US-China Relations: China policy on Capitol Hill

U.S.–China Relations

With China’s rapid ascendance to great power status, the U.S.–China relationship has become one of the most important international relationships in the world today. This book explores relations between the U.S. and China, focusing in particular on China policy-making in the U.S. Congress, which has been unusually active in the development of this relationship. Based on detailed analysis of China bills introduced in Congress over the past three decades, it provides detailed analysis of how Congressional policy-making works in practice, and explores the most controversial issues in U.S.–China relations: Taiwan, trade and human rights. It considers the voting patterns and party divisions on these issues, showing that liberals and conservatives often form an alliance concerning China because China’s authoritarian regime, human rights problems, soaring trade surplus with the U.S and rising military power attract criticism from both camps. It also argues that congressional committees, bicameralism and presidential veto make it virtually impossible for Congress to legislate on China, despite its intense preferences, and therefore Congress often turns to informal—but no less effective—means to exert influence on China policy, such as framing public opinion and generating situations that result in anticipated reactions by the executive branch or Beijing. Tao Xie is Assistant Professor at the American Studies Centre, Beijing Foreign Studies University, China. He holds a Ph.D. in political science. His primary research interests are U.S. Congress and American electoral behavior.

Routledge Contemporary China Series

Nationalism, Democracy and National Integration in China Leong Liew and Wang Shaoguang Hong Kong’s Tortuous Democratization A comparative analysis Ming Sing China’s Business Reforms Institutional challenges in a globalised economy Edited by Russell Smyth and Cherrie Zhu Challenges for China’s Development An enterprise perspective Edited by David H. Brown and Alasdair MacBean New Crime in China Public order and human rights Ron Keith and Zhiqiu Lin Non-Governmental Organizations in Contemporary China Paving the way to civil society? Qiusha Ma Globalization and the Chinese City Fulong Wu The Politics of China’s Accession to the World Trade Organization The dragon goes global Hui Feng Narrating China Jia Pingwa and his fictional world Yiyan Wang

Sex, Science and Morality in China Joanne McMillan Politics in China Since 1949 Legitimizing authoritarian rule Robert Weatherley International Human Resource Management in Chinese Multinationals Jie Shen and Vincent Edwards Unemployment in China Economy, human resources and labour markets Edited by Grace Lee and Malcolm Warner China and Africa Engagement and compromise Ian Taylor Gender and Education in China Gender discourses and women’s schooling in the early twentieth century Paul J. Bailey SARS Reception and interpretation in three Chinese cities Edited by Deborah Davis and Helen Siu Human Security and the Chinese State Historical transformations and the modern quest for sovereignty Robert E. Bedeski Gender and Work in Urban China Women workers of the unlucky generation Liu Jieyu China’s State Enterprise Reform From Marx to the market John Hassard, Jackie Sheehan, Meixiang Zhou, Jane Terpstra-Tong and Jonathan Morris Cultural Heritage Management in China Preserving the cities of the Pearl River Delta Edited by Hilary du Cros and Yok-shiu F. Lee Paying for Progress Public finance, human welfare and inequality in China Edited by Vivienne Shue and Christine Wong

China’s Foreign Trade Policy The new constituencies Edited by Ka Zeng Hong Kong, China Learning to belong to a nation Gordon Mathews, Tai-lok Lui and Eric Kit-wai Ma China Turns to Multilateralism Foreign policy and regional security Edited by Guoguang Wu and Helen Lansdowne Tourism and Tibetan Culture in Transition A place called Shangrila Åshild Kolås China’s Emerging Cities The making of new urbanism Edited by Fulong Wu China-US Relations Transformed Perceptions and strategic interactions Edited by Suisheng Zhao The Chinese Party-State in the 21st Century Adaptation and the reinvention of legitimacy Edited by André Laliberté and Marc Lanteigne Political Change in Macao Sonny Shiu-Hing Lo China’s Energy Geopolitics The Shanghai Cooperation Organization and Central Asia Thrassy N. Marketos Regime legitimacy in contemporary China Institutional change and stability Edited by Thomas Heberer and Gunter Schubert U.S.–China Relations China policy on Capitol Hill Tao Xie

U.S.–China Relations China Policy on Capitol Hill

Tao Xie

First published 2009 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN Simultaneously published in the USA and Canada by Routledge 270 Madison Avenue, New York, NY 10016 Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business This edition published in the Taylor & Francis e-Library, 2008. “To purchase your own copy of this or any of Taylor & Francis or Routledge’s collection of thousands of eBooks please go to www.eBookstore.tandf.co.uk.” © 2009 Tao Xie All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilized in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data Tao, Xie, 1973– U.S.–China relations : China policy on Capitol Hill / Tao Xie. p. cm—(Routledge contemporary China series) Includes bibliographical references and index. 1. United States—Foreign relations—China. 2. China—Foreign relations—United States. 3. United States—Foreign relations—1945– 1989. 4. United States—Foreign relations—1989-. 5. United States. Congress—Decision making. 6. Taiwan—Strategic aspects. 7. United States—Commerce—China. 8. China—Commerce— United States. 9. Human rights—China. I. Title. II. Title: United States—China relations. E183.8.C5T36 2008 327.73051—dc22 2008014023 ISBN 0-203-89014-0 Master e-book ISBN

ISBN10: 0–415–77688–0 (hbk) ISBN10: 0–203–89014–0 (ebk) ISBN13: 978–0–415–77688–2 (hbk) ISBN13: 978–0–203–89014–1 (ebk)

To Zhang Can

Contents

List of figures List of tables Acknowledgments Introduction Congress and foreign policy 2 Why China? 5 Contributions of the book 9 Structure of the book 10

xi xiii xv 1

1

The new institutionalism and legislative behavior The new institutionalism 13 Determinants of roll call voting on foreign policy 19 Methodology 23

13

2

Congressional efforts to punish China Collection of China bills 27 Number and nature of China bills 29 What influences the ebb and flow of China bills? 34

26

3

Effects of congressional activism on China policy Bicameralism 43 Congressional committees 48 Presidential veto 50 More bark than bite? 52 Why so many China bills? 54 Does Congress matter in China policy? 55

43

4

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations Booming economic ties 60

60

x

Contents Congress and U.S.–China Trade 63 Legislative battle over PNTR 65 78

5

Congress and Taiwan Historical ties between Congress and Taiwan 79 Congressional attempts to enhance U.S.–Taiwan relations 82

6

Congress and China’s human rights Before Tiananmen: China as the exception 101 Tiananmen: the dividing line 104 MFN renewal and congressional efforts to change human rights in China 108

100

7

Beyond the case of China Selection of cases 123 Theoretical expectations 129

122

8

Conclusion Legislative institutions and their impact on China policy 142 The international environment and Congress’s China policy 144 Determinants of roll call voting on foreign policy 145 Policy implications 149 A look into the future 154

142

Appendix: Sources Source of China bills and coding scheme 157 Sources of other quantitative data 157

157

Notes Bibliography Index

161 177 199

List of figures

2.1 Classification of China bills (including amendments), 1973–2006 2.2 Time trend of China bills (including amendments), 1973–2006 2.3 Favorability ratings of China on 10-point scale, 1954–2001 2.4 Favorability ratings of China on four-category scale, 1977–2006 3.1 House–Senate ratios for China bills and bills in general (excluding amendments), 93rd–109th Congresses 3.2 Number of China bills (excluding amendments) by policy type and chamber, 1973–2006 5.1 Time trend of Taiwan bills introduced in each chamber, 1973–2006 6.1 Bills concerning China’s human rights, 1989–2006 6.2 Time trend of bills relating to China’s MFN status, 1973–2006 7.1 U.S. trade deficit with Japan, 1962–2006

32 33 37 38 44 45 82 106 109 125

List of tables

2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 3.1 3.2 3.3 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4

5.1 5.2 5.3 5.4 5.5

5.6 5.7 6.1 6.2

House China bills by policy and type, 1973–2006 Senate China bills by policy and type, 1973–2006 Determinants of the number of China bills (excluding amendments) introduced in the House, 1973–2006 Determinants of the number of China bills (excluding amendments) introduced in the Senate, 1973–2006 Frequency of the number of China bills (excluding amendments) by chief sponsor and chamber, 1973–2006 Members of Congress who introduced ten or more China bills (excluding amendments), 1973–2006 Freestanding China bills enacted into law, 1973–2006 U.S.–China trade in goods, 1973–2006 U.S. imports of selected commodities from China in 1989–2005 Logit analysis of the House vote on HR 4444 Increases in probabilities associated with one standard deviation increase in independent variables (HR 4444) House roll call votes on the Taiwan Relations Act Senate roll call votes on the Taiwan Relations Act U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and Taiwan’s ranking among U.S. arms sales to foreign countries Logit analysis of the House vote on HR 2386 Increases in probabilities associated with one standard deviation increase in independent variables (HR 2386) Logit analysis of the House vote on HR 1838 Increases in probabilities associated with one standard deviation increase in independent variables (HR 1838) House roll call votes on joint resolutions to disapprove of China’s MFN, 1990–2001 Logit analysis of House votes to disapprove of China’s MFN under President Bush

29 31 39 41 46 47 53 61 62 72

73 85 86 89 92

92 94 95 110 115

xiv

List of tables

6.3

Increases in probabilities associated with one standard deviation increase in independent variables (votes under Bush) 6.4 Logit analysis of House votes to disapprove of China’s MFN under President Clinton 6.5 Increases in probabilities associated with one standard deviation increase in independent variables (votes under Clinton) 7.1 Total U.S. trade and deficit with Japan, Canada, and Mexico, 1985–2006 7.2 U.S.–Japan trade and automotive deficit, 1986–2006 7.3 Total U.S. trade and deficit with Hungary, Romania, and Vietnam 7.4 House roll call votes on trade and MFN extension for selected countries 7.5 Logit analysis of House roll call votes on trade with Japan, Canada, and Mexico 7.6 Increases in probabilities associated with one standard deviation increase in independent variables (votes on Japan, Canada, and Mexico) 7.7 Logit analysis of House votes on extension of MFN to Romania, Hungary, and Vietnam 7.8 Increases in probabilities associated with one standard deviation increase in independent variables (votes on MFN extension to Romania, Hungary, and Vietnam) A.1 Examples of coding of China bills

115 117

118 124 126 130 132 133

134 138

139 158

Acknowledgments

In the process of researching the book, I have accumulated an enormous debt to a number of individuals. Without their encouragement, support, advice, and critique, the book would never have evolved into what it is today. Jeff Jenkins offered a number of penetrating comments. Without his input, the book would have been much less alert to the complexities of congressional structures and procedures. The book also benefited from Victor Shih’s extensive knowledge of U.S.–China relations and international relations. Dennis Chong generously supported my training in quantitative methods. More than that, had it not been for his unfailing encouragement, I would have quit being a political scientist a long time ago. Sean Gailmard kindly helped me tackle many methodological questions. Each in his own way, John Bennett and Chris Bray made my life at Northwestern University more enjoyable. To Benjamin I. Page, I owe the most intellectual debt. Without his support, I would probably have not embarked on the project in the first place. His enthusiasm has sustained me throughout research and writing. He supervised the project from the beginning to the end, bringing to bear his enormous knowledge of American politics and guiding me through the art of academic writing. He certainly exemplifies the profound impact that a professor can have on students. Since we first met back in 2002, Jordan Jay Hillman has been an intellectual mentor and a fatherly figure to me. In addition to sharpening my thinking on many topics over numerous lunches which he generously paid for, he also invited me to have each Hanukkah and Passover dinner with his family. When I look back at the six years of doctoral study in the U.S., I am always grateful to Jay and his family. It was Professor Mei Renyi who inspired me to study American politics when I was a graduate student in Beijing ten years ago. Without his unwavering support, I would not have decided to pursue a doctorate. His insights into American politics have been a constant source of research ideas. Many former and current graduate students at Northwestern University helped me in a number of ways. In addition to livening up my social life, Julia Rabinovich was a great source of research ideas. Conservations with

xvi

Acknowledgments

Jean-François Godbout often ended up producing some fascinating reflections on my own research. Birol Baskan and I often discussed a wide range of topics over a cup of coffee. Jiangnan Zhu, Kai Zeng, and Qi Zhang enriched my intellectual as well as culinary life. Special thanks go to librarians at the Government Publications Section of Northwestern University Library, particularly Jiuping Chen, Beth Clausen, Ann Janda, Kathleen Murphy, Louis Takacs. Because of their smiles and patience, digging through government documents became a more pleasant process. I especially want to thank Jiuping, who never complained about my frequent and unannounced visits to his office. The Graduate School at Northwestern University provided a Graduate Research Grant, which helped cover the cost of collecting China bills. The School of English and International Studies at Beijing Foreign Studies University provides an ideal environment for a junior faculty. However, neither of the two institutions bears any responsibility for the views expressed in the book. Many thanks are also due the editorial staff at Routledge. Peter Sowden convinced me of the importance of the project and encouraged me to pursue it further. Tom Bates was instrumental in shaping the book as it stands now. The two anonymous reviewers of the manuscript offered a number of trenchant comments which improved the quality of the book. A short version of Chapter 4 was published in American Politics Research, and a different version of Chapters 2–3 was published in Journal of Contemporary China. I thank the two journals for granting me the right to reprint portions of the two articles. My father was deprived of a good education, but insisted that his son get the best education possible. Without his sacrifice, devotion, and love, I would not have accomplished what I have. Zhang Can has been a really good sport about being the wife of a junior faculty. Without her love, care, and sacrifice, I would not have been able to finish the project on time. There is no better way to thank her than to dedicate my first book to her.

Introduction

Only in the case of Communist China has the Congress played a major role over a long period of time to confine narrowly the president’s means of maneuver. (Herbert Carroll 1965: 161) While the executive branch is constitutionally charged with the management of foreign policy, on several occasions the Congress has decisively intruded into the management of China policy. When the Congress has chosen to immerse itself, its impact has proven profound and long-lasting. (Michel Oksenberg 1986: 218) The United States and our allies must recognize that in the upcoming “Pacific Century” no country will play a larger role in shaping the future of Asia than China, and no single bilateral relationship in the region will be more important to the US than the Sino–American one. (Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) 1996)

The U.S.–China relationship is arguably the most important international relationship in the world today. It involves one country that is the world’s foremost economic and military power, and another country that has the largest population and is enjoying rapid economic growth that could make it a great power in the near future. Hundreds of billions of dollars worth of annual trade, thousands of students and scholars traveling across the Pacific each year, and issues related to Taiwan, China’s human rights, and non-proliferation make the relationship “simultaneously extensive and contentious, mutually beneficial and profoundly controversial” (Harding 1995: 49). The U.S. Congress has been unusually active in the development of this important relationship. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, the China Aid Act of 1948, the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) of 1979, the annual congressional debates over the renewal of China’s Most Favored Nation trade status (MFN, now called Normal Trade Relations or NTR since 1998), and the legislative battle over granting China Permanent Normal Trade Relations (PNTR) all attest to congressional activism in China policy.1 Since 2005,

2

Introduction

Congress has launched a series of initiatives pressuring Beijing to appreciate its allegedly undervalued currency. This record of legislative activism raises a number of crucial questions. Why is Congress so active in China policy? What are the causal factors that have influenced the collective policy of Congress, and what has influenced the legislative behavior of individual members? What overall impact has congressional activism had on U.S. China policy? Do the same dynamics that help explain congressional decision-making on U.S.–China relations also explain congressional policy-making generally? These are questions that this book attempts to answer. The first step toward answering these questions is to provide a brief survey of the literature on Congress and foreign policy so as to situate this study in proper context.

Congress and foreign policy2 The relationship between the president and Congress in foreign policy is “one of the abiding mysteries of the American system of government” (Schlesinger and De Grazia 1967: 1). The founding fathers drafted a constitution that purportedly divides foreign policy powers between the president and Congress. In reality, what the framers created is a system of “separated institutions sharing [foreign policy] powers” (Neustadt 1990: 29). Powers shared are frequently contested and jealously guarded. They are the source of endless disputes, accusations, and confrontations between the two branches. Corwin (1948: 200) famously wrote, “the Constitution, considered only for its affirmative grants of power which are capable of affecting the issue, is an invitation to struggle for the privilege of directing American foreign policy.” Wilcox (1985: 38) concurred, “In some ways, our constitution is an invitation to disunity, for it divides the power in foreign policy between the two branches so as to give effect to our checks and balances system.” In Sundquist’s (1981: 16) words, the Constitution “put the two combatants [Congress and the president] in the ring and sounded the bell that sent them into endless battles.” Scholarly research on Congress’s role in foreign and defense policy has paid particular attention to three broad questions.3 What is the power of Congress in relation to the president?4 Why do members of Congress act as they do? How are decisions made in Congress? One school of thought contends that the president wins most of the battles against Congress. In proposing the two presidencies thesis, Wildavsky (1966: 7) asserted that “in the realm of foreign policy there has not been a single major issue on which Presidents, when they are serious and determined, have failed.” 5 To Spanier and Uslaner (1974: 69), “The President proposes, the President disposes.” Schlesinger’s (1973) condemnation of the imperial presidency also testifies to the dominance of the president over Congress in foreign policy.6 A number of factors are believed to be responsible for presidential dominance in foreign policy: executive monopoly of intelligence, the unitary nature of the presidency, presidential power to commit troops, public readiness to

Introduction

3

rally around the flag, and the norm of deference among members of Congress (Corwin 1948; Crabb and Holt 1984; Dahl 1950; Robinson 1967; Spanier and Uslaner 1974; Wildavsky 1966). In a word, in this view, the president dominates foreign policy-making and Congress’s role is one of “legitimating, amending, or vetoing executive proposals” (Robinson 1967: 14), or “accepting, modifying, or rejecting executive policies” (Spanier and Uslaner 1974). Some scholars disagree; they argue that patterns of executive–legislative interactions in foreign policy are cyclic, with the pendulum swinging in one branch’s favor at one time and in the other branch’s favor at another. Peppers (1975: 462) contended that the two presidencies thesis “came at the end of the propresidency swing,” suggesting that there would be a reverse swing back to Congress. In reassessing Wildavsky’s two presidencies thesis, Sigelman raised an important question: “Are we witnessing a secular change or a momentary fluctuation in the balance of power between President and Congress?” His answer was unequivocal: “the pendulum of power often shifts. In crisis periods, power tends to gravitate toward the Presidency, but eventually Congress has always moved to reassert its positions” (Sigelman 1979: 1204). Continuing with his boxing metaphor, Sundquist (1981: 16) noted, “The president may appear as the heftier contestant, he cannot win every round; the balance will continue to shift back and forth.” Indeed, congressional assertiveness in foreign policy since the 1970s appears to support the pendulum thesis of executive-legislative relationship (Abshire and Nurnberger 1981; Forsythe 1988; Franck and Weisband 1979; Ripley and Lindsay 1993; Wildavsky 1991). Other scholars have proposed a contingency view of executive-legislative interactions in foreign policy.7 For them, the balance of power between the president and Congress is not fixed; instead it varies considerably from one policy area to another. Lindsay and Ripley (1993) are the most forceful advocates of the contingency view. Based on distinctions among policies made by previous scholars (Huntington 1961: 3–4; Lowi 1967: 324–325; Ripley and Franklin 1980: 23–24), they contended that presidential power “is at a maximum” in crisis policy, “less extensive” in strategic policy, but “at its weakest” in structural policy (Lindsay and Ripley 1993: 18–22).8 To put it a different way, the power of Congress tends to be at its strongest in structural policy, at its weakest in crisis policy, and in between the two extremes in strategic policy. Instead of ascertaining which branch prevails under what circumstances and why, another line of research has focused on the causal factors underlying foreign policy-related legislative behavior of individual members of Congress, particularly roll call voting.9 Inspired by Miller and Stokes’ (1963) path-breaking study of constituency influence on members of Congress, this line of research can be further divided into two major sections. The first section examines the determinants of members’ votes on defense spending, and the preponderance of evidence suggests that ideology, not constituency

4

Introduction

interests, is the best predictor of roll call votes (e.g., Bernstein and Anthony 1974; Cobb 1969; Fleisher 1985; Lindsay 1990; McCormick and Black 1983; Moyer 1973; Ray 1981; Russett 1970; Wayman 1985). The second section concentrates on foreign trade policy. Here one study after another have reported strong evidence that party and constituency interests are the major determinants of members’ roll call votes (e.g., Bailey 2001; Bailey and Brady 1998; Conley 1999; Conybeare 1991; Gartzke and Wrighton 1998; McArthur and Marks 1988; Tosini and Tower 1987; Wink et al. 1996). A few scholars have also examined the process of foreign policy decisionmaking in Congress. The process consists of two components: committees and parties. Ray (1980) looked at the degree of responsiveness of the Armed Services Committees to the parent chambers. McCormick (1993) examined decision-making in the House Foreign Affairs Committee and the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Deering (1993) the Armed Services Committees, and White (1993) the Appropriations Subcommittees on Defense and Foreign Operations. Sinclair (1993) described the role of party leaders in foreign and defense policy, situating her analysis in the context of increasing intra-party homogeneity and inter-party heterogeneity since the 1970s and the resulting rise of party leadership. To sum up, students of Congress and foreign policy have conducted extensive research on the balance of power between the president and Congress, the causal factors that influence roll call votes, and the process of decisionmaking within Congress. These three issues will likely continue to animate scholarly debate on Congress and foreign policy. In fact, this book represents another attempt to address the three issues. However, instead of analyzing each of them separately, it combines the first and third into one broad question that asks how exogenous (e.g., constitutional rules) and endogenous (e.g., committees) structures and procedures influence Congress’s China policy. As is apparent to many students of American politics, this approach is grounded in the new institutionalism, which no scholar to my knowledge has applied to the study of U.S.–China relations. To address the second issue, I first examine roll call votes on three China-related issues, paying particular attention to the effects of partisanship, ideology, and constituency interests— the three factors that previous studies have reported as the major determinants of roll call behavior. Then I go beyond the case of China by analyzing roll call votes on six countries that are similar to China in relevant respects. A comparison of findings from the China case and those from the six countries suggests a general theory of roll call voting on foreign policy. At this point, some readers may pause and ask, “Wait a second, why do you choose China?” Answers to this important question are in the next section.

Introduction

5

Why China? An active Congress It is not too much exaggeration to say that of all the bilateral relationships the U.S. has with other countries, Congress has been most active in the relationship with China. One of Congress’s earliest actions was the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which excluded all Chinese laborers from immigrating to the U.S. for ten years.10 Half a century later, under pressure from American silver producers Congress enacted the Silver Purchase Act of 1934 that had a devastating impact on China’s economy by driving up the value of the silver-based Chinese currency (e.g., Ho et al. 2005; Roberts 1936).11 When China was engulfed in a civil war between the Communists and the Nationalists in the late 1940s, Congress passed the China Aid Act of 1948 in order to salvage the Nationalist regime led by Chiang Kai-shek. After the Chinese Communists’ victory, Congress vehemently opposed U.S. recognition of China and China’s admission to the United Nations, delaying the former until 1979 and the latter until 1971.12 Meanwhile, Congress remained steadfast in its support for Chiang and the regime he established on Taiwan, passing the U.S.–Taiwan Mutual Defense Treaty, the Formosa Resolution, and the Taiwan Relations Act. Congress was conspicuously inactive in China policy in the decade after normalization. American euphoria about China that had been building since Nixon’s 1972 trip, which reached its zenith in the aftermath of Deng Xiaoping’s successful visit to the U.S. in 1979, plus the election of Ronald Reagan, who was a staunch supporter of Taiwan, probably diminished Congress’s interest in China policy.13 Yet this interlude of congressional reticence was cut short by the Tiananmen Incident. Since then, Congress has been extremely active in nearly every aspect of China policy. As Mann wrote: But especially after 1989, Congress’s involvement in China policy was far more pervasive. American decisions about Chinese students, grain sales, human rights, arms-control policies, business contracts and transfers of technology were not only influenced but, in some cases, initiated by Congress. (1999: 11) Moreover, from the Chinese perspective, Congress’s China policy has almost always been one of antagonism and punitive actions. The above review of Congress’s involvement in U.S.–Taiwan policy amply illuminates this point. It is primarily because of staunch congressional support for Taiwan that Beijing has not been able to regain control of the island. Another example of congressional antagonism involves MFN renewal. Congress first granted China MFN status in 1980 and had not objected to presidential renewal of it until 1989, the year of the Tiananmen Incident. Each year between 1990 and 2001, Congress attempted to revoke MFN or to add various conditions to its

6

Introduction

renewal (Pregelj 2001). Twice (both in 1992), Congress was just one step away from enacting legislation attaching human rights and other conditions to the renewal of China’s MFN. More recently, Congress initiated a series of punitive actions against China:

•

•

•

•

•

In May 2006, under pressure from Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA), chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Science–State– Justice–Commerce and a long-time critic of China, the State Department announced that it would not use computers acquired from Lenovo, a computer company partly owned by the Chinese government, for classified work. The State Department initially planned to use 900 out of 16,000 Lenovo computers it purchased for classified work (Blustein 2006b; Kirchgaessner 2006; O’Neil 2006; Perez 2006). On June 30 2005, the House voted twice to block China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC for short) from acquiring the Californiabased Unocal Corporation. The first vote was on a provision to HR 3058 that would prohibit the Treasury Department from using any funds to favorably recommend the sale of Unocal to CNOOC. The provision passed 333–92. The second vote was on H.Res. 344 stating that U.S. national security would be jeopardized if the proposed Chinese takeover goes through. The resolution passed 398–15 (CQWR 2005: 1833, 1906, 1952–53). CNOOC eventually dropped its bid. On March 3 2005, confronted with mounting trade deficit with China, Senators Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Charles Schumer (D-NY) introduced a bill (S 295) to impose a stiff 27.5 percent tariff on Chinese imports unless the Chinese government appreciated its allegedly undervalued currency, which is believed to be partly responsible for the competitiveness of Chinese imports (Andrews 2006; Blustein 2006a; MacLeod 2006; Magnier and Lee 2006). Between February and July 2005, six resolutions were introduced in Congress, denouncing Beijing’s attempts to justify its use of force against Taiwan by enacting an anti-secession law, which was eventually ratified by the People’s Congress on March 14 2005 (Culpan and Pan 2005; Los Angeles Times 2006; Pan 2005). On February 3 and March 17 2005, Congressman Henry Hyde (R-IL) and Senator Gordon Smith (R-OR) respectively introduced H.Res.57 and S.Res.91, urging the European Union to maintain its arms embargo on China. The former passed 411–3 and the latter with unanimous consent. Partly because of strong opposition from Congress, the European Union postponed the lifting of the embargo (CQWR 2005: 714; Los Angeles Times 2005).

