When the hawks fly high: analyzing the evolution of attitudes towards China in the US congress since 2008

Abstract

US-China relations are one of the most complex issues in global politics. Scholars agree that in the past decade US’ China policy has undergone a massive transformation: from seeing the PRC as a ‘partner’ to be engaged with, to labeling China as a ‘threat’ that the US must out-compete. There is also a consensus among scholars that, while Chinese policy vis-á-vis the US has always been long-term, the US has often been excessively reactive towards Chinese revisionism. However, most accounts of US’ China policy in the literature focus exclusively on the executive branch, often ignoring Congress’ diverse abilities and initiatives to influence the President’s foreign policy. This thesis seeks to address that gap in the literature by examining the evolution of congressional attitudes towards China since the 2008 financial crisis. This event is intentionally picked as a starting point of the analysis, since the literature considers it a defining moment in contemporary US-China relations. The thesis contemplates different avenues of influence from Congress to shape policy: legislation, congressional hearings in relevant committees, formal powers of advice and consent in the Senate, and swaying public opinion through informal channels. Overall, the thesis confirms that there was a drastic paradigm shift in congressional attitudes starting in the 115th Congress (2016-17), in which lawmakers became increasingly willing to exert their powers to shape policy vis-á-vis China. More importantly, it shows that the common-shared notion of US’ China policy being mostly ‘reactive’ is not sustained when looking at the legislature, which has often proposed changes in policy direction before the executive branch picked up those initiatives. This shift in attitudes is found to be independent of party affiliation and transversal in a myriad of policy areas (e.g., human rights, trade and technology, military issues), and committees (e.g., HFAC, HASC, SFRC, HFSC, SPSCI, etc.).