Title: 40 Years of US-China Commercial Relations - China Business Review
Headings: 40 Years of US-China Commercial Relations
40 Years of US-China Commercial Relations
By Ben Baden
THE EARLY TALKS
CHINA OPENS UP
FROM BOOM TO BUST
CHINA’S ACCESSION TO THE WTO
MIXED REACTIONS ON PROGRESS
US-China

Content: Around this time there was a surge of investment into China because of a number of policy changes, such as relaxed rules on foreign investment, permission to set up wholly foreign-owned enterprises in certain sectors, and other reforms that effectively made it easier and more attractive to invest in China. But June 1989 was a dramatic turning point for US-China commercial relations. After the government crackdown on protesters in Beijing’s Tiananmen Square and subsequent slowdown in economic growth in China, companies began to question whether China was a healthy and stable market. “ Clearly, it was the nadir in the relationship and in the health and strength of the council itself,” Brecher says. The developments in China sparked negative reactions in the United States, and members of Congress began to question whether they should continue extending certain trading rights to China. The United States first granted China most-favored-nation (MFN) status in 1980, which made trading with China more attractive by lowering tariffs on goods imported to the United States. The status was subject to annual renewal. After Tiananmen, negotiating MFN status became a “political football,” Brecher says. The issue surfaced most notably during the 1992 presidential election campaign. Then-candidate Bill Clinton said President George H.W. Bush “coddled” the Chinese government, which Clinton also referred to as the “butchers of Beijing.”