Not surprisingly, Beijing has consistently viewed Congress as the “anti-China bastion” in the U.S. and frequently lashed out at it. “There are always people in Congress who oppose improvements in U.S.–China relations. Every time

Introduction

7

relations get better, they will go out of their way to create obstacles, but history will show this to be futile,” said the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesman, referring to a series of China-related bills passed by the House immediately after President Jiang Zemin’s visit to the U.S. in 1997 (quoted in The Australian 1997). In 1999, a resolution was introduced in each chamber, attacking China’s human rights record and calling on the Chinese government to launch an official investigation of the Tiananmen Incident, and Beijing was furious. “The attempt of those anti-China U.S. congressmen to interfere in China’s internal affairs under the pretext of human rights is doomed to failure,” said Zhu Bangzhao, the Chinese Foreign Ministry’s spokesperson (quote in Laris 1999). In reaction to the Cox Report on alleged Chinese thefts of U.S. nuclear secrets, the Chinese blasted the Cox Committee, accusing members of the committee of “clinging to Cold-War mentality,” harboring “deep prejudice and hostility toward China,” and creating “a lot of rumors . . . to stir up anti-Chinese sentiments” (quoted in ibid.). During congressional debate over CNOOC’s proposed bid for Unocal, the Chinese Foreign Ministry issued a statement demanding that “the U.S. Congress correct its mistaken ways of politicizing economic and trade issues and stop interfering in the normal commercial exchanges between enterprises of the two countries” (quoted in Harney and Roberts 2005). Scholarly neglect Yet despite congressional activism and antagonism, only a few scholars have paid close attention to Congress’s role in China policy. This scholarly neglect appears to have something to do with the American constitutional structure. Though Congress, particularly the Senate, does have a number of foreign policy powers such as treaty ratification and approval of ambassadorial appointments, it is the executive branch that is constitutionally charged with the management of U.S. foreign policy. In the case of China policy, it is President Nixon who initiated the normalization process; it is President Carter who negotiated the terms of normalization; and it is President George H. W. Bush who almost single-handedly salvaged the relationship from a total breakdown in the immediate aftermath of the Tiananmen Incident. As a result, some scholars of U.S.–China relations may have underestimated Congress’s influence in China policy. What Chang (1993) concluded about Congress’s role in U.S.–China relations seems to be representative of the general impression among them: For the most part, Congress and other non-administration sources are excluded from the dialogue and discourse in the making of China policy. When their voices are heard sporadically over the course of SinoAmerican relations, they usually come out supporting the actions and decisions taken by the White House. (Chang 1993: 244)

8

Introduction

Thus most students of U.S.–China relations tend to focus on the executive branch (e.g., Harding 1992; Lampton 2001; Mann 1999; Ross 1986; Ross 1995; Suettinger 2003; Tucker 1983; Tucker 1994). Those who do pay particular attention to Congress usually focus on the late 1940 up until the late 1950s, a period when Congress was unusually active and influential in China policy (e.g., Dulles 1972; Finkelstein 1993; Grasso 1987; Purifoy 1976; Tsou 1963; Tucker 1983). Some scholars also highlight Congress’s role in the normalization process, particularly the enactment of the TRA (Kraft 1991; Sutter 1983; Tan 1992). Only a handful of scholars have conducted exclusive analysis of Congress’s China policy (Mann 2001; Oksenberg 1986; Sutter 2001; Xie 1993; Yang 2000; Zhang 1995). Nor have students of American politics showed strong interest in Congress’s role in China policy, notwithstanding the voluminous literature on Congress’s role in U.S. foreign policy generally (e.g., Corwin 1948; Crabb and Holt 1984; Dahl 1950; Franck and Weisband 1979; Lindsay 1994; Ripley and Lindsay 1993; Robinson 1967; Spanier and Uslaner 1974) and roll call voting on foreign policy (e.g., Bozeman and James 1975; Cronin and Fordham 1999; Fordham 1998; Lindsay and Ripley 1992; McCormick and Wittkopf 1990; McCormick and Wittkopf 1992). The discipline’s emphasis on rigorous theorizing is partly responsible for the lack of interest. China is “merely one case,” it is said, and no matter how important it is, you cannot build a good theory with one case. As a result, only a few students of American politics have paid detailed attention to Congress’s involvement in China policy (Crabb and Holt 1984; Nokken 2003; Rourke 1983: 74–76, 130–145; Westerfield 1955: Chapter 12, Chapter 16). However, it is not just scholars who have largely neglected Congress. Policy-makers in Beijing, after many years of frustration with and criticism of Congress’s China policy, have yet to make earnest and concerted efforts to understand the mysterious beast called Congress and to influence its behavior (see Harney and Roberts 2005; Ma 2006; Mufson 1998; Weisskopf 1993). “Some of the older [members of the Chinese] leadership don’t understand that simply because a senator gets up on the floor of the Senate and says some uncomplimentary things about China that [sic] that’s not necessarily government policy,” said James Sasser, former U.S. ambassador to China (quoted in Mufson 1998). When the Chinese Deputy Foreign Minister suggested in a meeting that Congress not bring up something about China, an impatient Senator John Glenn (D-OH) snapped back: “You just don’t understand our form of government if you think anybody can tell a particular Congressman or Senator not to bring up something about China” (quoted in Sciolino 1996). Says a public affairs director at a large U.S. manufacturer with considerable investment in China, “The Chinese might have got the hang of capitalism, but they don’t understand democracy and the free press yet and that shows up in the way they misread the political mood here” (quoted in Harney and Roberts 2005). The former Chinese President Jiang Zemin himself candidly admitted in 1995 that the Chinese

Introduction

9

“haven’t done enough lobbying of U.S. Congress” (quoted in Sciolino 1996).

Contributions of the book This study attempts to make a number of significant contributions to scholarly research on Congress’s role in China policy. First and foremost, whereas most previous scholars have examined Congress’s China policy either at the macro level (Mann 2001; Oksenberg 1986; Sutter 2001) or at the micro level (Nokken 2003; Xie 1993; Xie 2006; Yang 2000), this study offers careful analyses at both levels. At the macro level, I examine the patterns of Chinaspecific bills, resolutions, and amendments (hereafter referred to collectively as “China bills” unless otherwise specified) introduced in each chamber in 1973–2006. No scholar to my knowledge has performed a similar study. This is the major contribution of this book. The purpose of this analysis is to provide additional support for the new institutionalist claim that how legislators’ preferences are aggregated also affects what policy outcomes are arrived at. To my knowledge, no scholar has applied the new institutionalism to the study of U.S.–China relations. In particular, macro level analysis focuses on the impact of congressional committees, bicameralism, and presidential veto on Congress’s China policy. Micro level analysis focuses on roll call votes. While previous studies examined only one or two issues in U.S.–China relations, this analysis will be the first to analyze roll call votes on the three most controversial issues in U.S.–China relations, namely, U.S.–Taiwan relations, U.S.–China trade, and China’s human rights.14 Taiwan has been the central issue in the bilateral relationship since 1949. Human rights have been a constant source of dispute since 1989. As the U.S. trade deficit with China has skyrocketed since the mid-1990s, bilateral trade has become an immensely controversial topic on Capitol Hill. Second, most previous studies of Congress’s China policy are qualitative analyses relying almost exclusively on observations, unstructured interviews, and/or anecdotal evidence (Crabb 1985; Mann 2001; Oksenberg 1986; Rourke 1983; Sutter 2001; Westerfield 1955; Yang 2000), with only a few of them having both qualitative evidence and quantitative data (Nokken 2003; Xie 1993; Zhang 1995). This study will combine both, but with far more and better quantitative data. For instance, particularly helpful is the dataset of China bills introduced in each chamber between 1973 and 2006. Some other data such as state exports to China, which were simply not available to previous authors, are now available thanks to efforts by scholars and U.S. federal government agencies. Third, I also highlight the implications of my findings for policy-makers in both Washington and Beijing as well as for organizations and individuals interested in promoting friendly U.S.–China relations. Considering the importance and complexity of the relationship, the controversy it has generated in both societies, and congressional activism in China policy, it is highly desirable

10

Introduction

that the policy implications of this study be discussed. The aim is to help policy-makers as well as concerned organizations and individuals work for a better U.S.–China relationship, one that is characterized by fewer disputes, conflicts, or confrontations and more dialogue, cooperation, and partnership. Apart from its significant contributions to scholarly research on Congress and China policy, this study also marks a small but important step in building a general theory of congressional policy-making. To ascertain whether the same dynamics that explains congressional policy-making on China-related issues also explains congressional policy-making in general, I compare China with six similar countries: Japan, Canada, and Mexico on trade and Hungary, Romania, and Vietnam on human rights. The findings from this comparative analysis lay the foundation for a general theory of congressional policy-making.

Structure of the book Chapter 1 spells out the theoretical foundation of my analysis of congressional policy-making toward China. The first part reviews the new institutionalism as applied to the study of the U.S. Congress. While legislative scholars usually focus on endogenous structures and rules such as committees and House special rules (e.g., Schickler 2000; Schickler and Rich 1997; Shepsle 1986; Shepsle and Weingast 1981, 1984, 1987; Sinclair 1994), I also examine exogenous structures and rules imposed by the U.S. Constitution, i.e., bicameralism and presidential veto. The most important prediction from the new institutionalism is that these endogenous and exogenous institutions severely constrain the ability of Congress to assert itself in foreign policy through legislative means. Thus it would be misleading to judge Congress’s influence in China policy by merely counting how many China bills were enacted into binding legislation that prescribes or proscribes presidential actions. The second part reviews past research on roll call voting, with particular attention to three factors: party, ideology, and constituency interests. Chapter 2 presents the general patterns of China bills introduced in 1973– 2006. The first part describes the number, type, and nature of China bills in each chamber and documents the time trend of China bills. The second part attempts to identify macro-level determinants of the number of China bills introduced in each chamber. I report that far more China bills were introduced in each chamber after the Tiananmen Incident. Also, the first session of each Congress witnessed more China bills than the second session. In addition, more China bills were introduced when Republicans were the majority in the House and when a Democratic president was in the White House. Chapter 3 continues to analyze China bills in order to illustrate the impact of legislative rules and procedures on Congress’s China policy. I adduce evidence that congressional committees as gatekeepers have kept most China policy proposals from Congress’s legislative agenda, that the Senate has served as a check on House activism in China policy, and that the supermajority

Introduction

11

requirement for overriding presidential veto has repeatedly thwarted congressional attempts to enact major changes to China policy. The next three chapters are analyses of China-related roll call votes. Chapter 4 examines roll call voting on HR 4444, the bill that granted permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) to China. Party has the largest impact, with Democrats considerably more likely to vote against the bill (hence against their own president Bill Clinton). The ideological ends of both parties, instead of voting against each other, actually formed a coalition against the bill. Constituency interests generally have rather weak impact on the vote. Chapter 5 analyzes House votes on two bills regarding U.S.–Taiwan relations, namely, the U.S.–Taiwan Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense Cooperation Act of 1997 and the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act of 2000. Controlling for other factors, the impact of constituency interests is far weaker than that of party or ideology in both votes. Without controlling for hawkishness, party has the largest impact. Once hawkishness is controlled for, party no longer has any significant impact and hawkishness turns out to have the biggest impact. Though both liberals and conservatives seemed to be supportive of the two bills, the former was much less so than the latter. Moreover, a comparison of findings from the two votes suggests that many members of Congress voted strategically on the second one. In Chapter 6, I first offer a detailed historical-comparative account of congressional involvement in China’s human rights. A central theme of this account is that the Cold War had profoundly shaped Congress’s human rights policy. In the latter part of the Cold War when the two countries formed a strategic alliance against the former Soviet Union, Congress largely turned a blind eye to China’s human rights problems. The demise of the former Soviet Union, plus the Tiananmen Incident, liberated congressional critics and resulted in unprecedented congressional activism in China’s human rights. Next, I analyze the ten House votes on joint resolutions to disapprove of China’s MFN status in order to punish its alleged violation of human rights. During the Bush years, Republicans were consistently more likely to oppose these resolutions than Democrats. During the Clinton years, Democrats demonstrated little party loyalty. Except for one year, the ideological ends of both parties formed an alliance on these resolutions. Moreover, the strength of this alliance increased during the Clinton years. Chapter 7 goes beyond the case of China by analyzing roll call voting on six other countries: Japan, Canada, and Mexico on trade and Hungary, Romania, and Vietnam on MFN extension. Constituency interests have bigger impact on trade votes involving Japan, Canada, and Mexico than on the China trade vote (i.e., the vote on China’s PNTR). Whereas liberals and conservatives were almost always united on the two issues involving China, such a coalition appeared far less frequently on votes involving these six countries. Finally, loyalty to one’s president seems to be the most important determinant of votes on MFN extension to the other three countries, but it has much smaller impact on votes involving China.

12

Introduction

The final chapter concludes the book. In addition to summarizing the various findings, I also discuss the implications of the findings for policy-makers in Beijing and Washington as well as for concerned organizations and individuals who are interested in promoting friendly relations between the two countries. Two caveats are in order before I proceed. First, when I speak of “Congress’s China policy,” I do not mean that Congress is a monolithic bloc speaking with one coherent voice on how to deal with U.S.–China relations. To begin with, Congress has two chambers—the House of Representatives and the Senate—and the two chambers do not always agree with each other on foreign policy. Second, the House has 435 members and the Senate 100 members, and each member is independently elected by—and hence is individually accountable to—his or her constituents, not to other members or the president. This electoral independence means that under many circumstances members are free to disagree with each other or with the president, without fearing retribution from fellow members or the White House. Thus, it is possible to have “435 secretaries of state” in the House and 100 more in the Senate (Washington Post 1978a). In a word, it would be naïve to expect uniformity of views and attitudes among members of Congress. Congressman Clement Zablocki (D-WI) aptly captured what this means for China policy: When anyone refers to a “congressional view” on a matter such as this [U.S. policy toward China], there is not just a single view. Perhaps one could say that there are 435 views in the House and 100 in the Senate, and that these may not always be the same from one week to another. (quoted in Yang 2000: 29) Second, the very notion of China policy, as Oksenberg (1986: 208) cautioned, is “an intellectual abstraction” that, upon close examination, can lose its purported analytical clarity. China policy is the sum of official actions proposed or implemented regarding U.S. relations with China. It encompasses many issues: arms sales to Taiwan, textile quotas, military relations, cultural and educational exchanges, export control, IPR protection, and so on. China policy also includes “issues that primarily concern other countries but in which China is a significant, perhaps silent partner” (ibid.). U.S. policy toward North Korea stands out as a key example, since China is the single most important ally of that country. U.S. policies toward Pakistan and some Middle East countries are also complicated by China’s involvement in those regions, mainly through its actual or alleged sales of weapons. Furthermore, all these issues are not only part of China policy, but also part of broad U.S. foreign policy as well—non-proliferation, trade, human rights, etc. Thus there are some problems related with the term “China policy,” though it continues to be an analytically useful concept.

1

The new institutionalism and legislative behavior

By the mode of its election and the greater length of the term by which its seats are held, the Senate is almost altogether removed from that temptation to servile obedience to the whims of popular constituencies to which the House is constantly subject, without as much courage as the Senate has to guard its virtue. (Woodrow Wilson 2006: 153) Just as the standing committees control legislative action, so the chairmen are masters of their committees . . . In short, committee chairmen exercise crucial powers over the legislative process. (George Galloway 1953: 289)

Starting with Mayhew’s (1974) path-breaking work, the study of Congress has taken on a decidedly rational choice flavor. That is, members of Congress are assumed to be utility-maximizing rational actors who have certain goals and preferences, and these goals and preferences determine their behavior. Yet in pursuing the various goals, they are constrained by a multitude of structures and procedures that govern collective decision-making in Congress. These structures and procedures are the focus of a long line of research called the new institutionalism. Yet to my knowledge no scholar has applied the new institutionalism to the study of U.S.–China relations. Meanwhile, inspired by Miller and Stokes’s (1963) classic study, students of American politics have conducted voluminous research on roll call voting. A handful of students of U.S.–China relations have also examined Chinarelated roll call votes (Xie 1993; Zhang 1995). With few exceptions, previous studies of roll call voting tend to focus on the impact of three sets of factors, namely, party, constituency, and ideology.

The new institutionalism The new institutionalism is a variant of the rational choice theory.1 More accurately, it is a response to the rational theory that emphasizes the

14

New institutionalism, legislative behavior

institutional context in which rational individuals interact (for a review, see Shepsle 1989). Underlying the rational choice theory is the assumption— borrowed from homo economicus—that individuals are purposeful agents who have preferences and try to maximize them. The rational choice theory itself is a rejection of the sociological approach that explains individual behavior on the basis of social norm, status, and learned responses. Yet in hailing the utility-maximizing individual, rational choice theorists seem to care little about the context in which individual behavior takes place or the sources of preferences and beliefs. As a result, rational man becomes “an atom unconnected to the social structure in which he or she is embedded” (Shepsle 1989: 134). The new institutionalism attempts to address this difficulty by turning to institutions in which individuals are embedded. Institutions include both structures and procedures. In the study of legislative politics, structures refer to “the division and specialization of labor (committees), leadership organization, staffing arrangements, party groupings,” and procedures “rules of debate, amendment, and those regulating other features of daily official life” (ibid.: 135). Legislative structures and procedures govern how Congress conducts its legislative business. The U.S. Constitution does not provide for them. Instead, Article I, Section V reads: “Each House may determine the rules of its proceedings . . .” As a result, at the beginning of each Congress, a simple majority decides on the kind of structures and procedures that will govern the flow of legislative business in each chamber. Out of respect for precedents and because of the transaction cost involved in formulating, negotiating, and passing new ones, legislative structures and procedures of one Congress are usually inherited from the previous Congress with few modifications.2 In the theoretical literature on Congress, legislative structures and procedures usually—if not always—mean committees and House special rules. But this is a rather narrow definition that includes only endogenous structures and procedures. In this book I define legislative institutions more broadly to include two exogenous institutions: bicameralism and presidential veto. This broad definition should not be controversial. First, no bill may be enacted into law unless it is approved in identical form by both chambers. Second, Congress and the president share legislative powers in that the president may veto a piece of legislation, but his veto is subject to override by a two-thirds majority in both chambers. One of the most important insights from the new institutionalism is that legislative structures and procedures—particularly committees and special rules—induce equilibrium. This is called structure-induced equilibrium, or SIE for short (e.g., Shepsle 1979, 1986, 1989; Shepsle and Weingast 1981). Thus, the new institutionalism provides an answer to the social choice problem first identified by Arrow (1951) and further developed by other scholars (e.g., Black 1958; McKelvey 1976; Plott 1967; Riker 1988; Schofield 1978). To make a long story short, the social choice problem refers to the absence of a stable outcome under simple majority rule or other decision-making

New institutionalism, legislative behavior

15

processes in multi-dimensional politics. The new institutionalist response is to set up structures and procedures that reduce multi-dimensional politics to one-dimensional politics. In the one-dimensional world, the median voter prevails and a stable outcome can be produced (Black 1958; Downs 1957). Congressional committees To understand Congress, one must understand its committees. For most members of Congress, political life on Capitol Hill begins and ends with committees. Moreover, it is committees to which bills are referred; it is committees that hold hearings on bills; and it is in committees where bills are marked up. In a word, committees are where the bulk of legislative work gets done. Woodrow Wilson (2006: 69) famously wrote, “Congress in session is Congress on public exhibition, whilst Congress in its committee-room is Congress at work.” Because of the central role of committees in the legislative process, they “have life-or-death control over legislative proposals” (Johnson et al. 1994: 450–451). As Bryce (1911: 157) vividly put it, “A bill comes before its committee with no presumption in its favor but rather as a shivering ghost stands before Minos in the nether world.” Committees and rules of procedures lie at the heart of the theoretical literature on Congress (e.g., Shepsle 1979, 1986, 1989; Shepsle and Weingast 1981, 1987, 1994; Weingast and Marshall 1988). While conceptually distinct, committees and rules of procedures are actually inseparable. For rules of procedures give shape to the committee structure and constitute the major source of committee power. Wrote Woodrow Wilson (2006: 62), “The privileges of the Standing Committees are the beginning and the end of the rules.” Under the committee structure, each committee can be viewed as responsible for one policy dimension. Each and every bill—with rare exceptions— must be referred to the committee(s) with proper jurisdiction over the policy content of the bill. The chamber ordinarily may not vote on a bill unless it is approved by the referred committee. Moreover, committees have ex post veto power, i.e., the power to kill a piece of legislation at the conference stage (Shepsle and Weingast 1987).3 Last but not least, the germaneness rule, closed rule, and other special rules in the House impose severe restrictions on amendments offered by non-committee members on the floor. These special rules empower committee to be monopoly supplier of policy alternatives to the status quo (Denzau and Mackay 1983; Krehbiel 1991: Chapter 5). To put it a different way, they give committees gatekeeping rights.4 As a result of gatekeeping rights, majority cycling can be avoided and equilibrium induced because the chamber needs to consider only one issue at a time, instead of voting on a multitude of policy issues at the same time. And in single-dimension politics, the median voter is where the equilibrium lies. In a word, the committee structure transforms multi-dimensional politics into single-dimension politics and induces equilibrium. In so far as substantive policy is concerned, gatekeeping rights enable

16

New institutionalism, legislative behavior

committee members to keep controversial or undesirable policy proposals from reaching the floor, while at the same time proposing policy alternatives that they prefer. To be sure, the full chamber does have certain tools—e.g., the discharge rule—to force a committee to report a bill to the floor, but these tools are rarely used and, even if they are used, almost always fail (Krehbiel et al. 1987).5 Maltzman (1997: 65) thus asserted, “Undoubtedly, the most important tool possessed by committee is their gatekeeping power.” Woodrow Wilson, that astute student of American government and politics, described in vivid language the power of committees over bills: The fate of bills committed is generally not uncertain. As a rule, a bill committed is a bill doomed. When it goes from the clerk’s desk to a committee-room it crosses a parliamentary bridge of sighs to dim dungeons of silence whence it will never return. (Wilson 2006: 63) Moreover, gatekeeping rights—along with possible committee-floor similarity in policy preferences—ensure that bills reported by committees almost always prevail on the floor.6 For if a bill approved by a committee is voted down on the floor, the committee—as a monopoly supplier of policy alternatives—can retaliate in the future by not reporting any bill favored by the floor majority. Fully aware of the gatekeeping rights of committees, a member will usually vote for bills that come to the floor. Thus Congressman Clem Miller (1962: 110) wrote, “Congress is a collection of committees that come together in a Chamber periodically to approve one another’s actions.” Because of gatekeeping rights, committees can serve a variety of useful purposes. In the informational theory of legislative organization, gatekeeping rights encourage committee members to acquire policy expertise because they make it difficult for non-committee members (i.e., non-experts) to challenge the policy proposals of committee members (Krehbiel 1991: Chapter 5). In the distributive theory, committees help members achieve their electoral goals because they facilitate gains from trade (Mayhew 1974; Weingast and Marshall 1988). In the partisan theory, committees become tools of the majority party to set the legislative agenda (Cox and McCubbins 1993, 2005).7 Aided by the gatekeeping rights of committees, members with intense policy preferences are expected to have significant impact on substantive policy. If they also happen to be the chairmen of committees or subcommittees, then almost certainly they will exert disproportionate power in the policy areas about which they have intense preferences. Janda et al. (1995: 380) wrote, “Government by committee vests a tremendous amount of power in the committees and subcommittees of Congress—especially in their leaders.” In the realm of foreign policy, chairmen of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee have often held up ambassadorial appointments, and their counterparts in the House have often stalled on foreign aid and State Department authorization bills (McCormick 1993).

New institutionalism, legislative behavior

17

Bicameralism The Senate, where each state is equally represented—as opposed to proportional representation on the basis of population in the House—was originally created as a political compromise between the smaller states and the larger states at the Constitutional Convention (e.g., Madison 1969; Wood 1969; Wirls and Wirls 2004). In the arguments of James Madison, the father of the Constitution, what once was a political compromise became a necessary good for republican government. In particular, the Senate can serve as a check on the more numerical and hence presumably more volatile House. “The necessity of a senate is not less indicated by the propensity of all single and numerous assemblies, to yield to the impulse of sudden and violent passions, and to be seduced by factious leaders, into intemperate and pernicious resolutions,” asserted Madison (1982d: 315). Woodrow Wilson (2006: 154) agreed with Madison, asserting that being “less quickly sensitive to the hasty or impulsive movements of public opinion constitute its [the Senate’s] value as a check, a steadying weight, in our very democratic system.” Toward this end, the framers made the Senate much smaller in size, stipulated special qualifications for and election of Senators, and gave them a much longer tenure.8 In a word, the Senate as a separate and distinct body is expected to be a “cooling saucer” to the House.9 Wrote James Madison (1969: 83), “The use of the Senate is to consist in its proceeding with more coolness, with more system and with more wisdom, than the popular branch.” As Fenno (1982: 3) nicely pointed out, the founding fathers, suspicious of “certain infirmities endemic to large, popularly elected legislatures—tendencies to instability in action, to impulsive, unpredictable, changeable decisions, and to a short-run view of good public policy,” set up the Senate as “a restraining, stabilizing counterweight, as being a source of a more deliberate, more knowledgeable, longer-run view of good public policy.” The single most important policy implication of bicameralism is that it significantly increases the difficulty of lawmaking. First, “structural differences between House and Senate elections ensure that policy views will not be distributed and aggregated identically in the two chambers” (Binder 2003: 81). Second, it takes only one chamber—presumably the less numerical Senate—to scuttle a piece of legislation. A long line of research has produced evidence that bicameralism indeed increases the probability of legislative gridlock (e.g., Binder 2003; Krehbiel 1998; Brady and Volden 1998; Patterson and Mughan 1999; Tsebelis and Money 1997). Presidential veto Presidential veto and the supermajority requirement for congressional override clearly reflect the founding fathers’ deep suspicion of “accumulation of all powers legislative, executive and judiciary in the same hands, whether

18

New institutionalism, legislative behavior

of one, a few or many, and whether hereditary, self appointed, or elective” (Madison 1982a: 244). Two means were adopted to prevent the concentration of powers. As Madison (1982c: 262) wrote, “A dependence on the people is no doubt the primary controul [sic] on the government; but experience has taught mankind the necessity of auxiliary precautions.” For Madison, the “auxiliary precautions” consist of a constitutional structure under which “the powers of government should be so divided and balanced among several bodies of magistracy, as that no one could transcend their limits, without being effectually checked and restrained by the others” (Madison 1982b: 252). In Federalist Papers No. 51, he most forcefully and eloquently spelled out the rationale behind such a constitutional structure: But the general security against a graduate concentration of the several powers in the same department, consists in giving to those who administer each department, the necessary constitutional means, and personal motives, to resist encroachments of the others. The provision for defence [sic] must in this, as in all other cases, be made commensurate to the danger of attack. Ambition must be made to check ambition. The interest of the man must be connected with the constitutional rights of the place. (Madison 1982c: 262) The Constitution that was ratified in 1787 epitomizes Madison’s theory of checks and balances. In the realm of foreign policy, the president is the Commander-in-Chief, receives and appoints ambassadors, and negotiates treaties, but he is also instructed to seek the “advice and consent” of the Senate on treaties and ambassadorial appointments. Moreover, only Congress can declare war against a foreign country, and it is Congress that appropriates money to raise and support the armed forces. Since the president and Congress share foreign policy powers, congressional participation in foreign policy-making becomes unavoidable. As a result, the two branches have engaged in a perennial struggle for foreign policy prerogatives (e.g., Corwin 1948; Crabb and Holt 1984; Lindsay 1994; Schlesinger 1972). Above all, the founding fathers gave each branch a powerful institutional weapon with which to guard its foreign policy powers. The president may veto a piece of legislation passed by Congress, but the latter may override the veto with a two-thirds majority. Because of the veto and override, neither branch can absolutely dominate the other. Nonetheless, it is extremely difficult to assemble the constitutionally required supermajority to override the president’s veto. Congress has two distinct chambers, 535 members, and dozens of committees. Each member (Senators in particular), committee, and chamber may be able to derail any veto-overriding battle. In fact, since 1973 only one presidential veto in foreign policy has been overridden, and that is President Nixon’s veto of the War Powers Act. Thus in the final analysis, the supermajority requirement gives the president

New institutionalism, legislative behavior

19

a decisive advantage vis-à-vis Congress, making it hard for the latter to pass substantive legislation prescribing or proscribing policy actions for the former. As a result, Congress often turns to other means of influence in foreign policy. The other means include procedural legislation, participation in diplomacy, framing public opinion, and creating situations that generate desired reactions from the executive branch (see Franck and Weisband 1979; Lindsay 1993; Lindsay and Ripley 1993).

