In American politics, the China lobby () consisted of an informal network of advocacy groups, politicians, journalists, Protestant missions in China, Chinese diplomats, and Chinese Americans that advocated for the United States to support the Republic of China, governed by the Kuomintang. During the Cold War, the support also included opposition to the People's Republic of China, ruled by the Chinese Communist Party.
History
The Cold War
The Committee of One Million Against the Admission of Red China to the United Nations, later changed its name to The Committee of One Million Against the Admission of Communist China to the United Nations. The committee was established by Marvin Liebman, a political activist. Congressman Walter Judd (1898–1994) was an important spokesman for the Lobby.Lee Edwards, Missionary for Freedom: The Life and Times of Walter Judd (1990) online
It was the dominant lobby on China issues until the 1970s.Rosemary Foot, The practice of power: US relations with China since 1949 (Oxford University Press, 1995). During the 1970s, the China Lobby strongly opposed American recognition of the People's Republic of China (PRC). However in the 1970s, China–United States relations improved as US President Richard Nixon pursued normalized relations and the United States recognized the PRC as "China" in 1979.Brian Hilton, "'Maximum Flexibility for Peaceful Change': Jimmy Carter, Taiwan, and the Recognition of the People's Republic of China." Diplomatic History 33.4 (2009): 595-613.
See also Asia first China Hands Committee of 100 (United States) Blue Team (U.S. politics) National Committee on United States–China Relations
Notes
Further reading
Bachrack, Stanley D. The Committee of One Million: "China Lobby" Politics, 1953-1971 [ New York: Columbia University Press, 1976) online. Blackwell, Jeff. "'The China Lobby': Influences on US-China Foreign Policy in the Post War Period, 1949-1954." The Forum: Journal of History 2#1 (2010) online. Crean, Jeffrey. "'Nixon is With Us on China': Raging against the Dying of the Lobby" Journal of American-East Asian Relations 26:4 (2019): 368–396. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1163/18765610-02604003 online review of this article in H-DIPLO. Davis, Forrest, and Robert A. Hunter. The Red China Lobby. (New York: Fleet, 1963). Erskine, Kristopher C. "American Public Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics: The Genesis of the China Lobby in the United States, and how Missionaries Shifted American Foreign Policy between 1938 and 1941." Journal of American-East Asian Relations 25.1 (2018): 33–59. Hrebenar, Ronald J., and Clive S. Thomas. "The Rise and fall and rise of the China Lobby in the United States." in Interest Group Politics (CQ Press, 2011): 297+. Hung, Ho-fung. "The periphery in the making of globalization: the China Lobby and the Reversal of Clinton’s China Trade Policy, 1993–1994." Review of International Political Economy (2020): 1-24. Keeley, Joseph Charles. The China Lobby Man: The Story of Alfred Kohlberg. (New Rochelle, NY: Arlington House, 1969). online Koen, Ross Y., ed. The China Lobby in American Politics. (1974) online. Mao, Joyce. " No Such Thing: The China Lobby." in Asia First (U of Chicago Press, 2015) pp. 44–77. Mao, Joyce. Asia First: China and the Making of Modern American Conservatism (U of Chicago Press, 2015). viii, 226 pp. Marshall, Jonathan. "Cooking the Books: The Federal Bureau of Narcotics, the China Lobby and Cold War Propaganda, 1950–1962." Asia-Pacific Journal: Japan Focus 11 (2013) online. Stueck Jr, William W. The Road to Confrontation: American Policy Toward China and Korea (UNC Press Books, 2017). Yin, Xiao-huang. "From the China Lobby to the Taiwan Lobby: Movers and Shakers of the US–China–Taiwan Triangular Relationship." in The Expanding Roles of Chinese Americans in US-China Relations: Transnational Networks and Trans-Pacific Interactions (Routledge, 2015) pp. 148–164.