U.S.-China Relations: Policy Issues

Susan V. Lawrence
Specialist in Asian Affairs

Congress faces important questions about what sort of relationship the United States should have with China and how the United States should respond to China’s “rise.” After 30 years of fastpaced economic growth, China’s economy is now the second-largest in the world after the United States. With economic success, China has developed significant global strategic clout. It is also engaged in an ambitious military modernization drive, including development of extended-range power projection capabilities and such advanced weapons as a “carrier killer” anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM). At home, it continues to suppress all perceived challenges to the Communist Party’s monopoly on power.

In previous eras, the rise of new powers has often produced conflict. President Obama and China’s leader Xi Jinping have embraced the challenge of establishing a “new style great power relationship” that avoids such an outcome. The Obama Administration has repeatedly assured China that the United States “welcomes a strong, prosperous and successful China that plays a greater role in world affairs,” and that the United States does not seek to prevent China’s reemergence as a great power. Washington has wrestled, however, with how to engage China on issues affecting stability and security in the Asia-Pacific region. Issues of concern for Washington include the intentions behind China’s military modernization program, China’s use of its paramilitary forces and military in disputes with its neighbors over territorial claims in the South China Sea and East China Sea, and its continuing threat to use force to bring Taiwan under its control. With U.S.-China military-to-military ties fragile, Washington has struggled to convince Beijing that the U.S. policy of rebalancing toward the Asia Pacific is not intended to contain China. The two countries have cooperated, with mixed results, to address nuclear proliferation concerns related to Iran and North Korea.

While working with China to revive the global economy, the United States has also wrestled with how to persuade China to address economic policies and activities the United States sees as denying a level playing field to U.S. firms trading with and operating in China. At the top of the U.S. agenda is commercial cyber espionage that the U.S. government says appears to be directly attributable to the Chinese government and military. Other economic concerns for the United States include China’s “indigenous innovation” industrial policies, its weak protections for intellectual property rights, and its currency policy. The United States has differed with China over approaches to combating climate change, while cooperating with China in the development of clean energy technologies. Human rights remains one of the thorniest areas of the relationship, with the United States pressing China to ease restrictions on freedom of speech, internet freedom, religious and ethnic minorities, and labor rights, and China’s leaders suspicious that the United States’ real goal is to end Communist Party rule.

This report opens with an overview of the U.S.-China relationship, recent developments in the relationship, Obama Administration policy toward China, and a summary of legislation related to China in the 113th and 112th Congresses. The report then reviews major policy issues in the relationship. Throughout, the report directs the reader to other CRS reports for more detailed information about individual topics. This report will be updated periodically. A detailed summary of 113th and 112th Congress legislative provisions and hearings related to China is provided in appendices.


Date of Report: June 14, 2013
Number of Pages: 68
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U.S.-Vietnam Relations in 2013: Current Issues and Implications for U.S. Policy

Mark E. Manyin
Specialist in Asian Affairs

After communist North Vietnam’s victory over U.S.-backed South Vietnam in 1975, the United States and Vietnam had minimal relations until the mid-1990s. Since the establishment of diplomatic relations in 1995, overlapping security and economic interests have led the two sides to expand relations across a wide range of issue-areas and begin to form a strategic partnership of sorts. Perhaps most prominently, in 2010, the two countries mobilized a multinational response to China’s perceived attempts to boost its claims to disputed waters and islands in the South China Sea. This coordinated effort to promote the freedom of navigation has continued. 

U.S. Interests In the United States, voices favoring improved relations have included those reflecting U.S. business interests in Vietnam’s growing economy and U.S. strategic interests in expanding cooperation with a populous country—Vietnam has over 90 million people—that has an ambivalent relationship with China and that is asserting itself on the regional stage. Others argue that improvements in bilateral relations should be conditioned upon Vietnam’s authoritarian government improving its record on human rights. The population of more than 1 million Vietnamese-Americans, as well as legacies of the Vietnam War, also drive continued U.S. interest. 

Vietnamese Interests 

Vietnamese leaders have sought to upgrade relations with the United States in part due to the desire for continued access to the U.S. market and to worries about China’s expanding influence in Southeast Asia. That said, Sino-Vietnam relations are Vietnam’s most important bilateral relationship and Vietnamese leaders must tiptoe carefully along the tightrope between Washington and Beijing, such that improved relations with one capital not be perceived as a threat to the other. Also, some Vietnamese remain suspicious that the United States’ long-term goal is to erode the Vietnamese Communist Party’s (VCP’s) monopoly on power. Thus far, an apparent intensification of political infighting among Vietnam’s top leaders in 2012 and 2013 does not appear to have affected the fundamental dynamics of Vietnam-U.S. relations. 