Determinants of roll call voting on foreign policy There is an enormous body of research on roll call voting on foreign and defense policy (see Lindsay and Ripley 1992, for an excellent review). Yet previous studies tend to focus almost exclusively on what I call “countryblind” issues such as defense spending (e.g., Bartels 1991; Clotfelter 1970; Cobb 1969; Lindsay 1990; Moyer 1973; Ray 1981; Russett 1970; Wayman 1985) and foreign trade policy (e.g., Bailey and Brady 1998; Conley 1999; Gartzke and Wrighton 1998). Only a handful of scholars have examined roll call votes concerning particular countries (Leogrande and Brenner 1993; McCormick and Black 1983; Nokken 2003; Xie 1993, 2006), This focus on country-blind issues may be attributable to the prevailing belief among many scholars that any analysis of roll call votes concerning a particular country is a case study and thus has little theoretical value. Yet this theoretical challenge can be overcome by increasing the number of countries studied. In fact, this is the task I set for myself in Chapter 7. In this section, I will briefly discuss the effects of three factors on roll call voting, namely, party, constituency interests, and ideology. Before I proceed, however, I need to say a few words about the use of roll call data. Voting on a roll call is merely one of the myriad legislative activities a member of Congress is routinely engaged in. Other legislative activities include sponsoring legislation, holding hearings, participating in floor debates, etc. Yet of all the legislative activities, scholars seem to be particularly interested in roll call voting. Several factors may explain this special interest among scholars (for the pros and cons of using roll call data, see Schneider 1979: Chapter 4; Xie 1993: 12–14; Zhang 1995: 111–115). First, roll call votes are easily accessible. Second, roll call votes are almost free of measurement errors. By contrast, interviews or surveys often have measurement errors due to interview techniques, question wording, coding, or response rates, to name just a few. Third, roll call votes are often good indicators of a member’s preferences. A member may support protectionism at a labor union gathering and denounce it at a chamber of commerce meeting, but he or she can cast only one vote on a trade bill. When forced to go on record, members generally cast votes in line with their preferences, whether those preferences derive from personal beliefs, constituency influence, or party leadership. To be sure, roll call votes have their disadvantages too. First, though roll call votes reveal preferences, they tell nothing about the intensity of preferences.

20

New institutionalism, legislative behavior

That is, no matter how much a member supports or opposes a bill, he or she has only one vote to cast. Second, when members vote strategically, it would be wrong to take a roll call vote at its face value. Thus a conservative may vote for a liberal amendment to a bill that would probably pass on its own, knowing that the bill with the amendment would be voted down on the floor. The Powell Amendment that killed federal aid to public schools is one of the best examples of strategic voting (see Stewart 2001: 33–35). Last but not least, roll call votes are informative only on issues that reach the final stage of the legislative process; they tell us nothing about issues that are excluded from the legislative agenda. However, since I do not use roll call votes to study preference intensity or agenda setting, these shortcomings become largely irrelevant. Strategic voting appears to be present in one vote that I examine, but I have taken it into account in the analysis. Party “[P]olitical parties created democracy, and . . . modern democracy is unthinkable save in terms of parties,” declared E.E. Schattschneider (1942: 1). Political parties can be viewed as endogenous institutions created by politicians to achieve certain goals (Aldrich 1995; Downs 1957). Wrote Aldrich (1995: 28): “A series of problems that necessarily arise in elections and in governance make it possible for politicians to win more of what they seek to win, more often, and over a longer period by creating political parties.” The Democratic Party and the Republican Party have dominated American electoral politics since their emergence in the early nineteenth century. Because of the twoparty system, party politics (or partisanship) has become an integral part of American politics. Partisanship manifests itself in two fundamental ways in the halls of Congress. On the one hand, it means loyalty to the president of one’s own party, because the president is the leader of his party and his leadership extends to the legislative arena. In behavioral terms, party loyalty entails, among other things, voting for the president’s policy agenda in spite of one’s own preferences or constituent preferences. Indeed, Bond and Fleisher (1990) adduced evidence that the most important determinant of a president’s legislative success is party loyalty. The demand for loyalty is particularly high when the opposition party has a majority in Congress, since the majority party has strong electoral incentives to embarrass the president, with a view toward winning the presidency in the next election. On the other hand, partisanship also means electorally-induced inter-party differences. Because of electoral competition and historical circumstances, the two parties have developed relatively stable and usually distinct positions on a number of issues that generally reflect the preferences of their respective electoral bases. For example, since the 1940s, the Republican Party has tended to be the party of free trade, whereas the Democratic Party has been the party of protectionism (see Bailey and Brady 1998; Gibson 2000; O’Halloran

New institutionalism, legislative behavior

21

1994). When members take distinct positions along electoral lines, it can be viewed as partisanship. As Davidson and Oleszek (1990: 130) aptly put it, partisanship means “constituency differences translated into issues.” However, it is sometimes difficult to empirically distinguish between the two aspects of partisanship. Again, take foreign trade as an example. When Republicans vote for a free trade bill supported by a Republican president, it is likely that they do so not only because of their loyalty to the president, but also because of their traditional support for free trade, and the latter may be more important a factor than the former. However, it is hard to distinguish the one from the other in this particular case. On the other hand, it is easier to distinguish the two aspects when a Democratic president sends to Congress a free trade bill. Given the Democrat Party’s traditional alliance with labor unions, a vote in support of the president can be a vote against labor unions in light of the latter’s long-standing opposition to free trade. In general, when a foreign policy issue has apparent and immediate implications for the electoral bases of the two parties, the likelihood of inter-party conflict significantly increases. Crabb thus wrote: Nonetheless, when an issue in the foreign policy area has an evident and substantial bearing upon domestic policy—as with the issue of tariff versus reciprocal trade, foreign aid spending, and the size and composition of the armed forces—then the difficulty of arriving at bipartisan understandings is greatly increased. Not only is the difficulty increased, but the desirability of bipartisan co-operation may be greatly reduced, if not altogether eliminated. (1957: 174) Ideology Ideology is “a configuration of ideas and attitudes in which the elements are bound together by some form of constraint or functional interdependence” (Converse 1964: 207). Hinich and Munger (1994: 11) defined it as “an internally consistent set of propositions that make both prescriptive and proscriptive demands on human behavior.” According to Hunt (1987: 12), ideology is “integrated and coherent systems of symbols, values, and beliefs.” What these various definitions have in common is the coherence and consistency of one’s beliefs. Translated into plain language, the ideological hat one wears enables others to predict—with reasonable accuracy—where one would stand on a particular issue. For example, being a liberal generally means support for abortion and gun control, while being a conservative often means opposition to abortion and gun control. The other important attribute of ideology is stability. Once formed, ideology tends to remain remarkably stable over time and across issues.10 As Poole and Rosenthal (1997: 8) vividly noted, “Members of Congress come to Washington with a staked-out position on the [ideological] continuum, and

22

New institutionalism, legislative behavior

then, largely die with their ideological boots on.” In a word, coherence and stability are the defining characteristics of ideology. It is precisely because of these two attributes that a member’s roll call votes on a wide variety of issues across a long period of time can be arranged on a simple liberal-conservative continuum (ibid.). And empirical research has produced an impressive amount of evidence that ideology usually has the biggest impact on members’ votes on foreign and defense policy (e.g., Bozeman and James 1975; Cobb 1969; Leogrande and Brenner 1993; Lindsay 1990; Ray 1981; Wayman 1985). Usually members from the opposite ends of the ideological spectrum are expected to take opposite positions on a particular issue. For example, a liberal is expected to oppose the war in Iraq while a conservative is supposed to support it. However, on certain occasions ideological foes may form a temporary alliance out of strategic considerations or genuine policy concerns. For instance, a piece of legislation may be too conservative for liberals but too liberal for conservatives. Liberals may cast sincere votes to kill it, while conservatives may vote strategically by joining the liberals, knowing that they can introduce a more conservative alternative once the proposal at hand is defeated (see Aldrich and Rohde 2000; Nokken 2003). As will be shown shortly, such a coalition of liberals and conservatives is frequently found on China policy because of the peculiarities of U.S.–China relations. Constituency influence Constituency influence stems from the electoral connection (Fiorina 1974, 1977; Mayhew 1974). If members of Congress are assumed to be “singleminded seekers of reelection” (ibid.: 5), they should be responsive to constituency interests in order to get reelected. The electoral connection is relatively strong for House members whose two-year term puts them on a short leash with their constituents. The much longer tenure of Senators enables them to have relatively more autonomy from constituency influence (see Fenno 1982). While not every member is single-mindedly in pursuit of reelection, other goals such as power within Congress and good public policy are impossible to achieve without being elected (Fenno 1973; Mayhew 1974). Regardless, reelection generally requires responsiveness to constituency interests, particularly but not exclusively economic interests. And a long line of research has produced ample evidence that constituency economic interests have significant impact on legislative behavior, particularly roll call voting (e.g., Bailey 2001; Bailey and Brady 1998; Conley 1999; Gartzke and Wrighton 1998). Indeed, even during the height of the Cold War when security issues seemed paramount, economic interests influenced Senators’ voting on foreign policy (Fordham 1998). However, it is possible that constituency influence on foreign policy may not be strong, or at least not as strong as it is on domestic policy. First and foremost, the American public is notorious for its poor knowledge of foreign policy issues (Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996) and is widely believed to have

New institutionalism, legislative behavior

23

no stable, meaningful, or coherent foreign policy preferences (see Page and Shapiro 1992: chapter 1).11 As a result, they are not expected to pay much attention to how their representatives in Congress vote on foreign policy issues. Moreover, most foreign policy decisions—with foreign trade being the single most important exception—do not have clear, immediate impact on domestic constituents. Even on defense spending (e.g., weapons purchase and military bases), an issue that presumably has huge constituency implications, responsiveness may be weak because the costs are diffuse and benefits are highly concentrated. Lindsay and Ripley aptly explained why constituency influence in foreign policy may be weak and it is worth quoting them in length: [M]ost members of the House and Senate have great freedom in taking substantive positions on foreign policy issues. One reason is that most constituents are uninformed or unconcerned about specific issues. Voters care mostly about pocket-book issues, and many foreign policy issues have no heavy economic components . . . Even when voters do have opinions on a foreign policy issue, they often do not hold their opinions very strongly, at least not strongly enough to punish errant legislators at the polls. And the public’s memory of foreign policy developments typically fades quickly: witness the speed with which public anger over U.S. policy toward China after the 1989 crackdown dissipated. (1992: 422) To conclude, with the probable exception of foreign trade, most foreign policy decisions do not have direct impact on domestic constituents. As a result, voters at home may not pay much attention to them. This enables members to enjoy a considerable degree of autonomy in foreign policy-making. Instead of following constituency preferences, they are likely to follow their own foreign policy preferences, the president’s plea for loyalty, or the dictates of party leadership. This may help explain why most previous studies have produced little or no evidence of a significant relationship between defense spending and roll call voting (e.g., Bozeman and James 1975; Cobb 1969; Lindsay 1990; Ray 1981; Wayman 1985).

Methodology Having laid out the theoretical foundation of my analysis of congressional policy-making toward China, I will briefly discuss methodology. This study combines both qualitative (i.e., historical-comparative analysis) and quantitative (i.e., statistical analysis) methods. Many scholarly works in American politics today employ only the latter, while most students of U.S.–China relations choose the former. Such methodological pluralism is necessary for three reasons. First, dry statistics will do little justice to the intense passions this controversial relationship evokes among many members of Congress. It

24

New institutionalism, legislative behavior

is one thing to tell readers how many China bills a member introduced in one session or how he or she voted on a China bill, and it is quite another to describe his or her feelings and attitudes toward China. Thus whenever possible and appropriate, I will let members speak for themselves through extensive use of quotes. Second, historical-comparative analysis provides important contextual background for quantitative analysis. Moreover, in some instances where quantification is impossible or extremely difficult, historical-comparative analysis is perhaps the only tool available. For example, I rely on historicalcomparative analysis to support my argument that the Cold War had a significant impact on Congress’s human rights policy toward China and that democratization has been the primary source of congressional support for Taiwan since the 1990s. Third, quantitative methods are useful in identifying general patterns of congressional behavior toward China. They can be very precise about the effects of a particular factor, whereas qualitative analysis offers only impressionistic observations. More specifically, negative binomial regression is used to examine the determinants of the number of China bills introduced in each chamber, and logit regression is utilized to analyze the effects of party, ideology, and constituency interests on roll call behavior. In so far as roll call analyses are concerned, three methodological issues deserve special notice. First, since this study examines not only roll call votes on three China policy issues but also roll call votes on U.S. relations with other countries, it is imperative that the same set of independent variables be used across issues and countries. Otherwise, cross-issue or cross-country comparison becomes problematic. Second, because constituency variables are usually highly correlated with party and ideology due to the electoral connection, including all of them in the same equation can potentially dampen the effects of the former. Consequently, each regression has two models, the first with only constituency variables and the second with party and ideology added. This method allows me to ascertain the independent effects of constituency variables and to identify instances where their effects are dampened by party and ideology. The third methodological issue concerns constituency opinion. Given the theoretical and empirical significance of public opinion, it is desirable that I examine its effects on legislative behavior. Normative democratic theory postulates that elected officials should be responsive to public opinion (Dahl 1956, 1998), and rational choice models of democracy predict that selfinterested politicians will respond to public opinion in order to be elected (Downs 1957). Empirically, research in American politics has produced ample evidence that public opinion has some effects on public policy (e.g., Erikson et al. 2002; Miller and Stokes 1963; Page and Shapiro 1983; Russett 1970; Sobel 2001). Moreover, numerous studies have produced evidence that constituency opinion has varying impact on roll call behavior (e.g., Bartels 1991;

New institutionalism, legislative behavior

25

Erikson 1981; Herrera et al. 1992; Holian et al. 1997; McDonagh 1993; Miller and Stokes 1963; Page et al. 1984). Thus, it appears imperative that I include constituency opinion in my analysis. And I do have an aggregate measure of public opinion when I examine the determinants of the number of China bills introduced in each chamber. However, I do not include any direct measure of constituency opinion in roll call analyses because there simply is no district or state-level public opinion data about China policy.12 It is beyond the scope of this study to offer an in-depth analysis of the effects of public opinion on Congress’s China policy at both the individual and the aggregate level. Such a research topic would develop into a major project in and of itself.

2

Congressional efforts to punish China1

The thing, [sic] that angers me the most is I hear people saying let us not use MFN. There must be some other approach we can take. What other device is there for Congress? This is the only game in town. (Representative Joe Scarborough (R-FL), U.S. Congress 1997c: 97) For four years the President has pursued a policy best described as “aggressive appeasement,” rolling over on issue after issue like an obedient puppy determined to receive the approval of a demanding master . . . [I]t amounts to the continuation and intensification of a tragic 25-year unrequited love affair with Beijing. (Representative Chris Smith (R-NJ) 1997)

During his six-day state visit to the U.S. in 1997, the former Chinese President Jiang Zemin dropped by the Capitol Hill and had breakfast with 55 members of Congress, including all the members of the leadership except for House Republican Whip Tom DeLay (R-TX), who stayed away to protest China’s alleged suppression of religious liberties. The lawmakers peppered Jiang with pointed questions on everything from religious persecution to forced abortion, from organ harvesting to Chinese transfer of nuclear technology to Iran (CQ Almanac 1997: 8: 39). Republicans “listened in stony silence” as Jiang fiercely defended China’s human rights practices (Campbell 1997). “It reminded me of the old days of the Soviet Union,” Congressman Chris Smith (R-NJ) said after the breakfast. “He denied everything” (quoted in ibid.). On the Democratic side, House Minority Leader Richard Gephardt (D-MO) said he told Jiang that “we could not have a normal relationship with a country that trampled on the rights of its people” (quoted in Slavin and Nichols 1997). Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) remained highly critical after the exchange with Jiang. “In my view, the responses were evasive,” she said (quoted in Mitchell 1997). In retrospect, Jiang’s meeting with the lawmakers—and his summit with Clinton for that matter—would probably not have happened, had it not been for Republican restraint on China bashing. In late September, despite

Congressional efforts to punish China

27

strong reservations from several Democrats and Republicans, the House International Relations Committee marked up five bills critical of China. These bills were ready for floor action in early October, but under intense pressure from President Clinton, House Republican leadership agreed to postpone floor consideration until after the summit (CQ Almanac 1997: 8: 38). Immediately after Jiang’s departure, the House launched a “legislative blitzkrieg” on China (Campbell 1997). Within five days, that is, November 5–9, the Republican-controlled House passed nine bills, including the five bills already approved by International Relations. Among other things, these bills aimed to do the following:

• • • • • • • • •

Increase funding for human rights monitoring in China and extend congressional review of nuclear technology transfer to China (HR 2358). Deny U.S. visas to Chinese officials involved in religious persecution (HR 967). Require the Secretary of Defense to study the feasibility of constructing a theater missile defense for Taiwan (HR 2386). Impose sanctions on China for transferring cruise missiles to Iran (H.Res. 188). Appropriate funds to enforce the ban on Chinese prison labor products (HR 2195). Condemn forced abortion in China and propose a visa ban on Chinese officials involved in forced abortion (HR 2570). Oppose international loans to China (HR 2605). Authorize the president to monitor, restrict, and seize the assets of and ban companies in U.S. associated with the Chinese army (HR 2647). Increase broadcasting by Radio Free Asia to China (HR 2232). (CQ Almanac 1997: 8: 39–40; CQWR 1997: 1536–37, 2618–20)

Though none of the nine bills was enacted into law, the sheer number nevertheless attests to congressional activism in China policy. Some readers may wonder whether this flood of China bills was unique due to Jiang’s visit. As will be demonstrated shortly, this is not an isolated episode, but reflects a general pattern of congressional activism and antagonism in China policy.

Collection of China bills Admittedly, one can construct an indicator of congressional activism and antagonism in China policy from a variety of sources, including the number and nature of congressional hearings or floor remarks. Bills are chosen for several reasons. First, it is relatively easy to locate and code bills. Thomas, the online legislative database of the Library of Congress, allows search of bills, resolutions, and amendments (hereafter collectively referred to as bills unless otherwise specified) introduced in each session and chamber since 1973. It also lists the major sponsor(s) and co-sponsor(s) of these bills. In addition to

28

Congressional efforts to punish China

a one-sentence summary, Thomas also provides a more detailed summary of each bill prepared by the Congressional Research Service. These two types of summaries greatly facilitate bill coding. Second, if passed by both chambers in identical form and signed by the president, a bill becomes law and is bound to have policy implications. Since one of the tasks of this study is to find out the impact of congressional activism and antagonism on China policy, it seems appropriate to study bills instead of hearings or floor remarks. Last but not least, sponsoring a bill generally requires much more legislative resources than holding a hearing or speaking on the floor. To sponsor a bill, a member needs to not only devote staff resources and legislative expertise, but also use political capital to influence other lawmakers if the bill is to be reported out of committees and passed on the floor. By contrast, holding a hearing or speaking on the floor usually demands far fewer legislative resources. In other words, sponsoring a bill generally indicates more intense policy preferences than holding a hearing or speaking on the floor. A China bill is defined as one that deals exclusively with China policy. “Exclusively” means that it addresses only China-related issues. Thus an authorization or appropriations bill that has China-related riders is not included here.2 Also excluded are bills that target not only China, but also other countries or other policy issues. For example, an amendment to grant asylum to citizens of Laos, Vietnam, Cambodia, and China who recover an American POW is not counted as a China amendment. China policy is defined broadly to include not only Congress’s policy toward Beijing, but also its policy toward Taiwan.3 This should not be a controversial definition. Beijing has always considered Taiwan a renegade province. Moreover, in the Washington–Taipei–Beijing triangle that has existed since 1949, Congress’s policy toward one has almost always had important implications for its policy toward the other. For example, the Taiwan Relations Act ostensibly governs U.S.–Taiwan relations, but few would deny that it also represents U.S. policy toward Beijing. It is a constant reminder to Beijing that the U.S. is firmly committed to Taiwan’s security and that only peaceful means may be used to resolve disputes across the Taiwan Strait. I use Thomas as the exclusive source of China bills. Two schemes are used to code these bills. The first is the specific policy issue each bill addresses: U.S.–Taiwan relations, MFN renewal, China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO), generic trade issues, generic human rights issues, funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNPF), Tibet, the Tiananmen Incident, export control, and foreign assistance.4 Bills that address any combination of the ten issues or issues that cannot be neatly classified into any of the ten categories are put into Other. Second, each bill is coded according to its policy nature, that is, whether it is punitive, neutral/technical, or favorable to China. Punitive bills criticize the Chinese government and propose certain punitive actions, such as

Congressional efforts to punish China

29

condemning China’s human rights practices, supporting strong U.S.–Taiwan relations, or calling for tighter export control regarding China. Technical/ neutral bills deal with technical issues in bilateral relations such as approval of tax treaties or fishery agreements. Bills that address U.S.–Taiwan trade or Taiwan’s human rights also belong to this category because they have no explicitly positive or negative implications for U.S.–China relations. Favorable bills promote U.S.–China relations. Thus bills that establish student or parliamentary exchange programs, urge recognition of China, or relax export control will be viewed as favorable ones. Details on data collection and coding are contained in the Appendix.

Number and nature of China bills Between 1973 and 2006, 543 China bills were introduced in the House and 332 in the Senate. Table 2.1 classifies House bills by policy issue and bill type. There were 189 concurrent resolutions and 90 simple resolutions. Together, these two types of resolutions constitute 51 percent of the China bills introduced in the House. A concurrent resolution is used to express opinion on behalf of both chambers; it is also used to set adjournment date or congressional budget. A simple resolution, by contrast, is used to take action on behalf of only one chamber or to express its non-binding opinion. A simple resolution is also used to modify or propose an internal rule or to create a new committee. Unlike bills, joint resolutions, or amendments, however, these two types of resolutions do not make law. This raises an important question that will be answered in the next chapter: Why did members introduce so many non-binding resolutions? House members were most likely to sponsor concurrent resolutions when Table 2.1 House China bills by policy and type, 1973–2006

Taiwan Generic human rights MFN Export control Generic trade Tibet Tiananmen UNPF WTO Foreign assistance Other Total

Concurrent resolution

Simple Joint Bill resolution resolution

112 33

21 15

5 1

22 22

7 4

167 75

3 4 11 7

2 5 7 7 5

21 4

22 11 22 9 7

3 22 2 2

48 45 35 29 21 14 10 6

2

Amendment Total

14 1

9 5

1 18 189

27 90

4 37

34 163

10 64

93 543

30

Congressional efforts to punish China

they wanted to express their opinions about U.S.–Taiwan relations, as 112 out of a total of 167 Taiwan bills were concurrent resolutions. Meanwhile, these Taiwan-related concurrent resolutions accounted for nearly 60 percent of House concurrent resolutions on China policy. In a word, concurrent resolution seems to be the most popular legislative vehicle to express one’s preferences about Taiwan policy. In 1975, for example, 15 concurrent resolutions declaring congressional support for Taiwan were introduced in the House. There were 37 joint resolutions, and 21 of them were related to the renewal of China’s MFN status. Since Congress first granted MFN status to China in 1980, it had not objected to its renewal until 1990. Outraged by the Tiananmen Incident and determined to punish Beijing for its alleged human rights violations, Congress repeatedly attempted to revoke China’s MFN status (for a comprehensive review of the legislative history regarding China’s MFN status, see Pregelj 2001). Under the Jackson–Vanik Amendment to the 1974 Trade Act, Congress has to pass a joint resolution to disapprove of presidential renewal of MFN status and the joint resolution is subject to presidential veto. This is why the vast majority of joint resolutions were related to MFN renewal. When it comes to funding to the UNPF, House members relied exclusively on amendments. Because this is an issue that involves funding and foreign policy, it is not surprising that all the 14 amendments were attached to foreign relations authorization bills. In 1995, the House considered HR1561, which appropriates funds for foreign operations for fiscal years 1996 and 1997, and three amendments were introduced to prohibit or limit funding to the UNPF unless it ceased its activities in China. In 1998, President Clinton vetoed the fiscal year 1999 State Department authorization bill (HR 1757) because antiabortion Republicans inserted two amendments that imposed stringent restrictions on funding to international population programs in general and those in China in particular (CQWR 1998: 2921). House members also relied heavily on amendments to deal with export control policy toward China.5 Nearly half of legislative measures concerning export control were amendments. Like MFN, export control did not become a salient issue on Capitol Hill until after the Tiananmen Incident. In 1990, five amendments were sponsored in the House that imposed various restrictions on the issuance of export license, particularly regarding U.S. satellite export. Amidst accusations of Chinese theft of U.S. nuclear secrets and Clinton’s relaxation of export control in exchange for corporate campaign donations, the House approved in 1998 four amendments to the defense authorization bill that would prohibit the transfer of missile technology and U.S.-made satellites to China (CQWR 1998: 1375–76, 1400–1403). Table 2.2 presents the distribution of China bills in the Senate. There were 57 concurrent resolutions and 74 simple resolutions; they combine to account for nearly 40 percent of the China bills introduced in the Senate. This is considerably smaller than that in the House (51 percent). Of 57 concurrent resolutions, 27 are related to Taiwan, and these concurrent resolutions make

Congressional efforts to punish China

31

Table 2.2 Senate China bills by policy and type, 1973–2006

Taiwan Generic human rights MFN Tiananmen Tibet Generic trade Export control WTO UNPF Other Total

Concurrent resolution

Simple resolution

Joint Bill resolution

27 9

21 16

1 1 6 2 2

3 10 6 1

2 4

9 57

17 74

1 20

Amendment

Total

4 2

10 8

18 25

80 60

7

18 9 3 4 2 6

5 10 3 3 8 3 1 27 103

31 23 22 17 17 9 1 72 332

18 78

up slightly more than 30 percent of the Taiwan bills introduced in the Senate, which is about half of the corresponding percentage in the House. However, Senators were more likely than their House counterparts to use simple resolutions to convey their opinions about Taiwan policy, as 21 out of 80 Senate Taiwan bills were simple resolutions, compared with 21 out of 167 in the House. As in the House, the largest number of Senate joint resolutions—seven to be exact—was related to MFN renewal. However, they account for only slightly more than 30 percent of all the Senate joint resolutions, as opposed to 57 percent in the House. Thus in both absolute numbers and percentages, Senators were less likely to sponsor joint resolutions disapproving of presidential renewal of China’s MFN status. The most striking difference between the two chambers lies in the number of amendments. Even though the Senate is less than one fourth the size of the House, it has nearly twice the number of amendments. Except for export control, there were more amendments in the Senate for each policy issue than in the House. Anyone who is familiar with the internal operations of Congress knows that this inter-chamber difference in amendments results from different rules governing floor debate in each chamber.6 Having discussed the frequency of each type of bills, I will examine congressional activism in each policy issue. Excluding the Other category, three policy issues have the same ranking in each chamber. In descending order, they are Taiwan policy, generic human rights, and MFN renewal. There were 167 Taiwan bills in the House and 80 in the Senate. When combined, this means that on average seven Taiwan bills were introduced in Congress annually during the 34-year period, or more than one out of four China bills introduced in Congress during this period pertained to Taiwan policy. The number of generic human rights bills is 75 and 60 in the House and the

32

Congressional efforts to punish China

Senate respectively. These bills pertain to such issues as religious freedom, political dissent, and labor rights. One can argue that bills respecting the Tiananmen Incident, funding to the UNPF, and Tibet should also be counted as human rights bills. For many members of Congress, the Tiananmen Incident exemplifies Chinese violation of human rights. The controversy over funding to the UNPF arose amidst allegations of forced abortion in China, which was viewed by many members of Congress as violations of human rights. Tibet attracted congressional attention due to alleged Chinese repression of Tibetans. If these bills were counted, then the total number of human rights bills would jump to 245. In addition, there were 79 bills related to MFN renewal. Since the MFN debate was primarily about how to use trade to leverage human rights progress in China, these bills can also be viewed as human rights bills. If so, the number of human rights bills would be 324, surpassing that of Taiwan policy. Export control does not attract as many headlines as China’s human rights or the soaring U.S. trade deficit with China, but it is clearly an important part of Congress’s China policy, particularly in the House. As was briefly mentioned in the Introduction, Congress not only makes sure that the U.S. maintains a tight export control regime regarding China, but also successfully pressured the European Union to delay its lifting of arms embargo against China. Bilateral trade seems to be another issue of major concern to members of Congress, as 52 bills concerning issues like tariffs, textile quotas, and intellectual property rights (IPR) were introduced. Also, 19 bills specifically addressed issues concerning China’s entry into the World Trade Organization. With only six bills, foreign assistance (e.g., international loans to China) does not seem to be an issue of particular concern to Congress. Figure 2.1 classifies China bills according to several general categories

Figure 2.1 Classification of China bills (including amendments), 1973–2006.

