Johnson administration, China policy

Rusk to LBJ, Policy toward Communist China, 22 February 1968, ibid, p. 646. A good discussion of the Johnson administration s positive response to the Cultural Revolution as compared to the Kennedy administration s negative reaction to the GLF is provided in Victor Kaufman, A Response to Chaos The United States, the Great Leap Forward, and the Cultural Revolution, 1961-1968, Journal of American-East Asian Relations 7(1-2) (Spring/Summer 1998), pp. 73-92. 

The two preceding chapters analyzed the China policy debate within the Kennedy and Johnson administrations and traced American officials arguments for and against relaxing China policy in the 1960s. They demonstrated that four distinct subdiscourses about China existed within the internal official discourse, each a representation of the perceived identity and characteristics of China, of the Sino-American relationship, and of resulting U.S. interests and policy stances. These are summarized in Table 4.1. 

This revisionist trend also permeated the Johnson administration s public discourse on China, which increasingly emphasized China s weakening position and thus coalesced around the theme of Troubled Modernizer. In a late 1967 interview, Johnson expressed the hope that the Chinese leaders would learn from their failures in Africa, Latin America, and Asia and move toward a better understanding and a more moderate approach to their neighbors.Chinese militancy was really a source of weakness Rusk often reminded the public that China s militant stance had isolated it even within the international communist community, and that it now appeared to be a major issue of contention within China itself, in its great agony over the directions of policy and the identity of leadership. 4 At... 

On the possibility that the Johnson administration might have misplayed its hand during the Cultural Revolution, see Victor S. Kaufman, Confronting Communism US and British Policies toward China (Columbia, 2001), Chapter 8. 

By 1967, therefore, it seemed that the Johnson administration had moved as far as it could in terms of both official attitudes and policy initiatives toward China. A large number of policy proposals intended to further increase contact, mute hostilities, and show appreciation for China awaited better possibilities of Chinese reciprocation for their implementation. In 1968-9, the time appeared to be at hand, as the Vietnam peace talks began and the Cultural Revolution seemed to be winding down. In some of the last memoranda of the Johnson administration, Jenkins, Rusk, and Rostow urged that the time was right to continue the process of relaxing China policy. ... 

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