Orchestrating and Mediating New China’s International Reintegration: The U.S. Think Tank China Cluster in the 1980s

To a degree perhaps unparalleled in any other bilateral relationship between the United States and another power, that with China involved—at least on the U.S. side—a suite of overlapping non-governmental organizations staffed by individuals who believed that they personally or institutions with which they were associated possessed some kind of stake in steering policymaking so as to develop Sino-American understanding and exchanges and keep the relationship on an even keel. With normalization accomplished, America’s China experts switched gears, moving from efforts to encourage progress toward normalization while educating Americans about China, to measures intended to help Chinese elites—students, educators, officials, and businessmen—familiarize themselves with and become integrated into the institutional infrastructure of the predominantly non-communist international system. Neither Americans nor Chinese possessed deep understanding of the organization and operations of the other country’s political, economic, and social system and structure. Enlightening Chinese leaders, administrators, technocrats, and intellectuals on how the United States functioned internally and internationally became as great a preoccupation as providing Americans with information on China. As they focused increasingly on Reform, modernization, and innovation, Chinese bureaucrats, professionals, scholars, and students were equally keen to gain access to U.S. technology, skills, expertise, and networks.