Congressional efforts to punish China

33

related to floor action, party of chief sponsor, session, and timing before or after the Tiananmen Incident. The findings can be summarized as following:

• •

• •

Far more China bills (665) were introduced in the 17 years after 1989 (including 1989) than those introduced in the 17 years before it (210). This huge disparity strongly suggests that the 1989 Tiananmen Incident has been a major source of congressional activism in China policy. The total number of China bills introduced in the first session of each Congress (578) is nearly twice that in the second session (297). This is strikingly similar to the aggregate ratio for all bills introduced in Congress during the same period.7 One reason for inter-session difference may be that members introduce bills in the first session so as to allow more attention and time for committee and floor consideration of their bills, knowing that the legislative agenda is crowded but time is limited.8 Republicans sponsored 475 China bills and Democrats 394 bills, with Independents contributing 6 bills (which are not presented in Figure 2.1). This inter-party difference is quite noteworthy because more Democrats held office during this period than Republicans. Congress took floor action—voice vote or roll call vote—on 259 bills, or less than one-third of all China bills introduced. Since the full chamber normally may not debate and vote on a bill unless it is reported out of a committee, it appears that committees failed to report the vast majority of China bills to the floor.

The time trend of China bills is depicted in Figure 2.2. A tentative impression

Figure 2.2 Time trend of China bills (including amendments), 1973–2006.

34

Congressional efforts to punish China

from this graph is that the ebb and flow of these bills was largely determined by the major events in bilateral relations. For example, the sudden surge of China bills in 1979—from 6 in 1978 to 37 in 1979—coincided with heated congressional debate over Carter’s decision to recognize China and over future U.S.–Taiwan relations. What resulted from the debate was the controversial Taiwan Relations Act. In 1989, 63 China bills were introduced, as opposed to 9 in the previous year. The Tiananmen Incident of 1989 was almost certainly responsible for this deluge of China bills on Capitol Hill. The huge spike in 1997–80 bills compared to 22 in 1996—may be attributed to a number of events such as the reversion of Hong Kong to Beijing, the former Chinese President Jiang’s visit to Washington, and congressional investigations of alleged illegal Chinese campaign contributions. The trend line seems to provide support for what Suettinger (2003: 434) called an “event-driven” relationship. Next, I will show the nature of China bills. According to my coding scheme, there were 18 favorable and 57 neutral/technical China bills in the House, and the corresponding numbers in the Senate were 13 and 38 respectively. Most favorable bills pertain to export control, MFN, and Other. The largest number of neutral/technical bills is related to human rights in Taiwan and issues under Other. When these two types of bills are deducted from the total number of China bills, I arrive at the number of punitive bills: 468 in the House and 281 in the Senate. All the bills about generic human rights, Tibet, Tiananmen, and UNPF are punitive, so are most bills on U.S.–Taiwan relations. Punitive bills accounted for 86 percent and 85 percent of all the China bills introduced in the House and the Senate respectively. In a word, when we talk about Congress and China policy, we are really talking about a punitive Congress. To sum up, Congress has been extremely active in China policy, particularly U.S.–Taiwan relations, China’s human rights, MFN renewal, and export control. Moreover, Congress has been unambiguously antagonistic toward China, calling for one punitive action after another. Also, the major events in bilateral relations—such as normalization and the Tiananmen Incident— seem to have determined the ebb and flow of China bills. Last but not least, the Tiananmen Incident almost single-handedly transformed Congress into an active player in China policy.

What influences the ebb and flow of China bills? Having examined the number and nature of China bills, I will conduct a quantitative analysis of macro-level factors that affected the number of China bills introduced in each chamber. It is worth reiterating that this is an aggregate analysis, not individual-level analysis such as one that examines roll call behavior. As such, the findings and conclusions should not be construed as necessarily applicable to individual-level legislative behavior.

Congressional efforts to punish China

35

Hypotheses Hypothesis 1: More China bills will be introduced under divided government than under unified government, other things being equal. The two political parties have frequently used China policy to attack each other, particularly in times of divided government, that is, the presidency and Congress are controlled by different parties. When Republicans regained majority control of Congress in 1947—the first time since 1933—congressional debate about what the U.S. should do respecting the Chinese civil war became much more partisan (e.g., Tsou 1963; Tucker 1983, 1994; Westerfield 1955). Republicans intended to use the China issue to embarrass President Truman, with an eye toward defeating him in the coming 1948 election. Rourke (1983: 6) wrote, “In control of Congress for the first time in almost two decades and confidently looking forward to capturing the White House in 1948, Republican foreign policy activity became increasingly motivated by partisan considerations.” In the aftermath of the Tiananmen Incident, the Democratic majority in Congress launched harsh criticism of President Bush’s China policy and their criticism seemed to be largely motivated by partisanship. Ross (1992: 290) claimed that the Democratic-controlled Congress used China policy as a “vehicle for both pursuing its foreign policy agenda and weakening the president’s domestic popularity.” Harding (1992: 244) asserted that the “deep division between the White House and Congress on China policy . . . reflect[s] simple partisan politics, with the Democrats seeing in China one of the few foreign policy issues on which a popular new Republican president might prove vulnerable.” Richard Bush (1995: 149–150) agreed: “China became subject to the dynamics of divided government. A Democratic Congress, with support from some conservative Republicans, sought to use the China issue to embarrass a Republican administration for political gain.” Similarly, when Republicans took control of Congress in 1995, they became immediately active in China policy. They put enormous pressure on Clinton and forced the latter to grant a visa to Lee Teng-hui, the former Taiwanese president. Then the Republican-controlled House passed the U.S.–Taiwan Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense Cooperation Act in 1997 and the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act in 2000 (e.g., Bush 2004: Chapter 7; Mann 2001; Yang 2000: Chapter 6). In the meantime, Republicans launched highprofile investigations of allegedly illegal Chinese campaign donations in the 1996 presidential election (e.g., CQWR 1997: 1140, 1568, 1601, 1861). In 1998, the Republican majority formed a Select Committee on U.S. National Security and Military/Commercial Concerns with the People’s Republic of China, chaired by Congressman Christopher Cox (R-CA). In early 1999, the committee released the highly controversial Cox Report (CQWR 1998: 1375, 1400–1402, 1886–1889).

36

Congressional efforts to punish China Hypothesis 2: The number of China bills introduced should be positively associated with the strength of anti-Communism in Congress, other things being equal.

Ideology has profoundly influenced U.S. policy toward China. Harding (1992: 17) wrote, “Ideological considerations have been a constant source of ambivalence and opposition to Sino-American relations in both societies for more than forty years.” The onset of the Cold War coincided with the outbreak of the Chinese civil war, and the U.S. supported Chiang Kai-shek against the Chinese Communists primarily because of his flawless record of anti-Communism. In particular, the China bloc in Congress—a group that consisted mostly of right-wing Republicans—successfully pressured the Truman administration to provide military and economic aid to Chiang even when his cause seemed hopeless (Christensen 1996; Koen 1974; Rourke 1983; Tsou 1963; Tucker 1983; Yang 2000: Chapter 2). The eventual defeat of Chiang and the outbreak of the Korean War made anti-Communism an even more salient factor in China policy (Finkelstein 1993; Grasso 1987; Purifoy 1976). Within Congress, anti-Communism manifested itself in steadfast congressional opposition to U.S. recognition of China and China’s admission to the United Nations (Bachrack 1976). Though the Cold War ended more than a decade ago, anti-Communism appears to be still alive on Capitol Hill today because China remains under Communist rule. When he was in the Senate, Jesse Helms (R-NC) still used such ideologically charged language as “Red China” or “communist China” (CQWR 1999: 2605). Commenting on a 1996 House resolution (H.Con.Res.148) reaffirming U.S. commitment to Taiwan’s security, a close observer of Congress wrote that support for the resolution reflected “the enduring strength of anti-Communism in the unsettled post-Cold War era” (CQWR 1996: 712). Also, using content analysis and survey responses, Chen (1992) identified two periods of strong impact of anti-Communism on U.S. China policy (1949–1953 and 1980–1982) and one period of weak impact (1969– 1972). During the first two periods, China policy was “rigid and confrontational” (ibid.: 43), whereas in the third period China policy was “flexible and cooperative” (ibid.: 72). Hypothesis 3: The number of China bills will be negatively associated with favorable public opinion about China, other things being equal. A long tradition of research in American politics has produced ample evidence that public opinion exerts significant impact on public policy (e.g., Erikson et al. 2002; Miller and Stokes 1963; Page and Shapiro 1983). Moreover, the effects of public opinion are not confined to domestic policies, but are reported in foreign policy as well (e.g., Mueller 1994; Page and Shapiro 1983; Russett 1990; Sobel 2001). Some scholars also have reported evidence that public opinion influenced China policy (Kusnitz 1984; Teles

Congressional efforts to punish China

37

1998). Though these studies did not examine specifically the relationship between public opinion and Congress’s China policy, they lead to the expectation that Congress may also respond to public opinion in formulating China policy. More specifically, fewer China bills are expected when the American people have a more favorable opinion of China. Three other factors could have impacted the number of China bills introduced in each chamber, namely, session, the Tiananmen Incident, and elapse of time. Because of crowded legislative agenda, members are expected to introduce more China bills in the first session of each Congress just to give their bills more attention and time. The Tiananmen Incident is arguably the single most important event in U.S.–China relations since the two countries normalized their relations in 1979. It nearly destroyed all the good feelings toward China that had been accumulating among Americans since Nixon’s landmark visit (see Figure 2.3 and Figure 2.4). The time trend of China bills (see Figure 2.2) also indicates that Congress has become decidedly much more active and punitive since the Tiananmen Incident. Finally, it is highly likely that the number of China bills increased over time as a result of expanding economic, cultural, and military ties between the two countries. That is, more issues require legislative actions as bilateral relations grow. Methodology Because there are two major political parties and three branches—the White House, the House, and the Senate—party control of government can come in any of the following four forms: unified Republican control of White House

Figure 2.3 Favorability ratings of China on 10-point scale, 1954–2001.

38

Congressional efforts to punish China

Figure 2.4 Favorability ratings of China on four-category scale, 1977–2006.

and House (Senate), unified Democratic control of White House and House (Senate), Democratic President–Republican House (Senate), and Republican President–Democratic House (Senate). The first three forms are included in regression analysis, with the last form being treated as the baseline. Favorable public opinion about China is measured as the percentage of Americans who reported having a favorable opinion of China in various surveys. Notwithstanding slight variations in question wording and response categories, these survey responses are generally good indicators of Americans’ overall opinion of China (see the Appendix). For a year in which no such question was asked, the average of the previous and following years is used. For years in which there were multiple surveys, the average is taken. It is hard to construct an aggregate measure of anti-Communism in Congress. Instead, I use a rather crude measure, namely, the percentage of Republican membership in each chamber. Republicans in general have traditionally been more vocal in anti-Communism than Democrats.9 To be sure, not every Republican adopts a hard-line approach to China. Furthermore, hard-liners often had to compromise with moderate Republicans like Doug Bereuter (R-NE) (see CQWR 2000: 263). But, in general, the more Republicans there were in each chamber, the more punitive China bills would be introduced due to their antipathy toward Communism. The first session of each Congress is coded as 1 and the second session 0. Tiananmen is coded 0 for years before 1989 and 1 for years thereafter (including 1989). I include a time trend variable Year, which is expected to capture any autonomous change in the number of China bills that is independent of

Congressional efforts to punish China

39

other variables. Last but not least, since House rules make it much more difficult to amend a bill on the floor than in the Senate, I exclude amendments in the following analysis. Findings I run two negative binomial regressions, one for each chamber.10 Results for the House are presented in Table 2.3. Since the average number of China bills introduced in the House between 1973 and 2006 is 14, this means that controlling for other factors, a Democratic president facing a Republican majority in the House witnessed an estimated 22.68 (1.62 × 14) more China bills, as compared with a Republican president facing a Democratic-controlled House. This is clear indication of the important impact of divided government on China policy. Notice that between 1973 and 2006, there was only one Democratic president who faced a Republican majority in the House, and that president was Bill Clinton. As discussed shortly before, House Republicans were particularly active in China policy after they regained House majority in 1995. Table 2.3 Determinants of the number of China bills (excluding amendments) introduced in the House, 1973–2006 Independent variables

Coefficients

Estimated effects

Unified Republican

1.48** (.53) −.29 (.22) 1.62** (.46) 1.34** (.40) .62** (.14) .007 (.008) −.09** (.03) −.03 (.03) 67.8 (56.00) .17 −99.65 9.87

20.72

Unified Democratic Democratic President–Republican House Tiananmen Session Favorability rating Republican percentage Year Constant Pseudo R2 Log likelihood Likelihood ratio test against α = 0 N = 34

22.68 18.76 8.68

1.26

Notes: Cell entries are negative binomial regression coefficients. Numbers in parentheses are standard errors. ** Significant at .01

40

Congressional efforts to punish China

Clinton’s situation was strikingly similar to that of President Harry Truman, whose China policy was subject to bitter attacks by the newly inaugurated Republican majority. This statistical finding plus Truman’s experience with the Republican-controlled Congress strongly suggests that a House Republican majority tends to use China policy as a partisan issue to attack Democratic presidents. Unified Republican control of the House actually led to 20.72 more China bills than a Republican president facing a Democratic majority, controlling for other factors. During the 34-year period, the House was under unified Republican control only for six years (2001–6). Among other things, George W. Bush’s tough stance in dealing with the collision of a U.S. reconnaissance plane with a Chinese fighter jet in early 2001, congressional frustration with the astronomical trade deficit with China, and congressional opposition to the European Union’s proposed lifting of arms embargo against Beijing may be responsible for the increase of China bills under unified Republican control of the House. Consistent with my expectation, the first session of each Congress produced 8.68 more China bills than the second session, when other factors are controlled for. Also, a post-Tiananmen House session had 18.76 more China bills than a pre-Tiananmen session, holding other factors constant. This provides strong evidence that the Tiananmen Incident was primarily responsible for congressional activism and antagonism in China policy since 1989. Republican membership appears to have significant impact, but it has a wrong sign. That is, when other factors are held constant, increase in House Republican membership actually led to fewer China bills. One possible explanation is that during the studied period, significant increase in Republican membership in the House occurred after two major events in U.S.–China relations, namely, the Taiwan Relations Act and the Tiananmen Incident. And these two major events brought about a sharp increase in China bills introduced in the House. Finally, contrary to my expectation, favorable public opinion does not appear to have any significant impact. Table 2.4 reports regression results for the Senate. Now only three factors have significant effects: session, Tiananmen, and favorability rating. Since the average number of China bills introduced in the Senate was 6.7, this means a first session in the Senate witnessed on average 6.2 more punitive bills than a second session. A post-Tiananmen Senate session produced 9.2 additional China bills, compared with a pre-Tiananmen one, controlling for other factors. Thus in both chambers, significantly more China bills were introduced in the post-Tiananmen years. Suettinger thus wrote of the impact of the Tiananmen Incident on U.S.–China relations: The events of June 4 dealt an enormous setback to bilateral relations between the United States and China—a setback from which, in some ways, they have never recovered. Indeed, one could say that the Tiananmen crackdown set the U.S.–China relations on an entirely different course,

Congressional efforts to punish China

41

Table 2.4 Determinants of the number of China bills (excluding amendments) introduced in the Senate, 1973–2006 Independent variables

Coefficients

Unified Republican

−.62 (.48) −.08 (.31) −.07 (.50) 1.38* (.52) .93** (.18) .02* (.10) .03 (.05) .02 (.031) 42.47 (56.04) .21 −78.61 4.38

Unified Democratic Democratic President–Republican Senate Tiananmen 1st Session Favorability rating Republican percentage Year Constant Pseudo R2 Log likelihood Likelihood ratio test against α = 0 N = 34

Estimated effects

9.2 6.2 .1

Notes: Cell entries are negative binomial regression coefficients. Numbers in parentheses are standard errors. ** Significant at .01; * significant at .05.

one that is far more contentious and hostile than at any time since the late 1950s. (2003: 85) Contrary to my expectations, however, more favorable public opinion about China is positively associated with the number of Senate China bills. Even though substantively insignificant—one point increase in favorability rating resulted in 0.1 more China bills—this finding nonetheless indicates the possible existence of a gap between public opinion and Senators’ preferences. That is, as the American public gradually recovered from the initial shock of the Tiananmen Incident, Senators generally remained critical of Beijing and continued to introduce China bills. This finding seems to support Suettinger’s (ibid.: 426) claim that “post-Tiananmen congressional attitudes on China are likely to change only slowly and at the margins.” Finally, that none of the divided government variables are significant in the Senate suggests that the upper chamber as a whole has not demonstrated significant partisanship in its approaches to China policy.

42

Congressional efforts to punish China

To sum up, quantitative analysis provides strong support for three conclusions. First, the first session of each Congress witnessed significantly more China bills than the second session. Thus the electoral institution as an exogenous force has had some impact on Congress’s China policy. Second, as perhaps the single most important event since normalization, the Tiananmen Incident has cast an enduring shadow over Congress’s China policy. Third, House Republicans tend to use China policy as a political issue against Democratic presidents.

3

Effects of congressional activism on China policy

In both the American and Swiss Constitutions the Upper House has as much authority as the second; it could produce the maximum of impediment—a dead-lock, if it liked. (Walter Bagehot, quoted in Wilson 2006: 151) Given an active subcommittee chairman working in a specialized field with a staff of his own, the parent committee can do no more than change the grammar of a subcommittee report. (Congressional staff member, quoted in Goodwin 1962: 596)

In the previous chapter, I adduced evidence that Congress has been extremely active in China policy. The next logical question is: What is the impact of congressional activism on U.S.–China policy? In answering this question, one should consider the institutional structure under which Congress makes China policy. After all, Congress and its members do not make China policy (or any policy for that matter) in an institutional vacuum. If the institutional structure makes it extremely difficult for Congress to transform its collective preferences into policy outcomes, then Congress cannot have much impact on China policy, regardless of how active it is or how strong its policy preferences are. As will be shown in this chapter, bicameralism, the committee structure, and presidential veto have combined to severely constrain Congress’s ability to assert itself in China policy.

Bicameralism The founding fathers created a second and distinct chamber in the hope that it would serve as a “cooling saucer” to the first and presumably more activist chamber. Thus, the first and most crucial step in assessing the policy impact of bicameralism is to find out whether the House is indeed more active than the Senate. Figure 2.1 already shows that the number of China bills introduced in the House is larger than that of the Senate. However, this finding does not

44

Effects of congressional activism

necessarily constitute conclusive evidence of House activism in China policy. First, the House is more than four times larger than the Senate, which makes any inter-chamber comparison based on absolute numbers potentially problematic. Second, one can argue that the inclusion of amendments can skew the results because it is much easier to sponsor amendments in the Senate than in the House. The first problem can be dealt with by examining interchamber ratios instead of absolute numbers and the second by excluding amendments.1 I first calculate the ratio of House China bills to Senate China bills for each Congress, and then compare it with the ratio for bills in general (i.e., all bills introduced in each Congress). The purpose of this exercise is to find out: (1) whether there is any inter-chamber difference in China policy; (2) whether that difference—if any at all—is consistent across each Congress; and (3) whether that difference is unique to China policy or exemplifies a general pattern. The House–Senate ratios for China bills and bills in general are depicted in Figure 3.1. With the exception of the 95th Congress (which has a ratio of 14), the inter-chamber ratio of China bills stabilizes around 2 (the mean is 2.2). The ratio for China bills is nearly identical to that for bills in general (the mean is 2.3), and the correlation between the two ratios is 0.565 and significant at 0.05. All these statistics indicate that the House has indeed been

Figure 3.1 House–Senate ratios for China bills and bills in general (excluding amendments), 93rd–109th Congresses.

Effects of congressional activism

45

Figure 3.2 Number of China bills (excluding amendments) by policy type and chamber, 1973–2006.

significantly and consistently more active in China policy than the Senate. More importantly, this pattern of inter-chamber difference is not unique to China policy, but exemplifies House activism in congressional policy-making in general. Figure 3.2 depicts inter-chamber difference in the number of China bills in each policy area. The most striking finding is that in each policy area the number of China bills in the House is consistently larger than that in the Senate. In terms of ratio, which is not reported here, the House–Senate ratio for each policy area fluctuates closely around 2 (the mean is 1.97 if foreign assistance is excluded). This ratio is nearly identical to the average aggregate House–Senate ratio of China bills reported above (2.2). Thus, in the particular case of China policy, what is true for aggregate level inter-chamber difference also appears to be true when it comes to specific policies. Table 3.1 provides additional evidence of House activism. It depicts the frequency of the number of China bills (excluding amendments) by chief sponsor in each chamber. Of the hundreds of members who served in Congress during the 34-year period, only 174 representatives and 79 Senators ever introduced any China bill. Of those who did, 92 representatives and 37 Senators introduced only one China bill. That is, more than half of representatives and close to half of Senators who introduced any China bill at all

46

Effects of congressional activism Table 3.1 Frequency of the number of China bills (excluding amendments) by chief sponsor and chamber, 1973–2006 Number of China bills

House

Senate

Total

1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 13 16 17 18 22 37 Total

92 38 13 8 5 4 0 2 3 3 0 1 1 2 1 0 1 174

37 9 9 10 3 5 3 1 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 1 0 79

129 47 22 18 8 9 3 3 3 3 1 1 1 2 1 1 1 253

introduced only one bill. The average is 2.7 (449 divided by 174) for each representative and 2.9 (229 divided by 79) for each Senator. While the average number of bills introduced by representatives and Senators is strikingly similar, they mask the important fact that a handful of House members were particularly active in China policy. Nine representatives introduced ten or more China bills; together they introduced 148 China bills out of a total of 449. By contrast, only two Senators introduced ten or more China bills; together they introduced 33 out of a total of 229. It seems that inter-chamber difference in China policy arises primarily because the House has more members with more intense China policy preferences. Table 3.2 lists the nine representatives and two Senators as well as the policy issues that were addressed in their bills.2 Up to this point, I have adduced strong evidence of House activism in China policy. The next step is to establish that the Senate has checked House activism in China policy. Two concrete examples will help illustrate the function of the Senate. In response to the Tiananmen Incident, Congress proposed a number of sanctions against China, but these sanctions were never enacted into law (Oberdorfer 1989; Phillips 1989). The House put the sanctions in a foreign aid authorization bill (HR 2655) that died in the Senate. The Senate attached its own version of sanctions to the routine State Department authorization bill (HR 1487) that President Bush vetoed for other reasons. A

10 1

3

4 6 4 1 10 2

Senate Jesse Helms (R-NC) Claiborne Pell (D-RI)

4

HR

1

1 1

6

FA

House Gerald Solomon (R-NY) Tom Lantos (D-CA) Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) Stephen Solarz (D-NY) Chris Smith (R-NJ) Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) Christopher Cox (R-CA) Trent Lott (R-MO) Dawson Mathis (D-GA)

EXP

3

11 4 1 1 1 4 1

MFN

4

4

2

1 3 6

Other

1

1 2 1

TAM

7

1

1 2 2

Tibet

Table 3.2 Members of Congress who introduced ten or more China bills (excluding amendments), 1973–2006

1

1

Trade

2 3

7 4 10 9

10 3 1 12

Taiwan

22 11

37 18 17 17 16 13 10 10 10

Total

48

Effects of congressional activism

substitute bill (HR 3792) was never reported out of the Senate due to jurisdictional dispute (CQ Almanac 1989: 1642, 3261). The second example concerns Congress’s failed attempt to strip China of its MFN status. Between 1990 and 2001, the House voted each year on a joint resolution to disapprove of presidential renewal of China’s MFN status. The Senate, by contrast, voted only once on such a resolution. Meanwhile, the House twice passed bills conditioning MFN renewal on China’s human rights progress, and twice it garnered enough votes to override presidential vetoes. But because the Senate on both occasions sustained the vetoes, the two bills never became law. In a word, bicameralism has had profound impact on Congress’s China policy. No matter how active the lower chamber was, its legislative initiatives regarding China would have had little chance of being enacted into binding legislation unless the upper chamber had been equally active and agreed with these initiatives. Moreover, my findings about inter-chamber differences are not unique to China policy, but reflect a general pattern of House activism in congressional policy-making. To the extent that the founding fathers were wary of an active House churning out one piece of legislation after another, my findings seem to justify their concerns and to vindicate their decision to set up a second chamber as a restraining force.

Congressional committees To what extent has the committee structure affected Congress’s China policy? Part of the answer is shown in Figure 2.1, which shows that only 259 out of a total of 875 China bills were reported out of committees to the floor. It should be noted that the numbers in Figure 2.1 include amendments, but House rules severely limit amendment opportunities. Therefore, I retabulate the floor status of bills excluding amendments, and find that 119 (or 16.8 percent) of the 708 China bills were reported out of committees. It is worth noting that my estimate is not unique to China bills, but seems to be representative of bills in general. For example, Ripley (1983: 145–146) found that only a nearly identical 16 percent of the 26,566 bills introduced in the 89th Congress were ever reported out of committees. My finding plus Ripley’s illuminate the enormous power of committees as gatekeepers: on average, about 84 percent of bills introduced in Congress die in committee rooms. It is no wonder that Woodrow Wilson (2006: 63) called committees the “dim dungeons of silence” from which few bills will ever return alive. What about the final status of those 119 China bills reported out of committees? According to the new institutionalism, committee-approved bills will almost always prevail on the floor (e.g., Crombez et al. 2006; Denzau and Mackay 1983; Shepsle and Weingast 1987; Weingast and Marshall 1988). Consistent with this perspective, it turns out that 105 China bills were passed and only 14 were rejected on the floor. That means the probability of a

Effects of congressional activism

49

committee-approved China bill being passed on the floor is close to 0.88 (105 divided by 119). Ripley (1983: 200) reported that an average of 70 percent of committee-reported bills were passed unamended on the floor.3 Of the 14 rejected bills 13 (12 in the House and one in the Senate) were joint resolutions to disapprove of presidential renewal of China’s MFN status, and the remaining one was a House bill. The floor majority approved all the concurrent resolutions and simple resolutions reported out of committees. Of the 64 House amendments, 51 were passed and 7 rejected; of the 103 Senate amendments, 63 were approved and 19 voted down. My analysis so far provides strong support for theoretical claims about committee power, that is, the power to block policy alternatives and the power to prevail on the floor. In what follows, I will give a few concrete examples of how committee members used gatekeeping rights to influence China policy. Senator Max Baucus (D-MT), former chairman of the full Senate Finance Committee (2001–2003) and its Subcommittee on International Trade (1991– 1994), has been a staunch supporter of free trade in general and U.S.–China trade in particular (Baucus 1994a, 1994b, 1996; Gugliotta 1991). He played an instrumental role in maintaining China’s unconditional MFN status. Since MFN legislation falls within the jurisdiction of International Trade, Baucus used the prerogative of his chairmanship to successfully block any joint resolution to disapprove of unconditional MFN from being reported to the Senate floor. In addition to trade, Baucus was also actively involved in Taiwan policy. When the House passed HR 1838 to shore up U.S.–Taiwan military relations, Baucus promised to put a hold on the bill. Since a hold is the equivalent of a filibuster threat, the bill was doomed.4 Senator Craig Thomas (R-WY), former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee on East Asian and Pacific Affairs (1995–2001), has also been a strong advocate of friendly U.S.–China relations (U.S. Congress 1999, 2001d). Since 1995 he has played a role similar to that of Baucus, fending off efforts by religious conservatives in the Senate to attach human rights conditions to MFN renewal. In 1998, he prevented the passage of several anti-China resolutions in the Foreign Relations Committee before Clinton’s state visit to China (CQWR 1998: 3206). Partly because of the two Senators’ influence, the Senate never directly voted on a joint resolution to disapprove of MFN renewal. The Senate voted only once on the issue and that was in 1999. By a vote of 12–87, it overwhelmingly rejected a motion to discharge from the Finance Committee S.J.Res.27 that would revoke China’s MFN for one year. While these two Senators epitomize the power of committee chairmen to block certain policies, Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) exemplifies the power of committee chairmen to propose new policies. Being the chairman of the House International Relations Committee from 1995 to 2000 and a staunch supporter of Taiwan, Gilman had profound impact on U.S.–Taiwan policy. Under his chairmanship, six resolutions reaffirming U.S. commitment to

50

Effects of congressional activism

Taiwan were reported out of the committee, and he managed to have them all approved on the House floor under suspension of rules.5 In addition, the committee marked up six bills in 1997 that aimed to deny visas to Chinese officials who are involved in religious persecution, increase the number of human rights monitors stationed in China, authorize more funding for Radio Free Asia, punish China for alleged missile sales to Iran and push development of a missile defense system to protect Taiwan (CQ Almanac 1997: 8–38). All six bills were passed in the House. Had Gilman refused to schedule hearings or committee votes on these bills, they probably would not have been reported out of the committee and passed on the floor. To conclude, the congressional committee structure has had profound impact on Congress’s China policy. From the perspective of Beijing, however, this impact has been mostly positive, as the vast majority of “anti-China” bills died in committees. Had it not been for committees serving as gatekeepers, many more China bills would undoubtedly have been passed (in one chamber or both chambers), and Congress’s China policy—and U.S.–China relations for that matter—would probably have been quite different. Also, it should be noted that my findings are not specific to congressional policymaking toward China, but conform to the general pattern of committee power in congressional policy-making.

