Nicholas Khoo: The Trump Administration and the United States’ China post-1972 Engagement Policy

The longstanding post-1972 consensus supporting a US policy of engagement with China has been eroded by increasing dissatisfaction with developments in China’s domestic and foreign policies. As a consequence, a policy of near full-spectrum US engagement has been replaced by a more conditional posture where conflict increasingly outweighs cooperation. This talk describes the relationship’s breakdown during the Trump administration. It then evaluates two major competing explanations for the deterioration. These emphasize either the role of the concept of identity, or aspects of power politics, specifically, state interests and the distribution of capabilities. The talk concludes with a discussion of the implications of a more confrontational Sino-US relationship for New Zealand.

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About Nicholas Khoo

Nicholas Khoo is Associate Professor of International Studies at the University of Otago. His expertise and research interests pertain to Chinese foreign policy; Asian security; international relations theory; and cold war studies.

Nicholas is author of China’s Foreign Policy Since 1978: Return to Power (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2020); author of Collateral Damage: Sino-Soviet Rivalry and the Termination of the Sino-Vietnamese Alliance (New York: Columbia University Press, 2011); co-author of Security at a Price: The International Politics of U.S. Missile Defense (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2017), and co-author of Asian Security and the Rise of China: International Relations in an Age of Volatility (Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar, 2013).

Read more about Nicholas Khoo on the University of Otago website

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