Economic Ties 

The United States is Vietnam’s largest export market and in some years its largest source of foreign direct investment. Bilateral trade in 2011 was over $17 billion, a tenfold increase since the United States extended “normal trade relations” (NTR) treatment to Vietnam in 2001. Increased trade also has been fostered by Vietnam’s market-oriented reforms. From 1987-2007, Vietnam’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth averaged over 7%. Since then, Vietnam’s economy has been buffeted by economic difficulties that have lowered growth rates and raised inflation. The United States and Vietnam are 2 of 11 countries negotiating a Trans-Pacific Strategic and Economic Partnership (TPP) regional free trade agreement (FTA). To go into effect, a TPP agreement (if one is reached) would require approval by both houses of Congress. Vietnam is one of the largest recipients of U.S. assistance in East Asia; since the late 2000s, annual U.S. aid typically surpasses $100 million, much of it for health-related activities. 

Human Rights 

Human rights are the biggest thorn in the side of the relationship. Although disagreements over Vietnam’s human rights record have not prevented the two sides from improving relations, they do appear to create a ceiling for the speed and extent of these improvements. Vietnam is a oneparty, authoritarian state ruled by the Vietnamese Communist Party (VCP), which appears to be following a strategy of permitting most forms of personal and religious expression while selectively repressing individuals and organizations that it deems a threat to the party’s monopoly on power. Most human rights observers contend that the government, which already had tightened restrictions on dissent and criticism since 2007, further intensified its suppression in the first half of 2013.

Some human rights advocates have argued that the United States should use Vietnam’s participation in the TPP FTA talks as leverage to pressure Hanoi to improve the country’s human rights situation. Also, since the 107th Congress, various legislative attempts have been made to link the provision of U.S. aid, as well as arms sales, to Vietnam’s human rights record.


Date of Report: June 19, 2013
Number of Pages: 37
Order Number: R40208
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Foreign Assistance to North Korea

Mark E. Manyin
Specialist in Asian Affairs

Mary Beth Nikitin
Specialist in Nonproliferation

Between 1995 and 2008, the United States provided North Korea with over $1.3 billion in assistance: slightly more than 50% for food aid and about 40% for energy assistance. Since early 2009, the United States has provided virtually no aid to North Korea, though episodically there have been discussions about resuming large-scale food aid. Additionally, the Obama Administration officials have said that they would be willing to consider other types of aid if North Korea takes steps indicating that it will dismantle its nuclear program. However, barring an unexpected breakthrough, there appears little likelihood the Obama Administration will provide large-scale assistance of any type to North Korea in the near future. In February 2013, North Korea announced it had conducted its third test of a nuclear device, a move that came weeks after its apparently successful launch of a long-range missile. Members of Congress have a number of tools they could use to influence the development and implementation of aid programs with North Korea. 

Food Aid. North Korea has suffered from chronic, massive food shortages since the mid-1990s. Food aid—largely from China, South Korea, and the United States—has been essential in filling the gap. As of mid-2013, according to many observers, it appears that while North Korea’s continued food shortages are not severe enough to create a crisis situation, they are causing chronic malnutrition and stunting in vulnerable populations in certain regions. Many analysts think the Obama Administration will be reluctant to provide large-scale aid after the breakdown of a February 2012 deal, in which the United States announced it would provide North Korea with large-scale food aid in return for concessions by Pyongyang on its nuclear and missile programs. The deal unraveled in April 2012 after North Korea launched a long-range rocket in defiance of United Nations sanctions. Since then, the United States and North Korea have not reached any agreements, including on food aid. In June 2012, the Senate voted to prohibit food aid to North Korea.

Providing food to North Korea poses a number of dilemmas. Pyongyang has resisted reforms that would allow the equitable distribution of food and help pay for food imports. The North Korean government restricts the ability of donors to operate in the country. Additionally, multiple sources have asserted that some of the food assistance is routinely diverted for resale in private markets or other uses. However, it is likely that food aid has helped feed millions of North Koreans, at times possibly staving off a repeat of the famine conditions that existed in North Korea in the mid-late 1990s, when 5%-10% of the population died. South Korean President Park Geun-hye’s government has indicated that they would be willing to offer North Korea food aid as part of her plan to foster a “new era” in inter-Korean relations. 

Energy Assistance. Between 1995 and 2009, the United States provided around $600 million in energy assistance to North Korea. The aid was given over two time periods—1995-2003 and 2007-2009—in exchange for North Korea freezing its plutonium-based nuclear facilities. In 2008 and 2009, North Korea also took steps to disable these facilities. However, no additional energy assistance has been provided since 2009, when Pyongyang withdrew from the Six-Party Talks— involving North Korea, the United States, China, Japan, and Russia—over North Korea’s nuclear program. The move followed condemnation and sanctions by the U.N. Security Council for North Korea’s April 2009 launch of a suspected long-range missile and May 2009 test of a nuclear device.