Presidential veto There have been three presidential vetoes and three unsuccessful congressional overrides respecting China policy.6 The first took place in the immediate aftermath of the Tiananmen Incident. Congress attempted to provide protection for Chinese students who were then studying in the U.S., hence the Emergency Chinese Immigration Relief Act (HR 2712). The bill, sponsored by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), would waive for four years the requirement that they first return to China before applying for new visas or permanent residency. The bill passed the House by a unanimous vote and the Senate by a voice vote. President Bush vetoed the Act on November 30 1989, on the grounds that the Chinese had threatened to cut off all educational exchanges if the bill were enacted into law. In its stead, the president issued an executive order granting Chinese students similar protections. The House voted overwhelmingly (390–25) to override Bush’s veto, but the Senate failed by four votes (62–37) (see Yang 2000: 76–80; Mann 1999). The other two vetoes took place in 1992. The first concerns HR 2212, or the U.S.–China Act of 1991. Sponsored by Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), the bill attached strict human rights conditions for the extension of MFN in 1992. It would bar the president from extending MFN in 1992 unless Beijing accounted for and released all political prisoners arrested during the Tiananmen Incident. It also required China to make “significant progress” in other human rights areas before it could be granted MFN. The bill passed the House 313–112 on July 10 and the Senate 55–44 on July 23 1991. The Senate

Effects of congressional activism

51

did not pass the conference report until February 1992, and Bush promptly vetoed it on March 2. The House quickly voted 357–61 to override Bush’s veto on March 11, but the Senate failed by a vote of 60–38 (Yang 2000: 90–107). Several months later, Donald Pease (D-OH) and Nancy Pelosi introduced HR 5318, or the U.S.–China Act of 1992. It is similar to HR 2212 in that it requires presidential certification of overall Chinese progress in human rights before the granting of MFN. However, it is significantly different from HR 2212 in one aspect: instead of imposing non-MFN tariffs on all Chinese goods, it would target only goods made by China’s state-run enterprises. On July 21 1992, the House passed HR 5318 by a vote of 339–62, and the Senate passed it by voice vote on September 14. Two weeks later, President Bush vetoed the bill. While the House voted 345–74 to override the veto on September 30, the Senate upheld Bush’s veto the next day by a vote of 59–40 (Yang 2000: 107–111). Regardless of why the three vetoes were sustained, which will be discussed later on, the three unsuccessful overriding attempts convey two important points. First, the two-thirds majority requirement essentially guarantees that the president will prevail most of the time in his battles against Congress. Second, bicameralism further enhances presidential dominance. If there were only one chamber, then Bush’s three vetoes almost certainly would have been overridden. Yet the Senate consistently sustained Bush’s vetoes, nullifying whatever victory the House scored vis-à-vis the president. The three veto fights also raise an important question: Why did President Bush’s China policy preferences differ sharply from those of many members of Congress? Bush’s background as the former U.S. liaison officer in Beijing in 1974–1976 is often cited as a key factor behind his determination to prevent Congress—at almost any political cost—from inflicting irrevocable damage to a relationship that had been carefully nurtured since 1972 (e.g., CQ Almanac 1989: 1411–1414). That is, since Bush was personally and intimately involved in the normalization process, he is supposed to have strong incentives to maintain and promote friendly U.S.–China relations regardless of the policy preferences of Congress. However, a close look at executive-legislative interactions in China policy reveals that Bush is merely one of the many presidents whose policy preferences diverged from those of Congress. In the late 1940s, Congress insisted on providing military and economic aid to Chiang Kai-shek despite Truman’s objection (Tsou 1963; Westerfield 1955: Chapter 12, Chapter 16; Grasso 1987; Purifoy 1976; Rourke 1983: 130–145); Carter established diplomatic relations with China despite strong congressional opposition (Sutter 1983; Tierney 1979); and Clinton’s engagement policy was widely criticized on Capitol Hill (Lampton 2001; Mann 1999; Suettinger 2003). Thus a general question arises: Why does the president often disagree with Congress in China policy? Party politics appears to be the major factor that induces executivelegislative disagreements in China policy. Inter-party electoral competition

52

Effects of congressional activism

often motivates members of the opposition party to attack the president’s China policy for political gains, particularly when the president’s party has a minority in Congress. The new Republican majority in 1947 and 1995 launched incessant criticism of Truman and Clinton’s China policy, and the Democratic majority mercilessly attacked Bush’s China policy between 1990 and 1992. Another reason probably has something to do with institutional differences. By constitutional design, members of Congress are expected to be responsive to parochial interests within their districts, while the president follows national interests. Moreover, the two institutions are electorally independent of each other. That is, the president does not owe his office to Congress, nor does he have the authority to appoint or remove a member of Congress. Thus members of Congress frequently advocate foreign policies that are different from or contrary to those of the president’s. Take human rights, for example. Congress initiated the human rights campaign in the early 1970s, but the targets of the campaign were mostly U.S. allies. Out of national security or other strategic concerns, however, the executive branch was unwilling to jump on the congressional bandwagon and criticize its allies for human rights violations (e.g., Cohen 1979; Forsythe 1988; Hehir 1992). In the case of China policy, Congress was most outspoken in its condemnation of the Tiananmen Incident, but President Bush was determined to maintain normal relations with China, a country in which the U.S. has a wide range of vital interests: cultural, economic, strategic, and political. In a word, because of partisan politics and institutional differences, Congress and the president often disagree with each other in China policy in particular and foreign policy in general.

More bark than bite? In the end, primarily because of the various institutional constraints, Congress has rarely been successful in enacting its policy preferences into binding legislation. Table 3.3 shows freestanding China bills that were enacted into law between 1973 and 2006. A total of merely 15 China bills became binding legislation. A denominator is needed in order to calculate the proportion of China bills that were enacted into law. As I pointed out in Chapter 2, 410 China bills were non-binding resolutions that would not have become law even if they had passed. Then there were 167 amendments. Even if an amendment is passed, it is not freestanding legislation. If these two types of bills are excluded, the total number of China bills that could have been enacted into law is 298. Thus a mere 5 percent (15 divided by 298) of eligible China bills were fortunate enough to pass the two chambers and have the blessing of the president’s signature! Of these 15 public laws, the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA) is arguably the most important. It has been the bedrock of U.S.–Taiwan relations since 1979;

Effects of congressional activism

53

Table 3.3 Freestanding China bills enacted into law, 1973–2006 Congress Year

Bill

Public law

Purpose Extend diplomatic privileges and immunities to the Liaison Office of People’s Republic of China and to members thereof Indemnification for any loss or damage to archaeological objects on exhibition in U.S. Taiwan Relations Act

93

1973

S1315

PL 93–22

93

1974

S3304

PL 93–287

96

1979

PL 96–8

96

1979

HR2479 S245 S1916

96

1980

HR6440

PL 96–445

99

1985

SJR238

PL 99–183

101

1990

SJR275

PL 101–299

102

1991

S1216

PL 102–404

106

1999

HR1794

PL 106–137

106

2000

HR4444

PL 106–286

107

2001

HR428

PL 107–10

107

2001

HR2739

PL 107–158

108

2003

HR441 S243

PL 108–28

108

2004

PL 108–235

109

2005

HR3793 HR4019 S2092 HR4562 S2784

PL 96–327

PL 109–287

Authorize OPIC operations in China Establish priorities in the payment of claims against China Approve and implement the agreement for nuclear cooperation between China and the U.S. Designate May 13, 1990, as the National Day in Support of Freedom and Human Rights in China and Tibet Provide for adjustment of immigration status for certain Chinese nationals Support Taiwan’s participation in international organizations, particularly the WHO Grant China permanent normal trade relations Endorse and obtain an observer status for Taiwan at the WHO Amend PL 107–10 to endorse and obtain an observer status for Taiwan at the WHO Amend PL 107–10 to endorse and obtain an observer status for Taiwan at the WHO Endorse and obtain an observer status for Taiwan at the WHO Award a congressional gold medal to Tenzin Gyatso, the Fourteenth Dalai Lama

54

Effects of congressional activism

it has also been the primary source of major conflicts in U.S.–China relations, the most recent being the missile crisis in the Taiwan Strait in 1995–1996. There were five public laws enacted between 1999 and 2004 that urged the executive branch to endorse and obtain an observer status for Taiwan in the World Health Organization. Compared with the TRA, however, these laws have had little impact on the Washington–Taipei–Beijing triangle. Then there were two public laws that declared congressional support for human rights in Tibet. The other laws were either neutral/technical or favorable toward China, such as authorizing the Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC) to operate in China and granting China permanent normal trade relations status. To conclude, the preponderance of evidence indicates that, despite its activism and antagonism, Congress has had minimal success in transforming its policy preferences into binding legislative outcomes. To put it bluntly, Congress’s China policy appears to be more bark than bite. This finding raises two more questions. First, if most China bills were never enacted into law due to inter-chamber disputes, committee screening, and presidential veto, why did members of Congress nonetheless introduce so many of them? Second, does Congress matter in China policy and how? While my answers to these questions may appear to be China-specific, the logic underlying them is applicable to congressional policy-making in general.

Why so many China bills? Short of becoming binding legislation, these bills serve a variety of useful purposes. First, they allow members to stake out positions on issues of potential interest to their constituents, campaign donors, and interest groups (e.g., Mayhew 1974). Consequently, the significance of these bills depends less on their fate on the floor and more on the political signals they send out. For example, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), one of the harshest critics of China’s human rights on Capitol Hill, sponsored a number of bills conditioning MFN renewal on China’s human rights. Fully aware that she was fighting an uphill battle against pro-trade moderates and the president, Pelosi nevertheless introduced these bills because they made her look good among Asian immigrants and Bay Area liberals (Yang 2000: 88). “The fight for human rights is an ethic in San Francisco, make no mistake about that,” she asserted (quoted in Sandalow 1994). Partly because of her relentless crusade for human rights in China, Pelosi had become a rising political star in the early 1990s, which paved the way for her eventual rise to the House Democratic leadership. Second, even if it is a non-binding resolution passed in only one chamber (or both chambers), it nonetheless conveys to the outside world the collective preferences of Congress. If the vote margin is big—overwhelming or unanimous—then other policy-makers in Washington and Beijing should be fully

Effects of congressional activism

55

aware of the potential cost of acting against the collective will of Congress. In other words, though most bills do not appear to have teeth in them, they can induce desirable actions from relevant political actors. This is the law of anticipated reactions (Friedrich 1941). In May 1995, the House unanimously passed a concurrent resolution (H.Con.Res.53) urging President Clinton to grant a visa to Lee Teng-hui, the former Taiwanese president. Two months earlier, the Senate passed the same resolution with only one dissenting vote. In anticipation of even stronger congressional action—mandatory legislation and a successful override if it is vetoed—President Clinton reneged on his promise to the Chinese government and decided to issue a visa to Lee (see Mann 1999: 320–326). Last but not least, though most China bills were never reported out of committees or enacted into law, addressing merely a small number of them could exhaust the administration. As Lampton incisively pointed out: Even if most of the proposed bills stand little chance of becoming law, the administration must devote so much scarce human resources and leadership attention to putting out the bushfires that in its exhaustion it gives in somewhere simply to extinguish the most damaging proposals. (2001: 338) In 1993, President Clinton had to expend a considerable amount time lobbying against the Murkowski Amendment declaring that the TRA supersedes the 1982 Communiqué governing U.S. arms sales to Taiwan (Yang 2000: 189– 190). In 1997, in the midst of congressional debate about MFN renewal and prior to Clinton’s summit meeting with the former Chinese President Jiang Zeming, Christopher Cox (R-CA) initiated 11 separate pieces of legislation on China (CQWR 1997: 2865, 2777). Faced with such a legislative flood, Clinton had no choice but to compromise by increasing funding for Radio Free Asia and stationing more U.S. diplomats in China to monitor human rights, the two options that were least damaging to U.S.–China relations (Lampton 2001: 338).

Does Congress matter in China policy? Since Congress is a legislative body, one is tempted to assess its influence in foreign policy by counting the number of substantive laws it passes. Yet binding legislation is merely one indicator of congressional influence. Through other and less formal means such as creating situations that generate desired reactions from the executive branch, enacting procedural legislation, and framing public opinion, Congress has firmly established itself as a formidable player in China policy. What Lindsay and Ripley wrote about how Congress influences U.S. foreign policy in general also applies to U.S. China policy in particular:

56

Effects of congressional activism But fixating on substantive legislation obscures the fact that Congress influences policy by various indirect means: by setting up situations that generate desired reactions by the executive, by changing the way decisions are made in the executive branch, and by framing public and elite opinion about foreign policy. (Lindsay and Ripley 1993: 18)

The “rule of anticipated reactions” predicts that rational actors will behave strategically, adjusting their actions in anticipation of reactions from other actors (Friedrich 1941). Because of strategic behavior, it is misleading to judge the relative influence of the president or Congress by merely what meets the eye. The president may deter Congress from taking certain actions by making known his policy preferences (e.g., his intention to use the veto). Conversely, Congress can deter the president from taking certain actions by signaling its collective preferences through actual or promised passage of legislation. Thus, Lindsay and Ripley (ibid.: 25) wrote, “The existence of such strategic behavior has important implications for the study of defense and foreign policy: the relative power of Congress and the president cannot be judged solely on the basis of observed behavior.” Examples of anticipated reactions abound in Congress’s China policy. Lee Tenghui’s visit to the U.S., which was discussed shortly before, is a good example of anticipated reactions. Another example comes from U.S. sales of advanced weapons to Taiwan. In 1999, the Clinton administration seemed reluctant to approve sales of long-range early warning radars to Taiwan. Benjamin Gilman (R-NY), then chairman of the House International Relations Committee, wrote to President Clinton to urge his approval. He also wrote to Secretary of State Madeline Albright, threatening to introduce legislation approving such sales. In the end, the administration agreed in principle to sell early warning radars to Taiwan (Kan 2002: 5). Meanwhile, Senator Jesse Helms (R-NC) co-sponsored S 693 (the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act), a bill that was two months later introduced in the House as HR1838 and which eventually passed the House in 2000. Though the bill never became public law because of stiff opposition from a number of Senators, it created an environment in which it became hard for Clinton to reject Taiwan’s arms purchase requests (CQWR 1999: 2605–2607; CQWR 2000: 262, 953; Lampton 2001: 333–334). It is worthwhile saying a few more words about Senator Jesse Helms, who exercised enormous influence on China policy during his tenure as chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in 1995–2000 (see Berke and Myers 1997). His preferences on China policy and his toughness were so well known on Capitol Hill that he often exercised influence by doing nothing (e.g., U.S. Congress 1997b, 1998c, 2000a, 2000c).7 As Lampton (2001: 339, italics original) pointed out, “In politics as well as in life, fear can be a powerful force; simply being tough and dedicated deters both the executive branch and other legislators from even attempting to pursue certain courses

Effects of congressional activism

57

of action.” In the 1999 search for a U.S. ambassador to China, for example, several candidates were ruled out simply because they were presumably unacceptable to Helms. In a word, because of strategic behavior resulting from anticipated reactions, “[t]he influence of legislators like Helms . . . often is measured as much by what did not happen as by the legislation they eventually shepherd into law” (ibid.: 339, italics original). Instead of prescribing (or proscribing) policy actions for the executive branch, as substantive legislation does, procedural legislation establishes the processes by which policy decisions are made within the executive branch (Lindsay and Ripley 1993). Through procedural legislation like reporting requirements or the creation of new agencies, Congress has firmly put its imprint on many aspects of China policy. The annual State Department report on China’s human rights, which was first mandated by Congress in 1980, forces the administration to include human rights as an important aspect of U.S. China policy. Because the report always offers unflattering assessments of the overall human rights situation in China, the Chinese government has never failed to rebut the report (e.g., BBC Chinese 2004, 2005, 2006). In fact, starting from 1999 Beijing began to issue an annual report on U.S. human rights. As a result of Congress’s procedural legislation, the annual State Department report and the Chinese report have become the symbol and a major source of U.S.–China confrontations on human rights. Another example of procedural legislation is the creation of the Office of the Special Coordinator for Tibetan Affairs within the State Department under Public Law 107–228. A number of legislators, including some of the heavyweights on Capitol Hill like Jesse Helms, Bob Dole, and Daniel Patrick Moynihan, have been strong supporters of human rights in Tibet.8 Congress has also held a number of hearings on alleged Chinese human rights violations in Tibet (e.g., U.S. Congress 1988, 1997a, 2001b, 2002). The executive branch, by contrast, has been largely quiescent on the issue, except when the State Department issues its annual report on human rights China, which includes human rights in Tibet. To ensure that the executive branch includes Tibet in its overall China policy and to provide access to human rights groups and Tibetans, Congress created the Office in 1997. Since Beijing has claimed sovereignty over Tibet since 1949, it condemns the creation of the Office as another instance of U.S. interference in Chinese domestic affairs (e.g., BBC Chinese 2001; People’s Daily 1997). Probably the best example of procedural legislation is the Jackson–Vanik Amendment that prohibits the president from granting MFN to Communist countries unless he waives the requirement. Originally enacted to punish the former Soviet Union for its restrictions on Jewish emigration, the Amendment became the statutory tool with which a frustrated Congress tried to shape China policy in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Incident. Because of this procedural requirement, the president and Congress locked horns over China policy each year between 1990 and 2000, and twice the president

58

Effects of congressional activism

had to use his veto power to save unconditional MFN for China. While the president always managed to renew unconditional MFN for China, the annual debate nonetheless caused many uncertainties in and considerable damage to U.S.–China relations. Moreover, the annual debates on MFN renewal forced the administration to treat human rights as a top priority in China policy. By holding public hearings in which legislators as well as outside groups and experts testify on relevant policy issues, members of Congress can greatly shape public preferences, which in turn can influence the president’s policy options. As Lampton (2001: 336) aptly pointed out, “Often televised, hearings can cumulatively help shape media, congressional, and ultimately popular discourse and create boundaries that the executive branch will itself decide not to transgress.” In a series of high-profile hearings held in 1966, Congress discussed the state of U.S.–China relations and came to the conclusion that the U.S. should readjust its foreign policy by reaching out to China (CQ Almanac 1966: 424–429). These hearings laid the critical foundation of public support for a normalized relationship with China, which in turn encouraged and facilitated the Kissinger–Nixon initiatives to form a strategic alliance with China. One reason that human rights has remained a top priority in U.S. China policy since 1989 is frequent congressional hearings. Christopher Smith (R-NJ), former chairman of the House International Relations Subcommittee on International Operations and currently chairman of the Subcommittee on Africa, Global Human Rights, and International Operations, is one of the most vocal critics of Chinese human rights on Capitol Hill. He has held the largest number of hearings on human rights in China (e.g., U.S. Congress 1998a, 1998b, 2005a, 2005b, 2005c, 2006a, 2006b). According to Lampton (2001: 336), Smith held at least five sets of hearings on China’s human rights in 1995, the first year of his chairmanship. In a February 2006 hearing, Smith blasted the top executives of U.S. internet companies for allegedly aiding the Chinese government in cracking down on political dissent (U.S. Congress 2006b) He even invited Chinese officials to testify before his hearings. Each time the Chinese would refuse, and Smith would view it as Chinese unwillingness to cooperate on human rights issues, hence more hearings on Chinese human rights (Lampton 2001: 336–337). These hearings undoubtedly have contributed to the salience of the issue among American people and their support for a strong human rights policy toward China. In a word, it is misleading to judge Congress’s impact on China policy by simply counting the number of bills enacted into law. Congress has significantly influenced China policy through procedural legislation, creating situations that generate desired reactions by the executive branch, and by framing public opinion. On balance, then, Congress’s influence lies not so much in telling the executive branch what to do as in setting up road blocks in U.S.– China relations. Sutter thus wrote:

Effects of congressional activism

59

The overall effect of such strong congressional criticism has been to act as a drag on forward movements in U.S.–China relations. The constant critiques divert administration policy-makers from other tasks, forcing them to defend and justify their China policies before skeptical and sometimes hostile Congress. (2001: 108)

4

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations1

Congress, of course, is oriented not to academic theory but constituencies— where voices, financial contributions, and votes carry decisive weight in elections. In trade matters, as a result, it tends to listen to well-organized groups that have a clear focus of concern, strong local support, and a situation susceptible to ready emotional understanding: the loss of jobs of automakers in Detroit or steel workers in Pennsylvania or garment and apparel workers in North Carolina. (Mark Bisnow 1990: 283) When we trade with other countries, we export more than farm equipment, soybeans, or computer chips. We export part of our society. Part of our American values and ideals [sic]. This is good for the WTO. It is good for China. It is good for the United States. And I believe it will help keep the peace. (Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Congressional Record 2000: S791) Do my colleagues know that . . . China has still not accounted for those missing or detained in connection with the 1989 Tiananmen Square demonstrators? Eleven years . . . And this administration and this Congress wants [sic] to grant China permanent trade status? Shame. (Representative Frank Wolf (R-VA), Congressional Record 2000: H514)

Booming economic ties While strategic cooperation formed the foundation of U.S.–China relations during the latter part of the Cold War, today economic ties are the bedrock of the bilateral relationship. Some statistics on bilateral trade will illuminate the growing interdependence between the two economies. China is the third largest trading partner of the U.S. and the U.S. is China’s top trading partner. Total bilateral trade has grown at an exponential rate, from $2.3 billion in 1979 to $343 billion in 2006 (see Table 4.1). U.S. exports to China have increased from $1.7 billion to $55.2 billion, with an estimated 199,000 highpaying American jobs dependent on exports to China (Scott 2005: 4). Meanwhile, U.S. imports from China have increased at an even higher rate, from $592 million in 1979 to $287.8 billion in 2006 (see Table 4.1). The

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations

61

Table 4.1 U.S.–China trade in goods, 1973–2006 (millions of dollars) Year

U.S. exports

U.S. imports

Total trade

U.S. balance

1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978 1979 1980 1981 1982 1983 1984 1985 1986 1987 1988 1989 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006

689 806 303 134 171 820 1,724 3,754 3,602 2,912 2,176 3,004 3,855 3,106 3,497 5,021 5,755 4,806 6,278 7,418 8,762 9,281 11,754 11,992 12,862 14,241 13,111 16,185 19,182 22,127 28,367 34,721 41,925 55,224

63 114 157 201 200 324 592 1,058 1,865 2,283 2,244 3,064 3,861 4,771 6,293 8,510 11,989 15,237 18,969 25,727 31,539 38,786 45,543 51,512 62,557 71,168 81,788 100,018 102,278 125,192 152,436 196,699 243,470 287,773

752 920 460 335 371 1,144 2,316 4,812 5,467 5,195 4,420 6,068 7,716 7,877 9,790 13,531 17,744 20,043 25,247 33,145 40,301 48,067 57,297 63,504 75,419 85,409 94,899 116,203 121,460 147,319 180,803 231,420 285,395 342,997

626 692 146 −67 −29 496 1,132 2,696 1,737 629 −68 −60 −6 −1,665 −2,796 −3,489 −6,234 −10,431 −12,691 −18,309 −22,777 −29,505 −33,789 −39,520 −49,695 −56,927 −68,677 −83,833 −83,096 −103,065 −124,069 −161,978 −201,545 −232,549

Source: 1973–1984, Harding (1992: Table A-2); 1985–2004, U.S. Census Bureau.

U.S. alone absorbs about one-third of all Chinese exports to the world. For example, China has been the top supplier of footwear and toys to American consumers since 1991; in 2005, Chinese imports alone accounted for 71 percent of total U.S. footwear imports and 78 percent of total U.S. toys imports. Since 2003, China has been the leading source of American apparel imports—both knit and not-knit (see Table 4.2). As a result, the U.S. has been running an enormous trade deficit with China. In fact, the last time the U.S. had trade surplus was back in 1982. Between 1983 and 2006, U.S. trade deficit with China increased from an insignificant $68 million to $232.5 billion (see Table 4.1). The influx of

1989

1990

1991

1992

11.72 5.26 45 1

1

1994

11.18 4.52 40

1993

22.22 3.28 15 1

1

2

2 21.06 3.51 17

13.89 1.38 10

12.19 1.57 13

1

12.29 6.22 51

1

12.11 5.82 48

1995

1997

1998

1999

2000

2001

2002

2003

2004

2005

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

1

3

3

3

3

2

2

1

1

1

1

1

2

2

2

2

2

1

1

1

22.87 25.99 28.14 28.69 32.80 31.69 30.90 33.19 35.29 37.51 3.51 4.16 3.81 3.75 4.17 4.15 4.48 5.49 6.62 10.23 15 16 14 13 13 13 14 17 19 27

2

15.06 18.65 21.65 23.71 26.41 26.86 27.82 29.72 31.58 33.29 1.51 1.84 1.86 2.02 2.03 2.28 2.62 3.20 4.10 6.58 10 10 9 9 8 8 9 11 13 19

1

13.96 16.58 17.84 18.23 19.25 20.27 21.44 21.04 21.96 24.45 7.50 9.36 10.55 11.08 12.38 12.22 14.44 16.10 17.22 19.14 54 56 59 61 64 60 67 77 78 78

1

12.75 14.02 13.88 14.07 14.85 15.24 15.39 15.60 16.51 17.93 6.39 7.41 8.01 8.43 9.19 9.76 10.23 10.57 11.35 12.72 50 53 58 60 62 64 66 68 69 71

1996

Source: Office of Trade and Industry Information (OTII), Manufacturing and Services, International Trade Administration, U.S. Department of Commerce.

