f94a125401556b1f15dd168bd6.png" } }, { "format": "PDF", "encoding": null, "url": "https://www.crs.gov/Reports/pdf/R45898", "sha1": "91a50cbf694bb38c3dfc4b0a7b75441a76260903", "filename": "files/20190903_R45898_91a50cbf694bb38c3dfc4b0a7b75441a76260903.pdf", "images": {} } ], "topics": [] }, { "source_dir": "crsreports.congress.gov", "title": "U.S.-China Relations", "retrieved": "2020-09-05T09:14:10.017973", "id": "R45898_1_2019-08-29", "formats": [ { "filename": "files/2019-08-29_R45898_e9c63f1414b09ed47960028111f2e51fe63056ec.pdf", "format": "PDF", "url": "https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/R/R45898/1", "sha1": "e9c63f1414b09ed47960028111f2e51fe63056ec" }, { "format": "HTML", "filename": "files/2019-08-29_R45898_e9c63f1414b09ed47960028111f2e51fe63056ec.html" } ], "date": "2019-08-29", "summary": null, "source": "CRSReports.Congress.gov", "typeId": "R", "active": true, "sourceLink": "https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/details?prodcode=R45898", "type": "CRS Report" } ], "topics": [ "Asian Affairs", "Environmental Policy", "Foreign Affairs", "Industry and Trade", "Intelligence and National Security", "National Defense" ] }