Breaking the Engagement: How China Won and Lost America

In this deeply researched book, Shambaugh provides persuasive solutions to two enduring puzzles in the relationship between China and the United States: What explains the more than centurylong oscillating pattern of engagement, disenchantment, and reengagement in U.S.-Chinese relations? And why, after four decades of deepening engagement, do the two countries find themselves in a period of disengagement and rivalry? Shambaugh answers these questions by delving into the history of American policy toward China and exploring the actors, interests, and debates that have helped shape it. He discovers an abiding missionary zeal in the United States to “change China”—to help it modernize and liberalize politically and economically—and credits that impulse with shaping the overall context of the relationship. When Chinese behavior aligns with American expectations, relations thrive; when it doesn’t, tensions grow. Shambaugh’s research also yields an important and more counterintuitive finding: too much engagement breeds suspicion, disenchantment, and eventually disengagement. The book is further enlivened with a rich collection of anecdotes from Shambaugh’s own history of ups and downs in dealing with China as a student, scholar, and policy adviser.