Apparel articles and accessories, not knit etc. US Total 13.36 14.36 14.89 17.97 19.86 From China 1.59 2.11 2.30 3.07 3.79 China % 12 15 15 17 19 US Total Ranking 2 2 1 1 1

Apparel articles and accessories, knit or crochet US Total 8.58 8.62 8.85 10.29 10.63 From China 1.07 1.09 1.13 1.40 1.51 China % 12 13 13 14 14 US Total Ranking 4 2 3 2 2

Toys, games and sport equipment; parts and accessories US Total 7.80 8.47 8.18 10.09 10.94 11.10 From China 1.73 2.14 2.61 3.69 4.17 5.15 China % 22 25 32 37 38 46 US Total Ranking 2 2 1 1 1 1

Footwear, gaiters etc. and parts thereof US Total 8.39 9.58 9.56 10.17 From China 0.72 1.48 2.53 3.40 China % 9 15 26 33 US Total Ranking 5 3 1 1

Year

Table 4.2 U.S. imports of selected commodities from China in 1989–2005 (billions of dollars)

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations

63

Chinese products arguably have had tremendous negative impact on American jobs and wages. Unable to compete with cheap Chinese imports, many American manufacturing businesses were forced to close, resulting in the loss of thousands of jobs. According to one estimate, U.S. trade with China eliminated a net 1,460,000 jobs in 1989–2003 (Scott 2005: 4). The astronomical trade deficit with China has put both the White House and Congress under political heat, but for two reasons the political heat has been particularly intense for Congress.2 First, of the three branches of government, only Congress has the constitutional authority to regulate foreign trade. Second, because of the electoral connection, constituents adversely affected by Chinese imports—mostly blue-collar workers and labor unions— have put increasing pressure on members of Congress to address skyrocketing trade deficit (see Sostek 2006; Trumka and Hughes 2006). And Congress has indeed been actively pursuing various legislative measures aimed at reducing trade deficit. In 2005, Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) co-sponsored a bill that would impose a 27.5 percent tariff on Chinese imports unless Beijing appreciates its allegedly undervalued currency, which is believed to be partly responsible for the huge trade deficit (see MacLeod 2006; Marquand 2006). In the House, representatives from the manufacturing belt like Tim Ryan (D-OH), Mike Rogers (R-MI), and Phil English (R-PA) also introduced similar bills.

Congress and U.S.–China trade Even before the two countries had diplomatic relations, bilateral trade was on the mind of a handful of members of Congress. As early as 1973, Senator Thomas J. McIntyre (D-NH) sponsored a joint resolution requiring Secretaries of Agriculture and Commerce to report on proposed grain sales to China, including the possible effects of such sales on U.S. domestic grain market, consumers, and farmers. In 1974, Senator Mike Mansfield (D-MT) introduced a bill calling on the president to grant Most Favored Nation (MFN) trade status to China.3 In the following year, Senator Richard Stone (D-FL) introduced a resolution calling for conclusion of trade agreements between the two countries. In 1977, Congressman Les Aucoin (D-OR) sponsored four bills authorizing the Export–Import Bank to extend credit to China. No sooner had the two countries exchanged diplomatic recognition than Congress began to consider legislation on trade with China. On December 13 1979, the House Ways and Means Committee, by a 24–8 vote, approved a three-year trade agreement negotiated between the Carter administration and the Chinese government. The full House approved the agreement by a 294–88 vote on January 24 1980, and the Senate approved it the same day with a 74–8 vote. In addition to granting China MFN, the trade agreement also encouraged business relations between the two countries (including the establishment of consulates and the promotion of visits by business groups),

64

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations

committed each country to protect the patents, trademarks, and copyrights of the other country, and provided for timely consultations to resolve issues like market disruptions caused by imports (CQ Almanac 1980: 356–357; CQ Almanac 1979: 160). In the decade after normalization of relations, Congress appeared to be uninterested in regulating bilateral trade, conceding most initiatives to the executive branch and the business community. The handful of bills and amendments (five in total) introduced during this period were mostly aimed at accelerating the flow of goods across the Pacific. In 1981, Representative Sam Gibbons (D-FL) introduced a bill permitting the importation of Chinese fur, and Representative Ralph Regula (R-OH) introduced in 1984 an amendment designating China as a friendly country in a program that sells dairy products acquired by the Commodity Credit Corporation. Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV) sponsored an amendment in 1985 that urged Commerce and State to increase U.S.–China trade, with a view toward creating more American jobs and increasing the American share of the Chinese import market. The exceptions were two bills—introduced by Representatives Richard Schulze (R-PA) and Philip Crane (R-IL) respectively in 1982 and 1983—that disapproved of presidential renewal of China’s MFN status. Just as U.S.–China trade was heading into a period of unprecedented growth, the Tiananmen Incident took place. Outrage against Beijing plus frustration with President Bush’s policy of “business as usual” prompted Congress to reexamine its trade policy toward China. If Congress had the authority to approve MFN for China, then it apparently had the authority to disapprove it or to attach conditions to its renewal. What ensued was a tenyear battle between the White House and Congress over MFN renewal in particular and China policy in general that, as President Clinton lamented, “divided our foreign policy and weakened our approach over China” (Public Papers of the Presidents 1993: 770). Amidst the annual ritual of congressional-executive skirmish over MFN, the U.S. and China signed an agreement on China’s accession to the World Trade Organization (WTO) on November 15 1999. Failure to reach a trade agreement with the U.S.—due to a host of issues such as market access, IPR, and export subsidy—had been the major barrier to China’s efforts to rejoin the WTO.4 Things started to speed up when the Chinese premier Zhu Rongji visited Washington in April 1999 and offered an attractive package of concessions. However, against the backdrop of Republican-led investigations of alleged Chinese theft of U.S. nuclear weapons secrets and illegal Chinese campaign contributions, President Clinton turned down Zhu’s offer (CQ Almanac 1999: 23: 3–7; Mufson and Blustein 1999). But the barrage of criticism from supporters of Clinton’s engagement policy, in particular the pro-trade moderates in Congress and the business community, coupled with the administration’s concern about sending China’s preeminent reformer home empty-handed, forced Clinton to reverse his initial decision and to

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations

65

pledge quick resumption of the WTO talks (Blustein 1999a, 1999b). Tough negotiations resumed, but it was not until November 15 that the two countries reached the landmark agreement. Now it was up to Congress to approve the trade agreement. More specifically, Congress needed to remove China from the Jackson–Vanik Amendment and grant it permanent normal trade relations (PNTR) if the two countries wanted to reap the full benefits of China’s WTO membership.5 The House approved China’s PNTR by a narrow vote of 237–197 on May 24 2000, with better than one-third of Democrats (73–138) voting alongside nearly three-quarters of Republicans (164–57).6 The bill encountered much less opposition in the Senate, and attempts by the bill’s opponents to amend the bill failed. The full chamber approved it 83–15 on September 19 (Republican 46–8, Democrat 37–7) (CQ Almanac 2000: 20: 3–24).

Legislative battle over PNTR This brief review of congressional involvement in U.S.–China trade relations raises an important question: Why did some members support trade with China while others oppose it? To answer this question, I examine the 2000 House vote on PNTR. It is arguably the only China-related House vote that dealt with issues primarily concerning U.S.–China trade relations such as tariffs, market access, and special import protection. HR 4444 originally contained certain provisions concerning monitoring human rights in China, Taiwan’s accession to the WTO, and Chinese forced labor products, but none of these provisions were enacted into law (see CQ Almanac 2000: 20: 12). The Senate also voted on PNTR, but the vote was too lopsided (83–15) to be suitable for statistical analysis. Apart from the PNTR vote, there were dozens of votes on the renewal of China’s MFN status. However, one can argue that these votes were primarily concerned with China’s human rights and only secondarily with U.S.–China trade. Since it had first approved MFN for China in 1980, Congress had never objected to presidential renewal until 1990, one year after the Chinese crackdown on pro-democracy demonstrators on the Tiananmen Square. Outraged by Beijing’s actions and frustrated by the Bush administration’s China policy (e.g., the two secret missions to reestablish relationship with Beijing immediately after the Tiananmen Incident), Congress turned to MFN renewal in an attempt to bring about Chinese human rights progress in particular and to shape U.S.–China policy in general (see Harding 1992; Lilley and Willkie 1994; Mann 1999; Yang 2000). Thus the whole MFN debate should be viewed in the context of congressional attempts to change China’s human rights practices in the aftermath of the Tiananmen Incident. Moreover, as Nokken (2003) forcefully argued, the MFN votes and the PNTR vote were probably different because the rules and procedures governing them were different. Under the rules governing MFN, presidential success is virtually guaranteed from the outset, since a joint resolution to disapprove

66

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations

of presidential renewal must be passed in both chambers and—even if passed—is subject to presidential veto. Faced with such an institutional structure, members nonetheless scheduled these recorded votes because these votes “provided them with the opportunity to secure publicity for their cause [especially human rights] and to garner ‘position-taking’ points with voters back home” (ibid.: 155). What resulted was a coalition of ideological ends voting against the middle, or what he called EATM voting. The PNTR, he argued, is a normal piece of legislation that requires majority approval in Congress as well as White House support to be enacted into law. Nokken found that when it came up for a vote, many members changed positions, with Republicans switching to support and Democrats to opposition. The result was less EATM distribution on the vote. Nokken thus concluded, “When the outcome was uncertain, and when the matter facing the House was a straightforward policy vote that would be dealt with by the Senate and president, the EATM distribution subsides noticeably” (ibid.: 165). Excluding these MFN votes, there were merely six House votes on trade issues relating to China. Three of them were unanimous.7 The other three votes (all in 1997) were contested votes, but a close look indicates that they were not pure trade votes. The first of the three votes was on an amendment that directed the Export–Import Bank to give preferences to U.S. companies in China that had voluntarily adopted a code of conduct consistent with international human rights. The remaining two votes appeared to be parliamentary tactics, as both of them were on motions to table the appeal of the ruling of the Chair of the Ways and Means that a motion to recommit was irrelevant.8 As a result of these considerations, I treat the MFN votes as votes on human rights and analyze them in Chapter 6. In this chapter, I examine only the PNTR vote. Hypotheses After the two countries signed the trade agreement on China’s accession to the WTO in late 1999, the Clinton White House immediately started a wellorganized and high profile campaign for its approval by Congress (CQWR 2000: 1121; Smith 2000). “China is not simply agreeing to import more of our products. It is agreeing to import one of democracy’s most cherished values, economic freedom,” said the president (quoted in CQWR 2000: 552). He appointed Commerce Secretary William M. Daley and Deputy White House Chief of Staff Steve Ricchetti to launch an all-out campaign. Clinton’s campaign on Capitol Hill focused on House Democrats who appeared to be reluctant to support a trade deal opposed by labor unions. In order to woo wavering members, Clinton also arranged trips to China so that these members could see with their own eyes the positive changes that had occurred in that country since 1989 (Smith 2000). Two weeks before the scheduled House vote, Clinton arranged a star-studded ceremony to tout the benefits of

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations

67

U.S.–China trade. The guests included former presidents Gerald Ford and Jimmy Carter, former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and Minnesota’s Independent governor Jesse Ventura (CQWR 2000: 1121). Hypothesis 1: Because of pressure from President Clinton, Democrats will be more likely to vote for PNTR than Republicans, other things being equal. Since constituency interests are arguably most clearly defined on trade issues, I expect significant constituency influence on the PNTR vote. In particular, the interests of farmers, big retailers and wholesalers, and labor unions are expected to have significant impact on the vote. The U.S. has been the world’s leading exporter of agricultural products. In the early 1980s, it alone accounted for nearly one-third (32 percent to be exact) of the world’s agricultural export market, and its share in 1999 was 18 percent (Economic Research Service 2001b: 1). In the same year, the overall export share of U.S. agricultural production was 15 percent (Economic Research Service 2000: 1). In 2000, the U.S. exported $51.6 billion worth of agricultural products, which generated 740,000 full-time civilian jobs (including 444,000 jobs in non-farm sectors), and a third of U.S. cropland went into export channels (Economic Research Service 2001a). China has been a leading market for American farmers since the two countries established diplomatic relations in 1979. It was the seventh largest foreign market for U.S. farm products between 1997 and 2001; if Hong Kong is included, then China became the fourth largest (Becker and Hanrahan 2002: 1). The U.S. is the largest supplier of agricultural products to China, accounting for an average of 24 percent of China’s agricultural import market between 1997 and 1999. In 1999, U.S. share of China’s imports of soybean, soy oil, hides, and poultry meat was 58 percent, 39 percent, 44 percent, and 64 percent respectively (Foreign Agricultural Service 2001: 14). With significantly reduced tariffs—hence more market access for American farmers—once it was admitted into the WTO, China was expected to import more U.S. agricultural products, raising average U.S. farm prices from 0.5 percent to 3 percent over the 2002–2009 baseline. And U.S. exports and net farm income could increase by US$900 million and US$800 million, respectively, by 2009 (Becker and Hanrahan 2002: 2). Given the high stakes American farmers have in U.S.–China trade, it is not surprising that members from farm districts seemed to be particularly supportive of PNTR. For example, Greg Walden (R-OR) supported PNTR because the Oregon Potato Commission estimated that Chinese imports of frozen French fries would increase from 15,000 metric tons in 1997 to 250,000 metric tons in 2005 (U.S. Congress 2001c: 13). Fully aware of the importance of Chinese consumers for Iowa soybean growers, Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) also championed China’s WTO membership (Congressional Record 2000: S791).

68

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations Hypothesis 2: Support for PNTR will be positively associated with farm employment in a congressional district.

In addition to agriculture, other export-competitive industries have also benefited from the China market. The Boeing Company is an illuminating case. By the end of the first quarter of 2006, 61 percent of China’s passenger aircrafts were Boeing-made. And the China market is still growing, as an estimated 2,600 new passenger aircrafts worth US$213 billion will be needed for the next two decades (Boeing Company 2006). Other big companies like GE and Microsoft have also reaped enormous profits from the China market. Thus, generally speaking, the more a district exports to China, the more likely its representative is expected to vote for PNTR. Hypothesis 3: The magnitude of a district’s exports to China will be positively associated with support for PNTR, holding other variables constant. American retailers and wholesalers also have enormous stakes in U.S.–China trade. According to Zakaria (2005), Wal-Mart—the largest retailer in the world—alone imports US$18 billion worth of goods from China annually. Eighty percent of Wal-Mart’s suppliers—6,000 in total—are located in China. Cheap Chinese products like footwear, toys, and apparel (see Table 4.2) have saved American consumers more than US$600 billion in the past decade (ibid.: 29). In his testimony before Congress, Robert Hall, Vice President of the National Retail Association, cited estimates from the Trade Partnership that “U.S. imports of consumer goods alone from China in 1996 supported more than 2.4 million American jobs in such high-paying sectors as manufacturing (cash registers and trucks to transport the goods to store), finance and insurance, transportation, wholesaling, and retailing” (U.S. Congress 1997c: 185). Admittedly, what is good for retailers and wholesalers may not be good for their employees. For example, criticism of Wal-Mart’s alleged exploitation of workers—low wages, no health benefits, etc.—attests to conflicting interests between employers and employees. Nonetheless, employment in retail/wholesale industries is a relatively good, indirect measure of the political influence of retail/wholesale industries in a particular congressional district. Hypothesis 4: Employment in retail/wholesale industries will be positively associated with support for PNTR, controlling for other factors. While American farmers and retailers/wholesalers have generally benefited from trade with China, labor unions seemed to have been most adversely affected by it and hence were most vocal in their opposition to PNTR (Connolly 2000; CQWR 2000: 907–11; Greenhouse 2000; Kahn 2000b). According to one estimate, nearly 1.5 million jobs were eliminated due to U.S.

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations

69

trade with China in 1989–2003 and many of these lost jobs were in the heavily unionized manufacturing industry (Scott 2005: 4). The plight of the textile and apparel industry perhaps best illustrates the adverse impact of Chinese imports on American jobs. In 2004, Chinese textile and apparel exports to the U.S. were valued at about $17 billion, or about 20 percent of all American clothing imports (Barboza 2005). Between 1989 and 2003, 59,577 textile jobs and 91,617 apparel jobs were allegedly lost due to Chinese imports; they accounted for 13.4 percent of all manufacturing jobs lost to China trade (Scott 2005: 15). In the first three months of 2005, Chinese exports increased by more than 63 percent over a year ago, largely due to the abolition of the global textile quota in January 2005. As a result, an additional 17,000 jobs were reportedly displaced in the first three months of 2005 due to the closure of 11 textile and apparel plants (Barboza 2005; Iritani and Lee 2005). Consequently, labor union leaders were steadfastly opposed to PNTR. The top three union leaders—John J. Sweeney of A.F.L.-C.I.O, Jay Mazur of United, and Lenore Miller of Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union—resigned from a presidential panel on PNTR out of frustration with the administration’s China trade policy (Kahn 2000a). John Sweeney called it “disgustingly hypocritical for the White House to posture for workers’ rights in the global economy at the same time it prostrates itself for a deal with China that treats human rights as a disposable nuisance” (quoted in Kaiser 1999).9 Labor unions organized massive grassroots campaigns and brought nearly 13,000 members to Capitol Hill in April 2000 to put pressure on Congress (CQWR 2000: 907–11).10 Some union leaders even threatened to campaign against Democrats who voted for the trade bill (Jordan 2000). For some Democrats, the threat was not a bluff but a real one, as labor PACs significantly reduced campaign contributions to Democrats who voted for the North American Free Trade Agreement in 1993 (Engel and Jackson 1998). Hypothesis 5: The higher the percentage of unionized labor in a district, the more likely a member from that district is to vote against PNTR, other things being equal. Moreover, the Democratic Party is expected to be more responsive to the interests of labor unions than the Republican Party.11 Given the high stakes of constituency interests involved in trade policy, the two parties have traditionally adopted rather distinct positions roughly corresponding to the broad interests of their respective electoral bases. Republicans tend to be more attentive to business interests and more supportive of free trade, whereas Democrats are more inclined to support labor unions and hence protectionist policies (Gartzke and Wrighton 1998; Gibson 2000; O’Halloran 1994). This is what Bailey and Brady (1998: 528) called “interparty heterogeneity of electoral strategies.” Thus, in the final analysis, partisanship can be

70

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations

viewed as “constituency differences translated into issues” (Davidson and Oleszek 1990: 130). Hypothesis 6: Since Democrats are expected to be more likely to oppose PNTR due to pressure from labor unions, the coefficient for the interaction term Democrat × Union Strength should be significant and negative. Also, it should be noted that both parties had a hard time forming a unified front on PNTR. On the Democratic side, opponents of PNTR were mostly human rights activists and environmentalists from the liberal wing of the party, and on the Republican side, social conservatives and defense hawks from the conservative wing of the GOP (CQWR 2000: 89; CQ Almanac 1998: 23: 3). As a result, pro-trade Republicans and Democrats found themselves in opposition to the ideological wings of both parties on the PNTR debate. A CQ Weekly Report staff writer vividly captured the political scene: In any other context, it might have seemed surreal, as long-time political enemies from the political left and right chatted amiably. Rep. Christopher H. Smith, R-N.J., who is best known for his anti-abortion activism, complimented his frequent opponent on that issue but ally against the China bill, Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif . . . But all had a belief in common: that their adversaries would sell out America’s moral standing—its desire to export basic freedoms, decent working conditions and environmental protection—to make a buck. (CQWR 2000: 910) Hypothesis 7: The ideological wings of both parties will be more likely to vote against PNTR than moderates, controlling for other factors. Finally, it is worth noting that many members opposed PNTR because they believed that the annual review of MFN gave Congress crucial leverage on human rights in China. Chris Smith (R-NJ), a strong critic of China’s human rights, argued that “the annual debate and the possibility of MFN revocation are arguably the most important leverage the U.S. still has to influence human rights situation in China” and that “the permanent surrender of our MFN leverage ought to be unthinkable at this point” (U.S. Congress 2000b: 3, 2001c: 24). Minority Leader Dick Gephardt (D-MO) also felt “uncomfortable with just taking away a process that is in place, that does provide some pressure on China, and leaving nothing to replace it” (CQWR 2000: 850). David Bonior (D-MI) said, “If you reward China with permanent trade status, you lose all leverage” (quoted in Shesgreen 2000).

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations

71

Data and methodology Due to the lack of district-level data, I use state-level data for two variables: Union Strength and Exports to China. Union Strength is the percentage of unionized workers, and Exports to China is the proportion of exports to China out of a state’s total exports. Data for the other two constituency variables are district-level and come from the 2000 census. Farm Employment is the total number of farmers and farmer managers divided by civilian labor force. Similarly, Retail/Wholesale Employment is the percentage of retail and wholesale workers in civilian labor force. President’s Party is coded 1 if a member belongs to the president’s party and 0 otherwise. To test the hypothesis that the ideological wings of both parties are more likely to vote against PNTR than pro-trade moderates, I use the absolute value of the commonly used DW-NOMINATE score (hereafter referred to as DW score) (Poole and Rosenthal 1997). Since the original value of DW score almost always ranges from −1 to 1, its absolute value ranges from 0 to 1. Because both liberals (negative scores) and conservatives (positive scores) are expected to vote against pro-trade moderates, high absolute DW scores should be positively associated with nay votes. In other words, the absolute value of DW score is expected to have a negative sign. Given the usually high correlation between party and ideology, on the one hand, and constituency variables, on the other hand, including both in the same regression may dampen the effects of one or the other.12 Thus I first run a regression with only Union Strength, Farm Employment, and Retail/ Wholesale Employment. Then I add party and ideology, the interaction term, and Exports to China sequentially. I treat Exports to China differently from the other three constituency variables because data on state exports are available only after 1999, which means that when I analyze roll call votes on U.S.– Japan trade in the 1980s in Chapter 7, I will not be able to include state exports to Japan. Yet it is essential to have the same set of variables if I want to compare congressional roll voting on trade across different countries. On the other hand, it is also important that I use the best available data to explain roll call behavior. As a result, I include Exports to China here, but only after I have run regressions with the other three constituency variables that will be included in regression analyses in later chapters. Data sources are contained in the Appendix. Since the dependent variable is a dichotomous variable that takes on only binary values (1 or 0), I use logit regression. The coefficients of a logit regression represent logarithm of odds, not probabilities. To convert them into probabilities, I use the SPost module in STATA developed by Long and Freese (2003). More specifically, I use the post-estimation command “prchange” to arrive at the changes in probabilities when the value of an independent variable increases by one standard deviation, holding other variables at their means. This is the method that will be used in later chapters too.

72

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations

Statistical findings Table 4.3 reports the coefficients of logit regression and Table 4.4 reports probabilities converted from these coefficients. Model 1 is the basic model with three constituency variables. Members from farm districts seemed to be aware of the potential benefits of an even more open China market for their constituents, as the probability of voting for PNTR increases by 0.122 if a district’s farming employment increases by one standard deviation, holding other variables at their means. However, neither Union Strength nor Retail/Wholesale Employment is statistically significant, even though both of them are in the hypothesized direction. This is a rather surprising finding, particularly in light of strong labor pressure on members of Congress. State-level data might be responsible for the poor performance of Union Strength. More important, perhaps, is the possibility that many Democrats—those who believed that China did not deserve PNTR due to its human rights and environmental problems and that free trade would do more harm than good to America—would have voted against PNTR without pressure from labor unions. Also notice that the explanatory power of Model 1 is rather weak, as indicated by the low pseudo R2 (0.043). This suggests that constituency interests as measured by the three variables did not have much impact on the PNTR vote. Party and ideology are added to Model 2. The first thing to notice is that with the addition of these two variables, pseudo R2 increases considerably to Table 4.3 Logit analysis of the House vote on HR 4444 Independent variables

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Model 4

Union strength

−.024 (.017) .083 (.065) .244** (.068)

−.023 (.018) −.098 (.077) .165* (.068) −1.914** (.244) −3.342** (.765)

.013 (.028) −.091 (.077) .162* (.068) −1.001 (.578) −2.910** (.804) −.066 (.039)

−286.082 .043 434

−244.223 .179 432

−242.740 .184 432

.013 (.028) −.096 (.077) .156* (.069) −1.051 (.584) −3.039** (.812) −.067 (.039) .247* (.110) −240.065 .193 432

Retail/wholesale employment Farm employment President’s party (Democrat) Absolute DW score Democrat × union strength Exports to China Log likelihood Pseudo R2 N

Notes: Cell entries are logit coefficients. Numbers in parentheses are standard errors. ** Significant at 0.01; * Significant at 0.05.

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations

73

Table 4.4 Increases in probabilities associated with one standard deviation increase in independent variables (HR 4444) Independent variables Union strength Retail/wholesale employment Farm employment President’s party (Democrat) Absolute DW score Democrat × union strength Exports to China

Model 1

Model 2

.122

.083 −.440 −.126

Model 3

Model 4

.081

.078

−.110

−.114 .067

Note: Only significant coefficients are reported.

0.179, as opposed to 0.043 in Model 1. It appears that party and ideology, not constituency interests, exerted the primary influence on members’ votes. Contrary to my expectation, the president’s party has a negative sign. This means that being a Democrat actually decreases the probability of voting for PNTR by a hefty 0.44, when other variables are held at their means. The enormous pressure from labor unions might have caused the defection of nearly two-thirds of Democrats despite an all-out campaign by their president. Yet this explanation is problematic because Union Strength is controlled for and is not statistically significant in either Model 1 or Model 2. Also, the correlation between Union Strength and President’s Party is merely 0.172 (significant at 0.01), which rules out the possibility that high correlation between the two variables washed out the effects of Union Strength. Furthermore, Bailey and Brady (1998) reported evidence that controlling for ideology and other variables, Senate Democrats were more likely than Republicans to vote for NAFTA and GATT under the Clinton presidency. They argued that this finding “might reflect efforts by President Clinton to either persuade or move Democrats on trade votes” (ibid.: 534). Gartzke and Wrighton also found that House Democrats were more likely to vote for GATT than Republicans, controlling for ideology and constituency interests. They thus wrote: Democrats were more interested in bolstering the legislative record of a president from their own party than they were in maintaining a traditional opposition to free trade agreements. Republicans tended to oppose legislation from the opposition, rather than supporting a bill advancing long-held principles.13 (1998: 47) So why did House Democrats support Clinton on GATT but abandon him on PNTR? Two factors appear to be responsible for the Democrats’ different positions on the two votes. First, the House voted on GATT in the immediate aftermath of Democratic loss to Republicans in the 1994 mid-term election.