In 2007 and 2008, the United States also provided technical assistance to help in North Korea’s nuclear disablement process. In 2008, Congress took steps to legally enable the President to give expanded assistance for this purpose. However, following North Korea’s actions in the spring of 2009, Congress rejected the Obama Administration’s requests for funds to supplement existing resources in the event of a breakthrough. Congress did approve monies for the State Department’s general emergency nonproliferation fund that the Administration could use in North Korea.


Date of Report: June 11, 2013
Number of Pages: 23
Order Number: R40095
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Buy, Build, or Steal: China’s Quest for Advanced Military Aviation Technologies

Although China continues to lag approximately two decades behind the world’s most sophisticated air forces in terms of its ability to develop and produce fighter aircraft and other complex aerospace systems, it has moved over time from absolute reliance on other countries for military aviation technology to a position where a more diverse array of strategies can be pursued. Steps taken in the late 1990s to reform China’s military aviation sector demonstrated an understanding of the problems inherent in high-technology acquisition, and an effort to move forward. However, a decade later it remains unclear how effective these reforms have been. Where are the People’s Liberation Army Air Force (PLAAF) and China’s military aviation industry headed? What obstacles must be overcome for China to join the exclusive ranks of those nations possessing sophisticated air forces and aviation industries capable of producing world-class aircraft?

This study identifies potential aviation technology development and procurement strategies, presents a general model of the options available to developing countries, and applies that model to explain Chinese procurement and aviation technology acquisition efforts over the last 60 years. The model articulates three main technology procurement avenues: purchase (buy), indigenous development (build), and espionage (steal), and three subavenues: reverse engineering (combining buy/steal and build), coproduction (combining buy and build), and codevelopment (combining buy and build, with an emphasis on build). It examines the costs, benefits, and tradeoffs inherent in each approach. Four variables influence decisions about the mix of strategies: (1) a country’s overall level of economic development, in particular the state of its technical/industrial base; (2) the technological capacity of a country’s military aviation sector; (3) the willingness of foreign countries to sell advanced military aircraft, key components, armaments, and related production technology; and (4) the country’s bargaining power vis-à-vis potential suppliers.

Date of Report: December 14, 2011
Number of Pages: 67
Order Number: G1885
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U.S.-China Relations: Policy Issues

Susan V. Lawrence
Specialist in Asian Affairs

Congress faces important questions about what sort of relationship the United States should have with China and how the United States should respond to China’s “rise.” After 30 years of fastpaced economic growth, China’s economy is now the second-largest in the world after the United States. With economic success, China has developed significant global strategic clout. It is also engaged in an ambitious military modernization drive, including development of extended-range power projection capabilities and such advanced weapons as a “carrier killer” anti-ship ballistic missile (ASBM). At home, it continues to suppress all perceived challenges to the Communist Party’s monopoly on power.

In previous eras, the rise of new powers has often produced conflict. President Obama and China’s leader Xi Jinping have embraced the challenge of establishing a “new style great power relationship” that avoids such an outcome. The Obama Administration has repeatedly assured China that the United States “welcomes a strong, prosperous and successful China that plays a greater role in world affairs,” and does not seek to prevent China’s re-emergence as a great power. Washington has wrestled, however, with how to engage China on issues affecting stability and security in the Asia-Pacific region. Issues of concern for Washington include the intentions behind China’s military modernization program, China’s assertive territorial claims in the South China Sea and East China Sea, and its continuing threat to use force to bring Taiwan under its control. With U.S.-China military-to-military ties fragile, Washington has struggled to convince Beijing that the U.S. policy of rebalancing toward the Asia Pacific is not intended to contain China. The two countries have cooperated, with mixed results, to address nuclear proliferation concerns related to Iran and North Korea.

While working with China to revive the global economy, the United States has also wrestled with how to persuade China to address economic policies and activities the United States sees as denying a level playing field to U.S. firms trading with and operating in China. An issue that has risen to the top of the U.S. agenda is commercial cyber espionage that the U.S. government says appears to be directly attributable to the Chinese government and military. Other economic concerns for the United States include China’s “indigenous innovation” industrial policies, its weak protections for intellectual property rights, and its currency policy. The United States has differed with China over approaches to combating climate change, while cooperating with China in the development of clean energy technologies. Human rights remains one of the thorniest areas of the relationship, with the United States pressing China to ease restrictions on freedom of speech, internet freedom, religious and ethnic minorities, and labor rights, and China’s leaders suspicious that the United States’ real goal is to end Communist Party rule.

This report opens with an overview of the U.S.-China relationship and Obama Administration policy toward China, and a summary of legislation related to China in the 113th and 112th Congresses. The report then reviews major policy issues in the relationship. Throughout, this report directs the reader to other CRS reports for more detailed information about individual topics. This report will be updated periodically. A detailed summary of legislative provisions and hearings related to China is provided in appendices.


Date of Report: June 6, 2013
Number of Pages: 64
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