74

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations

Foreseeing Republican challenges to their president, who was just two years into his first term, many Democrats may have decided to rally around Clinton by voting for GATT. By contrast, the PNTR vote took place in 2000, the last year of Clinton’s presidency. Thus there was less urgency for Democrats to rally around their president. Second, the GATT deals with international trade in general, whereas the PNTR bill addresses U.S. trade with one particular country. By 2000, U.S. trade deficit with China had grown to US$83.8 billion from US$29.5 billion in 1994 and China had replaced Japan as the largest deficit-trading partner of the U.S. The high salience of China—the astronomical U.S. trade deficit plus human rights, weapons proliferation, etc.—may have induced many House Democrats to vote against a bill championed by Clinton. Absolute DW score is highly significant and has the correct sign. If it increases by one standard deviation, that is, as a member becomes more liberal or conservative, the probability of voting for PNTR decreases by about 0.13, holding other variables at their means. This evidence suggests that the ideological wings of both parties were indeed united in their opposition to PNTR, while the pro-trade moderates of each party joined hands in their support for the trade deal. As in Model 1, Farm Employment is statistically significant. One standard deviation increase in farm employment is associated with an increase of 0.08 in the probability of voting for PNTR, holding other variables at their means. Model 3 tests the hypothesis of inter-party heterogeneity in electoral strategies. The interaction term Democrat × Union Strength is not statistically significant, nor is party. On the one hand, this should not be a surprising finding, given that interaction terms are usually highly correlated with the original variables. In my case, the correlation between party and the interaction term is 0.864 and significant at 0.01. On the other hand, this is a surprising finding because it is inconsistent with evidence produced by Bailey and Brady (1998). One explanation for this discrepancy, which was discussed above, is that many Democrats would have voted against PNTR without labor pressure. This explanation has two further implications. First, inter-party heterogeneity in electoral strategies may exist, but only on general trade policy, not on country-specific trade legislation, as Bailey and Brady (1998) analyzed votes on GATT and NAFTA. Alternatively, such electoral heterogeneity may exist on trade policy toward some countries, but not on trade policy toward China—a country against which many Democrats seemed to have a number of grievances: human rights, forced labor, environmental problems, etc. Another explanation is simply that Bailey and Brady (1998) analyzed Senate votes. In other words, it is possible that inter-party electoral heterogeneity exists in the Senate, but not in the House, which suggests inter-chamber difference in foreign trade voting. With the addition of the interaction term, only Farm Employment and Absolute DW Score are statistically significant, and they both have the

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations

75

hypothesized sign. More specifically, one standard deviation increase in the former increases the probability of voting for PNTR by 0.08, but a similar increase in the latter decreases the probability by 0.11, holding other variables at their means. Model 4 includes an additional constituency variable, namely, Exports to China, which turns out to be statistically significant and in the hypothesized direction. One standard deviation increase in Exports to China leads to an increase of 0.067 in the probability of voting for PNTR. Again, Farming employment and Absolute DW are both statistically significant and have the correct sign. Discussion My analysis adduced evidence that party was the most important determinant of the PNTR vote. Republicans tended to be much more supportive of PNTR than Democrats. On the one hand, this finding is consistent with many previous studies that have examined the relationship between party affiliation and support for free trade (e.g., Baldwin 1985; Coughlin 1985; McArthur and Marks 1988; Tosini and Tower 1987; Wink et al. 1996). On the other hand, it is inconsistent with my expectation that Democrats—out of loyalty to and pressure from Clinton—would be more likely to vote for PNTR than Republicans (or more likely to vote for it than if they faced a Republican president). Moreover, a few scholars have adduced evidence that Democrats were more likely to support free trade agreements during the Clinton years (Bailey and Brady 1998; Gartzke and Wrighton 1998). These seemingly conflicting findings suggest that the relationship between party affiliation and support for free trade is not fixed but varies according to the political and electoral context as well as the particular country that is involved in a trade bill. As far as ideology is concerned, the absolute value of DW score is consistently significant and—except in Model 2—has the largest impact. Thus liberals and conservatives, instead of voting against each other as they normally do, were closely united in opposition against pro-trade moderates on the PNTR vote. My findings thus provide further support for Nokken’s (2003) thesis of EATM voting. My study does not provide support for Bailey and Brady’s (1998) theory of inter-party heterogeneity of electoral strategies, as the interaction term Democrat × Union Strength is not statistically significant in any of the models. This is a rather surprising finding in light of the electoral ties between labor unions and the Democratic Party in general and intense lobbying of Democrats by labor groups before the vote. The high correlation between party and the interaction term may be partly responsible for this finding. It is also possible that inter-party heterogeneity of electoral strategies exists in the Senate, but not in the House, as all the five votes (two on NAFTA and three on GATT) analyzed by Bailey and Brady were Senate votes. Perhaps the most plausible explanation is that many Democrats would

76

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations

have voted against PNTR because of other considerations, regardless of whether labor unions launched massive campaign against it. These Democrats may have subscribed to the view that China does not deserve PNTR because of its poor human rights record and environmental problems, that trade with China was responsible for the loss of American jobs, or that free trade in general has done more harm than good to America. That Union Strength does not have any significant impact in any of the regressions seems to support this explanation. To be sure, state-level data could have resulted in the poor performance of this variable, but scholars have usually relied on state-level data due to the lack of district-level data and they have reported evidence that Union Strength had significant negative impact on support for free trade (e.g., Bailey and Brady 1998; Conley 1999; Gartzke and Wrighton 1998). In a word, that neither Union Strength nor the interaction term is statistically significant strongly suggests that many Democrats opposed PNTR because of their own preferences. Of the three basic constituency variables, Farm Employment is the only one that is statistically significant in all four regressions. This is strong evidence that members of Congress were especially responsive to the economic interests of American farmers. Since the U.S. is the largest supplier of agricultural products to China and since China’s WTO membership promises an even bigger and more lucrative China market, it is no wonder that the electoral connection appears to be particularly strong in the vote. The fourth constituency variable, that is, Exports to China, also has significant impact on members’ votes. Together these findings suggest that members of Congress were particularly responsive to export interests. Also notice that Retail/Wholesale Employment does not reach statistical significance in any of the four models. Moreover, except in Model 1, it has a negative sign. What this suggests is that controlling for party and ideology, retail and wholesale workers are actually more likely to oppose PNTR. In other words, Retail/Wholesale Employment should probably be viewed as a measure of constituency opposition to—not support for—trade with China. Though I did not analyze the Senate vote on PNTR, its lopsided nature indicates that there was a strong consensus among Senators on the desirability of free trade with China. In fact, “passage [of PNTR] by the more internationalist Senate was never in doubt, and both sides expected an expeditious vote there” (CQ Almanac 2000: 20). That the Senate passed PNTR by landslide margins, compared with the narrow margin of victory in the House, illustrates sharp inter-chamber difference on trade policy toward China. Moreover, recall that a few years before the PNTR vote, the Senate also easily passed two important trade bills: NAFTA (61–38) and GATT (76–24). The relative ease with which the three important trade bills sailed through the Senate and the intense opposition they encountered in the House strongly suggest that the upper chamber is in general more pro-trade than the lower chamber. Just as the House has become increasingly opposed to free trade agreements and renewal of fast track authority (Bailey 2001; Conley

Congress and U.S.–China trade relations

77

1999; Gibson 2000), the Senate has transformed itself into a bastion of free trade.14 The Senate’s distinct pro-trade stance can be attributed to several factors. First, Senators usually come from much larger and hence more heterogeneous districts than House members. The need to serve a greater number and variety of constituency interests makes them less likely to be swayed by narrow interests. In other words, a House member may be more responsive to the immediate concerns of his/her constituents adversely affected by free trade and vote against it, but a Senator may decide that his/her constituency in the whole—exporters, importers, labor unions, and blue-collar workers, etc.—will in the long run benefit from free trade and hence vote for it. Second, the longer tenure of Senators enables them to be somewhat temporarily insulated from constituent pressure, whereas House members are perennially on a short leash because of their two-year term. Third, Senators may be more acquiescent to presidential initiatives in foreign trade than House members. This is so because, with multiple committee assignments, larger number of constituents, and sometimes the pursuit of the presidency, Senators have much less time to acquire policy expertise than House members and hence are “more dependent on executive guidance” (Kernell 1973: 341, see also Pressman 1966). Last but not least, the Senate may have been more pro-trade than the House simply because there were more Republicans than Democrats.15 Republicans have been strong supporters of free trade and they have been the majority in the Senate since 1994. Finally, the passage of PNTR merely means that Congress cleared a major hurdle to unfettered trade between the two countries. It does not mean that Congress henceforth would wash its hands of matters relating to bilateral trade. Since 2003, some members have been pressuring Beijing to appreciate its currency in the hope of slowing down the growth of U.S. trade deficit with China. The Schumer–Graham iniative in 2005 is a case in point. Because of the enormous stakes of constituency interests in U.S.–China trade, on the one hand, and the strength of the electoral connection on trade issues, on the other, more congressional initiatives on U.S.–China trade should be expected. Moreover, even without the astronomical trade deficit, many members of Congress still have a variety of reasons to oppose trade with China: human rights, weapons proliferation, environmental issues, Taiwan, religious freedom, abortion, etc. In a word, due to a number of factors, trade with China will remain a highly controversial topic on Capitol Hill. The good news for those promoting U.S.–China trade is that they can almost always count on the White House and—to a lesser extent—the Senate to neutralize attempts to set roadblocks in the development of one of the world’s most bilateral trade relationships.

5

Congress and Taiwan

It seems to me that our administration . . . merits criticism for continuing an unprincipled and spineless policy towards our friends on Taiwan. I think it is long overdue that we stop kowtowing to the Communist butchers in Beijing, and to stand on our own principles. (Representative Tom Lantos (D-CA) Congressional Record 1995: H4451) I ask that the President take every measure necessary to ensure that the pursuit of democracy and democratic practices [in Taiwan] are not fettered by Chinese intimidation and aggression. (Senator Dirk Kempthorne (R-ID), Congressional Record 1996: S2626) The upper chamber, with its tradition of careful deliberation more insulated from the winds of populist enthusiasm, should conclude that, yes, Americans love Taiwan, but this legislation [HR 1838] needlessly stirs up trouble. The House has had its fun, but to continue this dangerous game would be counterproductive. (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette 2000)

The U.S.–Taiwan relationship is not only a unique relationship, but also one of the most controversial relationships in the world today. It is unique because perhaps for the first time in the history of modern foreign affairs, a state had broken relations with another, only to create a new legal arrangement [the Taiwan Relations Act] so as to maintain virtually all the relationships that had existed before. (Myers 1989: 13) It is controversial because the relationship has been a constant source of disputes and conflicts in the Washington–Taipei–Beijing triangle. Moreover, the relationship is an emotional one that is “unlike U.S. relations with most other countries,” wrote Feldman (1989: 42). “Only the U.S. relationship with Israel contains as much emotional resonance.”

Congress and Taiwan 79 Despite the unofficial nature of the relationship, U.S.–Taiwan economic, cultural, political, and military ties are extremely extensive and strong. Taiwan is the eighth largest trading partner of the U.S., and the latter is the top trading partner of Taiwan. In 2006, total bilateral trade was US$61.2 billion, of which U.S. imports were US$38.2 billion and exports US$23 billion (U.S. Census Bureau 2007). In 2004/2005, Taiwan was ranked sixth with 25,914 students studying in U.S. institutions of higher learning (Institute of International Education 2006). Taiwan has established sister state relationship with 42 U.S. states (Taiwan Provincial Consultative Council). The U.S. has been Taiwan’s most important political and military ally, supporting its membership in international organizations, repeatedly reaffirming U.S. commitment to its security, and providing it with advanced weapons on an annual basis. The U.S.–Taiwan relationship has its origin in the Chinese civil war in the 1940s when the U.S. supported the Nationalists against the Chinese Communists. In late 1949, the defeated Nationalists, led by Chiang Kai-shek, fled to Taiwan and established a political regime. Plagued by corruption, inefficiency, and cronyism, the Nationalist regime was not expected to last long, nor did the Truman administration intend to continue its support of Chiang.1 Yet just as Chiang’s fate seemed to be sealed and the U.S. relationship with the Chinese Communists would likely have embarked on a different course, the North Koreans crossed the 38th parallel.2 In response, the U.S. interposed the seventh Fleet in the Taiwan Strait. Since then, Taiwan has remained an entity separate from China and has developed strong political and military ties with the U.S., as embodied in the U.S.–Taiwan Mutual Defense Treaty, the Formosa Resolution, and the Taiwan Relations Act (TRA). This chapter offers an in-depth analysis of Congress’s Taiwan policy. The first section offers a brief review of congressional involvement in Taiwan policy, and the second section analyzes two House roll call votes related to U.S.–Taiwan relations. Despite congressional activism and influence in U.S.– Taiwan relations, it is rather surprising that no study to my knowledge has examined roll call voting on Taiwan. That the overwhelming majority of Taiwan votes were lop-sided or unanimous is perhaps the most important disincentive. Yet there were indeed a few contested votes, and quantitative analysis of them may shed important light on why members voted as they did on Taiwan policy.

Historical ties between Congress and Taiwan Congress has been the most powerful and most active supporter of Taiwan. In fact, it is not too much exaggeration to say that any study of U.S.–Taiwan relations is essentially incomplete without considering the crucial role Congress has played in the formulation and implementation of U.S.–Taiwan policy. And to study Congress’s role in Taiwan policy, it is necessary to

80

Congress and Taiwan

examine Congress’s China policy before the Nationalists fled to the island, since Congress’s support for Taiwan stemmed largely from its support for the Nationalist regime on Mainland China prior to 1949. For starters, there was the World War II alliance between the U.S and China (Feis 1953; Schaller 1979; Tsou 1963; Tuchman 1970). Regardless of Chiang’s actual contribution to the Pacific Theatre, the alliance and Chiang himself enjoyed immense popularity on Capitol Hill. Congressman Mike Mansfield (D-MT) proclaimed in 1945: Chiang is the one man who can make Chinese unity and independence a reality. His faults can be understood when the complexities of the Chinese puzzle are studied and they are no more uncommon than the faults of other leaders of the United Nations. We are committed to Chiang and we will help him to the best of our ability. He alone can untangle the present situation because in spite of the things he has done, he is China. (quoted in Purifoy 1976: 13) Second, Madame Chiang, the Wellesley-educated wife of Chiang Kai-shek and the symbol of China’s heroic sacrifices in the war, was extremely popular and influential on Capitol Hill. On 18 February 1943, she became the first Chinese and the second woman to address a joint session of Congress. Her address “electrified Washington, winning billions of dollars in aid” (Faison 2003). Third, a number of congressmen, Representative Walter Judd (R-MN) being one of the notables, had prior experiences (missionary or otherwise) in China that enhanced the personal and emotional ties between Congress and China (see Bachrack 1976; Edwards 1990). Last but not least, Chiang had been fighting the Chinese Communists since 1927. His flawless record of anti-Communism proved pivotal in securing congressional support for the Nationalists in the Chinese civil war that resumed immediately after the defeat of Japan. The Truman administration’s approach to the Chinese civil war, however, diverged from that of Congress, particularly after the failure of the Marshall Mission and the beginning of the Nationalist debacle (see Finkelstein 1993; Grasso 1987; Purifoy 1976; Tsou 1963). Basically, the administration perceived Chiang’s cause to be hopeless and intended to gradually detach the U.S. from the Chinese civil war, with an eye toward eventually having accommodation with the Chinese Communists. The China bloc in Congress, a group composed mostly of right-wing Republicans, launched bitter attacks on Truman’s China policy and insisted on an all-out effort to save Chiang (Kraft 1991; Rourke 1983; Tsou 1963; Tucker 1983).3 Since the China bloc had the potential to hold hostage the administration’s European programs (i.e., the Marshall Plan), President Truman compromised by submitting a China aid program, hence the China Aid Act of 1948 (see Tucker 1983; Westerfield 1955: 262–266). The flow of economic and military aid could not prevent the total collapse

Congress and Taiwan 81 of Chiang, however. Keenly aware of the political fallout of Chiang’s defeat, the State Department published the China White Paper, a chronological collection of official documents aimed at exonerating the administration from the defeat of Chiang. As Secretary of State Dean Acheson declared in the letter of transmittal, “The unfortunate but inescapable fact is that the ominous result of the civil war in China was beyond the control of the United States” (U.S. Department of State 1967: xvi). Instead of warding off domestic criticism, the China White Paper inadvertently provided ammunition to the China bloc for the rancorous debate about “who lost China,” a debate that effectively made it impossible for the Truman administration (Bachrack 1976; Finkelstein 1993; Koen 1974; Tucker 1983) and his successors (Bueler 1971; Kraft 1991; Rourke 1983) to initiate a new China policy until 1971. In the meantime, Congress remained steadfast in its support of Chiang and the regime he established on Taiwan. In 1955, Congress ratified the U.S.–Taiwan Mutual Defense Treaty and passed the Formosa Resolution, thus formally establishing a military alliance with Taiwan. When President Carter decided to sever ties with Taiwan in order to normalize relations with Beijing, Congress—angered by Carter’s secret diplomacy and determined not to abandon a long-time ally—responded by enacting the TRA (Copper 1992; Crabb 1985; Javits 1981; Kraft 1991; Sutter 1983; Tan 1992). As Congressman Thomas Manton (D-NY) noted, the TRA “gives the Congress a well-defined statutory role in conducting United States foreign policy toward Taiwan” (quoted in Yang 2000: 63). “By revising the Taiwan legislation submitted by the executive [Congress] established its role as a China policymaker,” wrote Tan (1992: 25). In a word, the TRA establishes Congress as a legitimate and important guardian of Taiwan’s interests from either administration negligence or Chinese intimidation. The decade following the passage of the TRA witnessed a relatively inactive Congress in Taiwan policy, but congressional inaction turned out to be short-lived. As Mann (2001: 201) wrote, “One of the most distinctive phenomena of American China policy in the 1990s has been the renewed strength and importance of congressional support for Taiwan.” Congress forcefully reasserted itself in Taiwan policy by attempting to strengthen U.S. political and military ties with Taiwan, endorsing Taiwan’s membership in international organizations, urging high-level official visits, and pushing for sales of advanced weapons (e.g., Bush 2001; Mann 2001). The number of Taiwan bills introduced in Congress testifies to congressional activism in Taiwan policy (see Figure 5.1). As mentioned in Chapter 2, a total of 247 Taiwan bills (including amendments) were introduced in Congress between 1973 and 2006, with 167 in the House and 80 in the Senate. That amounts to an annual average of 4.9 and 2.4 bills respectively in each chamber. Of the 247 bills, only 11—all introduced by liberal Democrats in the early 1980s—were critical of Taiwan, that is, its human rights problems.4 The other bills invariably declared U.S. support for Taiwan or attempted to strengthen U.S.–Taiwan military and political ties.

82

Congress and Taiwan

Figure 5.1 Time trend of Taiwan bills introduced in each chamber, 1973–2006.

Congressional attempts to enhance U.S.–Taiwan relations Why has Congress been so supportive of Taiwan? To answer this question, I analyze two House votes related to U.S.–Taiwan relations. I could not exercise much discretion in selecting which votes to analyze because they were the only non-unanimous, substantive votes between 1980 and 2006. The Senate did have two more contested Taiwan votes during the same period (both in the mid-1980s). Since data on many variables are not available until the late 1990s, I decide against analyzing the two Senate votes. The same data problem prevents me from examining some contested votes on Taiwan policy that occurred before 1980, such as votes on the TRA in both chambers. The first vote was on passage of the U.S.–Taiwan Anti-Ballistic Missile Defense Cooperation Act in 1997. The purpose of the bill, which passed 301– 117 on 6 November, was to consider developing an anti-ballistic missile defense system to protect Taiwan from potential missile attacks by Beijing. The second vote was on passage of HR 1838, or the Taiwan Security Enhancement Act, sponsored by House Majority leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) in 1999. The bill requires, among other things, the Secretary of Defense to establish direct military communication with Taiwan’s military forces and to increase the number of Taiwanese military officials trained at U.S.

Congress and Taiwan

83

military academies (CQ Almanac 2000: H-4). It passed the House 341–70 on February 1 2000. In addition to the two substantive votes, there were two contested procedural votes in the House. The first was on Doug Bereuter’s (R-NE) motion to table the Frank Pallone (D-NJ) motion to reconsider the vote on HR 2386.5 Pallone’s motion was tabled 245–175. The second was on David Bonior’s (DMI) motion to recommit HR 4444—the bill that grants PNTR to China—to the House Ways and Means and International Relations with instructions to add language revoking China’s PNTR if China invades, blockades, or attacks Taiwan.6 The motion was defeated 176–258 on May 24 2000. Admittedly, the distinction between procedural and substantive votes is more conceptual than practical, as most votes involve both procedural and substantive questions. Even a motion to adjourn, for example, can be a substantive maneuver if it is intended to delay action on a bill. And recommittal motions are “almost wholly substantive in intent” (Froman and Ripley 1965: 57). In fact, “[o]nly at the extremes are issues either purely procedural or purely and identifiably substantive” (ibid.: 56). The same can be said of these two procedural votes, which could have substantive policy implications.7 However, according to the idea of parties as procedural coalitions, parties are monoliths when it comes to procedural votes, hence high party unity in most procedural votes (Froman and Ripley 1965: Table V; Jones 1964: 5; Schickler and Rich 1997: Table 1).8 Indeed, controlling for other factors, party has decisive impact on the two votes.9 Since procedural votes amount to nothing but a show of party discipline, I exclude them. Hypotheses Hypothesis 1: Other things being equal, a Republican is more likely than a Democrat to support strong U.S.–Taiwan relations. Scholars who studied U.S.–China relations in the late 1940s and early 1950s usually single out partisanship as the most important factor behind congressional support for China (and Taiwan after Chiang Kai-shek’s defeat in 1949) and criticism of Truman’s China policy.10 Exiled from the White House since 1932, the Republicans desperately needed a campaign issue to beat the seemingly unbeatable Democrats. Moreover, the 1946 mid-term election put Republicans in control of Congress, greatly boosting their confidence in defeating Truman in the upcoming 1948 election. Tucker (1983: 162–163) wrote, “The largest number in Congress participated in the China controversy for partisan reasons.” These Republicans “lacked genuine interest in China but needed a campaign issue to defeat the seemingly unbeatable Democrats who had monopolized the White House since 1932,” added Tucker (1994: 31). However, Truman scored a surprise win at the polls. Truman’s reelection coincided with the beginning of Chiang’s debacle and congressional

84

Congress and Taiwan

Republicans “increasingly saw the deteriorating China situation as a potential issue and arena of attack of Truman’s foreign policy” (Rourke 1983: 74). By 1949, the China bloc “consisted largely of Republicans for whom the China question was primarily a matter of party politics [and who adopted a] gloves-off approach and promoted the Nationalist cause for their own political purposes” (Borg 1980: 174).11 Nearly three decades later, partisan passions flared up again, and this time the center of contention was the TRA.12 The Republicans in general were more vociferous than Democrats in their criticism of Carter’s decision to abrogate the U.S.–Taiwan Mutual Defense Treaty (see CQ Almanac 1979: 112–113; Sutter 1983).13 Senator Jake Garn (R-UT) (1979: 20) called it “constitutionally and morally objectionable” to abandon “a staunch and faithful ally,” denouncing Carter’s decision as “an ignominious act.” Senator Barry Goldwater (R-AZ) (1979: 23) condemned Carter’s normalization announcement as “a short speech . . . which history may well record as ten minutes that lived in infamy.” Goldwater even filed a case in a federal court, claiming that Carter’s unilateral decision to abrogate the defense treaty was unconstitutional (CQ Almanac 1979: 100). Just have a glance at party line-up on the 22 roll call votes, and one can tell the extent to which the two parties were divided on the details, if not the fundamentals, of the TRA (see Table 5.1 and Table 5.2). Eleven of the thirteen votes in the House and six of the nine votes in the Senate were party votes, that is, votes in which the majority of the two parties voted against each other. Furthermore, the intensity of party division was extraordinary. In the House, seven of the eleven party votes witnessed at least 75 percent of one party voting against at least 75 percent of the other party; in the Senate, four of the six party votes were so divided. Notice that all but one partisan vote were on amendments or motions that were sponsored mainly by Republicans and which contained language that would have restored U.S.–Taiwan military alliance under the Mutual Defense Treaty. Such language would almost certainly have delayed normalization because of Beijing’s objection. In a word, despite the broad bipartisan consensus on the desirability of continuing U.S.–Taiwan relations, as reflected in the smooth passage of the TRA in both chambers, the two parties disagreed sharply over the exact nature of future U.S. relations with Taiwan. In the decade after normalization, Republicans largely deferred to the White House on Taiwan policy. For President Reagan did not need to be prodded by Congress to be a staunch supporter of Taiwan (see Butterfield 1980; MacDonald and Kaiser 1980).14 President George H. W. Bush also encountered little pressure from Congress on Taiwan.15 However, Republicans became much more active in Taiwan policy during the Clinton years. In July 1993, Senator Frank MurKowski (R-AK) introduced an amendment to the annual Foreign Relations Authorization Act, declaring that the TRA should supersede the 1982 Shanghai Communiqué on U.S. arms sales to Taiwan (Congressional Record 1994: S 2943–2944, S 5024). Despite the

120

113

135

100

124

14

98 134

118

144

104 105

169–197

172–181

171–239

146–256

179–225

204–193

110–295 182–221

141–264

226–174

345–55 339–50

41 37

4

32

51 16

132

21

44

14

13

14

27

Source: CQ Almanac (1979).

107

241 234

82

23

12 48

190

55

46

36

59

49

42

14 13

170

232

244 205

61

204

212

225

168

183

194

Nay

Yea

Yea

Nay

Democrats

Republicans

149–221

Vote count

Yea Yea

Nay

Nay Nay

Nay

Nay

Nay

Nay

Nay

Nay

Passed Adopted

Adopted

Rejected

Rejected Rejected

Agreed

Rejected

Rejected

Rejected

Rejected

Rejected

Rejected

President’s Vote position outcome

Table 5.1 House roll call votes on the Taiwan Relations Act

Kramer amendment to retain language from the 1955 mutual defense treaty with Taiwan regarding U.S. response to hostile action toward Taiwan. Lagomarsino amendment to state that the U.S. would consider withdrawing recognition of China if it were to attack Taiwan. Quayle amendment to conduct relations with Taiwan through a government “liaison office,” rather than through the unofficial American Institute on Taiwan. Ashbrook amendment to make employees of the American Institute on Taiwan employees of the U.S. government. Edwards amendment to add the islands of Quemoy and Matsu to the definition of Taiwan. Solomon amendment to establish relations with Taiwan on a consular basis. Zablocki motion to end all debate on the bill at 5 p.m. in an attempt to cut off further amendments. Bauman motion to strike the enacting clause (thus killing the bill) Dannemeyer amendment to conduct relations with Taiwan through a quasi-governmental agency entitled “U.S. Commission in Taiwan.” Edwards amendment to require approval by both houses before the president could notify Taiwan that a treaty or agreement with Taiwan would be terminated. Ashbrook amendment to require the authorization and appropriation by Congress of any U.S. government funds for the American Institute on Taiwan. Passage of the bill. Adoption of the conference report.

Bill summary

10

1

35

30

7

22

34 33

57–38

45–49

42–50

49–36

54–38

74–21

90–6 85–4

5 2

18

32

7

5

39

30

12

Source: CQ Almanac (1979).

28

56 52

52

47

19

7

44

47

5

Yea

Yea

Nay

Democrats

Republicans

33–62

Vote count

1 2

3

6

29

45

10

8

50

Nay

Yea Yea

Yea

Yea

Nay

Nay

Yea

Yea

Nay

President’s position

Table 5.2 Senate roll call votes on the Taiwan Relations Act

Passed Adopted

Agreed

Agreed

Agreed

Rejected

Rejected

Agreed

Rejected

Vote outcome

Dole amendment to provide for unofficial United States relations with “Taiwan” rather than with the “people of Taiwan,” which was the phrasing sought by President Carter. Glenn motion to table the Humphrey amendment to conduct U.S. relations with Taiwan through a governmental “liaison office.” Bryd motion to table the Percy amendment to declare that hostile action against Taiwan would be a threat to the “security interests of the United States.” Percy amendment to declare that hostile action against Taiwan would be a threat to the “security interests of the United States.” Morgan motion to table the Church amendment to Boren amendment allowing Taiwan to have embassy (Church’s amendment would have allowed the courts to resolve the issue). Biden motion to table the Dole amendment to require Senate confirmation of the director of the American Institute on Taiwan. Church motion to table the Humphrey amendment to make the effective date of the bill contingent on written assurances from China that it would not attack Taiwan. Passage of the TRA Adoption of the conference report of TRA.

Bill summary

Congress and Taiwan 87 administration’s objection, a watered-down version of the amendment was passed by the conference committee and signed into law by Clinton in April 1994 (Yang 2000: 189–190). Republicans became even more assertive in Taiwan policy after the 1994 mid-term election. By threatening mandatory legislation, the new Republican majority in 1995 successfully forced President Clinton to grant a visa to Lee Teng-Hui for his visit to Cornell University (Mann 1999: Chapter 17; Mann 2001; Yang 2000: Chapter 6). A close look at Figure 5.1 also suggests that Congress’s Taiwan policy was influenced by partisan politics. While there were only a few Taiwan bills during the 1980s and early 1990s, there was a conspicuous and sudden rise in the number of Taiwan bills since the mid-1990s. And this surge was simultaneous with the inauguration of the new Republican majority. Also, by my count, during the Reagan and Bush years there was no recorded vote on Taiwan in the House and only two votes in the Senate, yet the House voted twelve times and the Senate four times on Taiwan policy during the Clinton years. Hypothesis 2: Liberals and conservatives will be more supportive of Taiwan than moderates, other things being equal. Nokken’s (2003) study and my findings in Chapter 4 adduced strong evidence that a coalition of ideological wings existed in roll call voting on trade with China. This seemingly strange coalition could also exist on Taiwan policy. Before the 1990s, the most vocal supporters of Chiang and Taiwan were generally conservatives such as members of the China bloc in the Truman years and Goldwater-type Republicans during Carter’s presidency. Liberals, by contrast, were far more critical of the authoritarian regime on Taiwan. Since the mid-1970s, liberals began to scrutinize Taiwan’s human rights record. When the TRA was under floor debate, Congressmen James Leach (R-IA), Donald Pease (D-OH), and Senator Claiborne Pell (D-RI) managed to insert language on human rights into the TRA, which gives Congress the statutory power to oversee human rights progress in Taiwan (Bush 2004: Chapter 6; U.S. Congress 1987).16 The 1980s witnessed the peak of liberal criticism of and pressure on Taiwan’s authoritarian regime, led by Steve Solarz (D-NY), chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Subcommittee on Asia and Pacific from 1981–1992 (see Bush 2004: Chapter 6). In 1986, Senators Edward Kennedy (D-MA), Claiborne Pell (D-RI), Carl Levin (D-MI) and congressmen Steve Solarz (DNY) and Jim Leach (R-IA) formed the Committee for Democracy on Taiwan (Congressional Record 1987: S9935). Partly because of congressional pressure, Taiwan began to implement political reform in the late 1980s. By the mid-1990s, Taiwan had successfully transformed itself from an authoritarian regime into a burgeoning democracy. In 1996, Taiwan held its first competitive, multi-party presidential election. Since many liberals were personally involved in Taiwan’s political reforms, they had added incentives to support Taiwan when it became a fledgling

88

Congress and Taiwan

democracy. Indeed, liberals almost always cited Taiwan’s democracy as a key reason for their support. Senator Joe Lieberman (D-CT) supported Taiwan’s admission to the United Nations because Taiwan “has made significant progress in developing democratic representative institutions” (Congressional Record 1992: S13655). “That Taiwan has come so far [in political reform] in such a short time is truly impressive and is a great compliment to the people of Taiwan and to their current leaders,” said Senator Pell (D-RI) (Congressional Record 1996: S11422). During congressional debate over Lee’s 1995 visit to Cornell, Congresswoman Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) pointedly asked, “Why . . . the President, the democratically elected President of Taiwan . . . is not allowed to come?” (Congressional Record 1995: H4452). Conservatives also touted political reform in Taiwan. “Taiwan is a democracy, yet its President cannot visit our Nation,” said an outraged Benjamin Gilman (R-NY) (Congressional Record 1995: H4451). Gerald Solomon (R-NY) denounced Clinton’s refusal to permit Lee’s visit as “an assault against his [Lee’s] dignity and our morality [and] a blatant contradiction of our efforts to promote democracy around the world.” He added, “Here is one important instance in which American interests and American morality go hand in hand” (ibid.: H4451–52). After the House passed the resolution regarding Lee’s visit, Dana Rohrabacher (R-CA) observed: Today we are extending a hand of friendship to President Lee of the Republic of China . . . because his government on Taiwan has liberalized, has reached out to the opposition and permitted rights [that] we as Americans believe should be the rights of citizens of everywhere. (ibid.: H4452) Frank Murkowski (1996), an unwavering supporter of Taiwan, declared, “Congress should congratulate the people of Taiwan for their continued steps to democracy.” Tom DeLay also praised Taiwan as “a shining example of freedom and democracy in a part of the world sorely in need of role models” (Congressional Record 1998: H5888). These remarks by liberals and conservatives suggest that they were united in their support for Taiwan because of the latter’s democratic transition. By contrast, the business-minded moderates adopted a more cautious approach lest disputes with Beijing over Taiwan would disrupt U.S.–China economic ties. Doug Bereuter (R-NE), then chairman of the House International Relations Asia and Pacific Subcommittee, mounted serious opposition to HR 1838 and succeeded in securing some concessions on the bill (see CQWR 1999: 2605–2606). Hypothesis 3: Controlling for other factors, hawks will be more likely to vote for strong U.S.–Taiwan relations than doves. Previous scholars have adduced strong evidence that hawkishness has

Congress and Taiwan 89 significant impact on foreign policy voting (e.g., Lindsay 1990; Ray 1981; Cobb 1969). Cobb (1969: 360–361) defined hawkishness as a “jingoism scale” that reflects “components of compulsive ‘anti-Kommunism [sic],’ aggressiveness and belligerency, and a willingness to intervene in the affairs of other nations.” In general, hawks tend to be more supportive of a militant foreign policy than doves. In the case of Taiwan policy, hawks are expected to be more supportive of strong U.S.–Taiwan relations than doves. Hypothesis 4: The more dependent a district is on the military-industrial complex, the more likely its representative will cast a pro-Taiwan vote, other things being equal. Past research on foreign policy voting almost exclusively focuses on the influence of a particular constituency, namely, the military-industrial complex. As Patrick Morgan (quoted in Ray 1981: 439) pointed out, a huge military establishment “inevitably breeds . . . civilian institutions and numerous citizens [who] prosper on the manna of massive defense expenditures,” which in turn “produces a political component—a corps of local, regional, and national politicians whose political self-interests now dictate promotion of or at least acquiesce in such spending on behalf of constituents.” In a word, the militaryindustrial complex model leads to the expectation that a positive relationship exists between constituency dependence on the military-industrial complex and support for military spending (or hawkish foreign policy for that matter). The military-industrial complex has important economic stakes in U.S.– Taiwan relations because Taiwan has been a leading market for U.S. weapons manufactures (see Table 5.3). Moreover, defense contractors and their Table 5.3 U.S. arms sales to Taiwan and Taiwan’s ranking among U.S. arms sales to foreign countries Year

Value (millions of dollars)

Ranking

1950–1990 1990 1991 1992 1993 1994 1995 1996 1997 1998 1999 2000

4,939 455 549 711 816 845 1,347 834 2,555 1,487 2,526 923

7 4 4 5 4 4 3 3 2 2 2 4

Source: U.S. Defense Security Cooperation Agency.

90

Congress and Taiwan

subcontractors are usually among the largest employers in local communities.17 Consequently, one shouldn’t be surprised to see local residents and their representatives in Congress push for U.S. arms sales to Taiwan because of the jobs and profits at stake. That the Texas delegation was actively lobbying for the sales of 150 F-16 fighter jets to Taiwan on the eve of the 1992 election illuminates the intimate connections between defense contractors (General Dynamics), constituency interests (an estimated 6,000 jobs), and Taiwan policy (Bush 2001; Bush 2004; Friedman 1992; Mann 1999; Schmitt 1992). Hypothesis 5: Exports to China will be negatively associated with the likelihood of casting a pro-Taiwan vote, controlling for other factors. It is crucial to bear in mind that in the Washington–Taipei–Beijing triangle, U.S. policy toward Taiwan is inevitably and intimately connected with its policy toward China. That is, congressional (in)action in one policy area will almost certainly have some repercussions in the other. If Congress had voted to restore official relations with Taiwan, for example, Beijing would most certainly have terminated its diplomatic ties with Washington. On the other hand, if Congress had repealed the TRA, then China would in all likelihood have pursued a more aggressive policy of reunification. Thus members of Congress are expected to balance the consequences of alternative policies regarding Taiwan and Beijing. It is possible that those whose constituencies have huge stakes in U.S.–China relations—particularly in bilateral trade— will be less willing to antagonize Beijing by voting for strong U.S.–Taiwan relations. For example, since China has been a crucial market for Boeing, members from the state of Washington should be less likely to vote for pro-Taiwan bills, other things being equal. Hypothesis 6: Exports to Taiwan will be positively associated with the likelihood of casting a pro-Taiwan vote, when other factors are controlled for. Last but not least, though U.S.–Taiwan relations are primarily strategic and political in nature, there are also significant constituency economic interests at stake. To begin with, Taiwan is the eighth largest trading partner of the U.S. and the latter is the top trading partner of Taiwan. Though U.S.–Taiwan trade is only about one-fifth of U.S.–China trade today, back in the 1980s the former was much larger than the latter.18 Only after 1994 did U.S.–China trade surpass U.S.–Taiwan trade. Moreover, Taiwan has been an important export market for U.S. companies, and American exports to Taiwan were larger than its exports to China until 2001. Even after 2001, American exports to China have been only slightly bigger. Thus many members may have incentives to support U.S.–Taiwan relations out of pure constituency economic interests.19

Congress and Taiwan 91 Data and methodology I use voting scores compiled by the Center for Security Policy (CSP) to operationalize hawkishness.20 The CSP’s mission is to “promote international peace through American strength.” As such, it selects votes on critical defense and foreign policy issues. The higher the score, the more pro-national security and hence more hawkish a member is. Because the CSP combines the votes for 1998–2000, I use this aggregate voting score for the 2000 vote.21 CSP compiles a separate voting index for 1997 and that is used for the 1997 vote. To test the hypothesis that both liberals and conservatives tend to vote for strong U.S.–Taiwan relations, I use the absolute value of the DWNOMINATE score, as I did in Chapter 4. Also, I expect the coefficient for the absolute value of DW score to be statistically significant and positive. That is, high absolute value of DW score will be associated with pro-Taiwan votes, since both liberals (negative scores) and conservatives (positive scores) are expected to cast such votes. Constituency dependence on the military-industrial complex is operationalized as the amount of military awards for supplies, services, and construction with a net value of over US $25,000 within each state in a fiscal year.22 I use state-level data because there is no district-level breakdown of military awards. Granted that oftentimes a state in which a prime contractor is located is not the same state where subcontract work is done, this measure is still a good indicator of the economic importance of defense contracts to a particular state. For without such awards, the prime contractors would probably shut down. Constituency interests in U.S.–China (Taiwan) trade are the percentages of exports to China (Taiwan) out of total state exports. I use the 1999 data for the 1997 vote because that it is the earliest year for which state export data is available. In addition to these constituency variables, I also include three basic constituency variables, namely, Union Strength, Farm Employment, and Retail/Wholesale Employment. For the two votes, a yea vote is treated as a pro-Taiwan vote and coded 1, and a nay vote is coded 0. For each vote, I first run a regression with the three basic constituency variables, and then add party and absolute DW score. Subsequently, I add exports to China, exports to Taiwan, and military awards, followed by hawkishness. Statistical findings Logit regression results for the vote on HR 2386 are presented in Table 5.4, and the probabilities calculated from logit coefficients are presented in Table 5.5. Surprisingly, none of the three variables in Model 1 is statistically significant, suggesting that constituency interests measured by these variables did not have any impact on the vote. In Model 2, the three constituency variables still fail to reach statistical significance, but the two added variables are highly significant. Consistent with my expectation, being a Republican increases the

92

Congress and Taiwan

Table 5.4 Logit analysis of the House vote on HR 2386 Independent variables

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Model 4

Union strength

−.023 (.014) .018 (.045) .068 (.052)

.007 (.018) −.004 (.060) .088 (.066) 3.874** (.425) −4.188** (.941)

.027 (.019) −.067 (.060) .088 (.069) 4.352** (.490) −4.863** (1.030) −.408* (.187) .157 (.164) −.000 (.000)

−244.792 .012 418

−158.904 .359 418

−144.251 .394 395

.062** (.022) −.063 (.067) .139 (.076) 1.116 (.654) −2.249* (1.1.5) −.513** (.188) .259 (.183) −.000 (.000) .066** (.012) −126.999 .467 395

Retail/wholesale employment Farm employment Republican Absolute DW score Exports to China Exports to Taiwan Military awards Hawkishness Log likelihood Pseudo R2 N

Notes: Cell entries are logit coefficients. Numbers in parentheses are standard errors. ** Significant at 0.01; * significant at 0.05.

Table 5.5 Increases in probabilities associated with one standard deviation increase in independent variables (HR 2386) Independent variables Union strength Retail/wholesale employment Farm employment Republican Absolute DW score Exports to China Exports to Taiwan Military awards Hawkishness

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Model 4 .057

.549 −.082

Note: Only significant coefficients are reported.

.597 −.093 −.050

−.040 −.058 .238

Congress and Taiwan

93

probability of voting for HR 2386 by a remarkable 0.549, holding other variables at their means. Contrary to my expectation, however, Absolute DW Score has a negative sign. As one becomes ideologically more extreme, one is less likely to support strong U.S.–Taiwan relations. To be exact, if Absolute DW Score increases by one standard deviation, the probability of voting for HR 2386 decreases by 0.082. My explanation for this surprising finding about Absolute DW Score is that controlling for other factors and in spite of a pro-Taiwan consensus across the ideological spectrum, liberals were still less likely than conservatives to support a bill that aimed to strengthen U.S.–Taiwan military relations. In other words, increase in Absolute DW Score leads to more nay votes among liberals than among conservatives. To find out if this is indeed the case, I compare vote distribution among liberals and conservatives. I define liberals loosely as those whose raw DW scores are above 0, and conservatives below 0. Of the 222 conservatives, only 7 voted against the bill. By contrast, of the 199 liberals, 110 voted against the bill. The vote distribution strongly suggests that liberal opposition was responsible for the negative sign of Absolute DW Score. Nevertheless, it should be pointed out that 80 liberals voted for the bill. If only a handful of liberals had done so, then Absolute DW Score would not be statistically significant because high scores would be associated with both yea and nay votes. Model 3 includes three more constituency variables, but only Exports to China is statistically significant and has the hypothesized sign. With one standard deviation increase in a state’s exports to China, the probability of casting a yea vote decreases by 0.050. Republican and Absolute DW Score remain highly significant and have the same sign as in Model 2. Moreover, the magnitude of their respective impact is largely the same as that in Model 3. Model 4 includes the other measure of ideology—hawkishness. Notice that with the addition of hawkishess, party is no longer statistically significant. The high correlation between the two variables (r = 0.853 and significant at 0.01) must have dampened the estimated effects of party.23 Also, Union Strength now reaches statistical significance. That is, controlling for hawkishness and other variables, a member is more likely to support strong U.S.–Taiwan relations if the percentage of unionized workers increases in his district. The inclusion of hawkishness does not affect Exports to China, which remains highly significant and has about the same impact as it does in Model 3. Hawkishness itself is statistically significant and has the correct sign. One standard deviation increase in hawkishness is associated with an increase of a solid 0.238 in the probability of voting for HR 2386, holding other variables at their means. Since the dovish–hawkish continuum generally overlaps with the liberal–conservative spectrum, that is, liberals tend to be dovish and conservatives hawkish, this finding suggests that controlling for party and other variables, liberals were less supportive of the bill than conservatives.24 Thus it provides further support for my explanation for the negative sign of Absolute DW Score.

94

Congress and Taiwan

Finally, it should be noted that the inclusion of party and Absolute DW Score in Model 2 increase pseudo R2 by an enormous 0.347, and the inclusion of hawkishness in Model 4 by 0.073. By contrast, the addition of three more constituency variables in Model 3 increases pseudo R2 by merely 0.035. Thus party and ideology—not constituency interests—appear to be the most important determinants of the vote. Moreover, a comparison of Model 2 and Model 3 suggests that party has much bigger impact than ideology. Table 5.6 and Table 5.7 present the results for the vote on HR 1838. Though Union Strength and Retail/Wholesale Employment are statistically significant in Model 1, neither of them is statistically significant in the other three models where party, ideology, and other constituency variables are controlled for. Besides, the overall explanatory power of Model 1 is rather weak, as indicated by the rather small pseudo R2 (0.052). With the addition of party and Absolute DW score in Model 2, pseudo R2 increases markedly to 0.205. Being a Republican increases the probability of casting a yea vote by 0.253, whereas one standard deviation increase in Absolute DW Score decreases the probability by 0.060. As in the case of HR 2386, Table 5.6 Logit analysis of the House vote on HR 1838 Independent variables

Model 1

Model 2

Model 3

Model 4

Union strength

−.049* (.023) .268** (.086) −.117 (.061)

−.037 (.026) .071 (.096) −.231** (.080) 2.378** (.406) −3.973** (1.039)

−.050 (.028) .105 (.104) −.240** (.086) 2.277** (.417) −3.659** (1.133) .503* (.236) −.221 (.149) .000 (.000)

−177.718 .052 411

−147.660 .205 410

−140.896 .211 389

−.048 (.029) .023 (.105) −.219* (.092) .098 (.572) −1.211 (1.210) .598* (.258) −.173 (.157) −.000 (.000) .053** (.011) −127.897 .284 389

Retail/wholesale employment Farm employment Republican Absolute DW score Exports to China Exports to Taiwan Military awards Hawkishness Log likelihood Pseudo R2 N

Notes: Cell entries are logit coefficients. Numbers in parentheses are standard errors. ** Significant at 0.01; * significant at 0.05.

Congress and Taiwan 95 Table 5.7 Increases in probabilities associated with one standard deviation increase in independent variables (HR 1838) Independent variables

Model 1

Union strength Retail/wholesale employment Farm employment Republican Absolute DW score Exports to China Exports to Taiwan Military awards Hawkishness

−.040 .056

Model 2

Model 3

Model 4 .057

−.044 .252 −.060

−.047 .236 −.055 .056

−.037 .057 .120

Note: Only significant coefficients are reported.

liberal opposition seems to be responsible for the negative sign of Absolute DW Score. Following my loose definition of liberals and conservatives, I find that 202 out of 211 conservatives voted for the bill, while 138 liberals out of a total of 198 did so. In a word, even though support for HR 1838 was generally strong across the ideological spectrum, liberals were still less supportive of it than conservatives. After controlling for party and the absolute DW score, Farm Employment reaches statistical significance, and if it increases by one standard deviation, the probability of voting for HR 1838 decreases by 0.044. Members from farm districts appear to be unwilling to support a bill that would likely disrupt access to a leading market for American farmers. The inclusion of three more constituency variables in Model 3 increases pseudo R2 only marginally from 0.205 to 0.212. As in Model 2, Republican, Absolute DW Score, and Farm Employment are all statistically significant and have the same sign. Moreover, their respective impact is nearly identical to that in Model 2. Surprisingly, Exports to China now has a positive sign, and it continues to have a positive sign in Model 4. That is, members whose constituencies were more dependent on the China market were actually more supportive of a bill that, if enacted into law, almost certainly would antagonize Beijing and disrupt American access to the China market. One might think that districts relatively dependent on exports to China also tend to elect conservative or Republican members who are usually strong supporters of Taiwan.25 But this explanation becomes problematic in light of the fact that Exports to China consistently has a negative sign in the vote on HR 2386. Three factors appear to be responsible for this puzzling finding. First, since the bill was introduced against the backdrop of U.S.–China negotiations for the latter’s accession to the WTO, many pro-trade members were determined to delay its passage lest Beijing retaliated by refusing to sign the WTO deal.

96

Congress and Taiwan

Doug Bereuter (R-NE), chairman of the House Asia and Pacific Subcommittee of the International Relations Committee (CQWR 1999: 2607) said: I did everything I could to delay this legislation [because] I did not want to give the Chinese an excuse for not reviving an agreement with the U.S. on WTO accession, or give Clinton a reason for striking a WTO deal. As a result of stiff opposition from pro-trade members, the bill was stripped of its most controversial language, including authorization to sell Taiwan advanced weapons such as missile defense systems, air-to-air missiles, and diesel-powered submarines. Thus members from states with large exports to China may have hoped that the passage of a largely innocuous bill would appease Taiwan supporters and induce them to vote for the trade deal with China. In other words, for these members a vote for HR 1838 was actually a strategic vote for PNTR. By the same token, the vote could be “an empty gesture, designed to protect Republicans from attacks by party conservatives who see China as a military threat” (CQWR 2000: 262). That is, many Republicans may have treated the vote as one on which to stake out their pro-Taiwan position. “We’ve had our vote here,” said House Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-CA). “Now let’s get on to dealing with permanent [normal trade relations], which is the important thing” (ibid.). Furthermore, strong opposition from the Senate to the original bill and its watered-down version, plus Clinton’s threat of veto, doomed the bill from the outset. This provides further incentives for members to view the vote as a position-taking vote. In a word, the various factors could have induced many members—including those whose constituents were heavily dependent on the China market—to vote for HR 1838, hence the positive sign of Exports to China. Finally, the high correlation between party and hawkishness (r = 0.748 and significant at 0.01) must have dampened the estimated effects of party, which is no longer statistically significant in Model 4. Farm Employment remains significant. With the inclusion of hawkishness, pseudo R2 increases considerably from 0.212 to 0.284. Discussion Since no Senate votes on U.S.–Taiwan relations could be analyzed, I cannot explore inter-chamber similarities and differences in roll call voting on Taiwan. Moreover, the lack of data for many variables prior to the 1990s makes it impossible to find out whether there has been any change over time in Taiwan policy voting. Finally, since both votes took place under divided government, it is hard to know whether members would have voted differently under unified government. These shortcomings aside, my analysis still sheds some important light on roll call voting on U.S. Taiwan policy in particular, and foreign policy voting in general.

Congress and Taiwan

97

The military-industrial complex has no impact at all. Previous studies have similarly reported little or no relationship between constituency dependence on military spending and members’ votes on foreign/defense policy (e.g., Bozeman and James 1975; Cobb 1969; Lindsay 1990; Ray 1981; Wayman 1985).26 Thus it seems that “constituency constraint [on foreign policy] is quite loose” (Lindsay 1990: 956). Several reasons may be responsible for the minimal impact of constituency interests on roll call voting. Since many foreign policy issues are not salient to most Americans (e.g., Delli Carpini and Keeter 1996), legislators enjoy a significant degree of freedom in roll call voting. Also, people tend to be more deferential to politicians when national interests are invoked than when parochial, domestic interests are involved. Moreover, “When members agree with their constituents on most issues but disagree with them on some,” wrote Lindsay (1990: 951), “a vote contrary to constituent opinion often does not pose great costs.” Last but not least, since a legislator’s reelection constituency can be different from the geographic constituency (see Fenno 1978; Kingdon 1973; Wright 1989), he/she may more actively shape and reflect the preferences of the former but not the preferences of the latter. This can lead to non-significant findings about the influence of geographic constituency. Meanwhile, two constituency variables perform relatively better. Exports to China and Farm Employment are negatively associated with support for HR 2386 and HR 1838 respectively. Thus some members of Congress appeared to be mindful of the possible negative repercussions of a pro-Taiwan policy for U.S.–China relations, in particular U.S.–China trade. If so, as economic ties between the U.S. and China continue to grow, more members will perhaps be more cautious in their approach to U.S.–Taiwan relations. However, this electoral connection should not be blown out of proportion. It does not mean that members will sacrifice Taiwan’s security on the altar of U.S.–China economic ties. Moreover the potential threat to Taiwan from China’s growing military power will in all likelihood reinforce lawmakers’ determination to safeguard Taiwan’s security. Above all, Taiwan’s democratic transition has changed its bond with Congress, from one based on anti-Communism in the Cold War to one underpinned by shared democratic values and institutions. A China hand at the State Department observed, As Taiwan’s economic prosperity has advanced and its democratization has proceeded, it has had an easier and easier task of selling itself in the United States, since it has, in fact, become increasingly admirable as a society, and its natural affinities with Americans have grown, rather than diminished. (quoted in Tucker 2001: 399) The former director of the American Institute on Taiwan, Nat Bellocchi, also said, “[They] are a democracy, and they have turned their human rights thing

98

Congress and Taiwan

around so completely, so they have a very broad spectrum of support up on the Hill” (quoted in Bush 2004: 479). As Bush (2004: 223) predicted, “This new consensus in favor of Taiwan as a fellow democracy would become a significant factor in future policy debate.” In a word, regardless of growing economic interdependence between Beijing and Washington, there will probably be strong, bipartisan support for Taiwan in the foreseeable future. I will conclude this chapter by saying a few words about the legendary China lobby and its successor, the Taiwan lobby. Scholarly studies of U.S.– China relations in the late 1940s and early 1950s generally agree that the China lobby, which included the powerful China bloc in Congress, significantly shaped U.S.–China policy, as evidenced by the China Aid Act of 1948 and vehement congressional opposition to the recognition of China and its admission to the United Nations (Bachrack 1976; Koen 1974; Tsou 1963; Tucker 1980, 1983, 1994).27 As Tucker (1994: 3) wrote, “The Nationalists might not have practiced democracy at home but found it expedient and rewarding to exploit Washington’s division of powers and sensitivity to public opinion.” Since Taiwan was expelled from the UN in 1971 and particularly after the dust had settled over normalization and the TRA, the China lobby gradually faded from public attention. In the 1990s, the Taiwan lobby, as opposed to the old China lobby, attracted extensive attention, as it was widely believed to be the driving force behind the sudden surge of congressional support for Taiwan on a wide range of issues, notably Lee’s visit to Cornell in 1995 (Pomfret 2002; Sciolino 1996; Shenon 2000). According to one former Foreign Service official involved in China policy, “They [Taiwan] have by far the most professional and skilled congressional-relations staff of any foreign regime represented here” (quoted in Tucker 2001: 338). Mann’s (2001) study also revealed the “sophistication, strong message, and long history” of the Taiwan lobby. Thus a critical question arises: To what extent has the Taiwan lobby influenced congressional support for Taiwan since the 1990s? It appears that the influence of the Taiwan lobby on Capitol Hill derives primarily from Taiwan’s democratic transition, and only secondarily from Congress’s historical ties with China and Chiang Kai-shek (i.e., the old China lobby). To put it in a different way, being a democracy itself is the necessary condition for the Taiwan lobby’s political clout. Nancy Tucker (quoted in Landay 1997) made this point crystal clear: “What [mainland Chinese] don’t understand about the success that Taiwan has had with lobbying is that Taiwan’s lobbying became much more successful as Taiwan’s political system changed.” Remarks by officials involved in the executive-legislative skirmish over Lee’s 1995 visit appear to corroborate Tucker’s claim. “I don’t think they [Taiwan lobbyists] would be making a dent if Taiwan were not such a success story,” one senior administration official observed (quoted in Mann 2001: 209). Stanley Roth, who was then on the National Security Council, rejected the argument that Cassidy, a Washington lobby firm hired by Taiwan, played

Congress and Taiwan 99 a major role in drumming up congressional support for Lee’s visit. “Taiwan had enormous support in the U.S. Congress to begin with,” he asserted. “The nature of the event, combined with the perception of Taiwan as good, as a role model, I think was more than enough to shore up congressional support, and I would say Cassidy’s role in the Congress was marginal” (quoted in ibid.). In a word, an undemocratic Taiwan would probably not have enjoyed so much support on Capitol Hill since the 1990s regardless of how powerful its lobbies were. Nevertheless, the Taiwan lobby should not be dismissed as politically insignificant. It helps Taiwan’s cause by bringing Taiwan-related issues to the attention of members of Congress. There are myriad issues crying for a member’s attention. In most cases, it is incumbent upon alert interest groups to bring a particular issue