After the Tiananmen Square Massacre: A Reflection on America’s China Policy

Last Updated on June 4, 2025 8:19 pm

By Baosheng Guo

Today marks the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen Square Massacre on June 4, 1989, yet in recent months the international community has paid little attention to this historical moment and the question of democratization in China. One of the reasons is that after U.S. President Donald Trump took office, he implemented a foreign policy under his “America First” principle that prioritizes transactionalism and ignores values.

Trump not only discontinued the Summit for Democracy held in the Biden era but also withdrew funding from the National Endowment for Democracy and USAID. He gutted the U.S. Agency for Global Media, and suspended or restrained broadcasting regarding China, including Voice of America (VOA) Chinese, VOA Tibetan, and Radio Free Asia (which broadcast in Mandarin, Uyghur, and Tibetan). These platforms have long been the most critical overseas media to promote China’s democratization and to criticize the Chinese government for trampling on human rights. Meanwhile, the funding of many human rights organizations and NGOs related to China was also interrupted.

All of these moves caused significant losses to the Chinese democratic movement, at least overseas, sending it tumbling to new lows.

Many were astonished by Trump’s policies and could not understand why his approach to China disregarded the country’s human rights and democracy. But in fact, such a China policy is not unusual in U.S. history. By examining how the U.S. government addressed the Tiananmen Square Massacre 36 years ago, we find that the George H.W. Bush administration actually put American interests above the values ​​of democracy and human rights. Through this look back at history, we can see that realism and a policy of pragmatic engagement have been consistent features of the U.S. government’s China policy.

On June 4, 1989, the Chinese government brutally and bloodily suppressed the peaceful pro-democracy protest movement in Beijing and all around China, resulting in the slaughter of thousands of students and citizens. This incident, known as the Tiananmen Massacre, provoked a short-lived turning point in U.S. China policy. Before the Massacre, the United States had pursued a policy of engagement with China; after, the U.S. started to prioritize human rights above U.S. interests – but only for a moment. Before long, Washington had once again put national security and economic interests above human rights and democracy.

This short-lived turning point demonstrates the basic logic of the United States’ China policy in an era long predating Trump.

Since 1979, when the United States established a diplomatic relationship with the People’s Republic of China (PRC), Washington has implemented a policy of pragmatic engagement with China, believing that “deepening engagement would spur fundamental economic and political opening in the PRC and lead to its emergence as a constructive and responsible global stakeholder, with a more open society.”

Presidents Carter and Reagan promoted engagement with China to coordinate against the Soviet Union, encouraged China’s economic reform, and advocated for human rights. When President George H. W. Bush took office in 1989, he strengthened the pragmatic Sino-American engagement policies. He had been the chief of the Liaison Office to the PRC in 1974, and he had deep and human relationships with both Chinese top leaders and a broad cross-section of average citizens. Bush was so keen on a friendly relationship with China that he even expressed his dissatisfaction to the ambassador to China, Winston Lord, who was passionate about the Chinese human rights movement before June 4, 1989.

However, the crackdown on protesters swiftly forced a change in Bush’s China policy. One day after the Tiananmen Massacre, under pressure from Congress and international society, Bush announced a a series of sanctions on the Chinese government, such as a suspension of arms sales and military visits between the two countries, a re-examination of applications for an extension of stay by Chinese students in the United States, and reviews of other issues in bilateral relations.On June 8, the U.S. State Department called on American citizens to leave China. On the 20th, Bush instructed the U.S. government to impose new sanctions against China, including the cessation of all high-level contacts with Chinese government officials, and announced that the United States would seek to have international financial institutions postpone new loans to China.

The significant turn in Bush’s China policy won the praise and support of the U.S. Congress, society, and the international community. In a press conference on June 5, Bush said, “The demonstrators in Tiananmen Square were advocating basic human rights… Throughout the world, we stand with those who seek greater freedom and democracy. This is the strongly felt view of my administration, of our Congress, and most importantly, of the American people.”

In the immediate aftermath of the killings, the Bush administration started to treat human rights as the primary determinant of the Sino-U.S. relationship. Bush paused the long-standing engagement policy and the strategy of unity with China confronting the Soviet Union. That shocked the Chinese government, which could not believe that the U.S. would emphasize human rights to such an extent.

However, Bush still quietly maintained a positive view of the engagement policy. Even in the June 5 press conference, he said that “the budding of democracy which we have seen in recent weeks owes much to the relationship we have developed since 1972. And it’s important at this time to act in a way that will encourage the further development and deepening of the positive elements of that relationship and the process of democratization.”

His words set the tone and legitimacy for his renewal of the engagement policy with China soon after. Meanwhile, he implied that the United States should maintain engaged with China to promote the democratization of the country. “It would be a tragedy for all if China were to pull back to its pre-1972 era of isolation and repression,” Bush declared. “The process of democratization of Communist societies will not be a smooth one, and we must react to setbacks in a way which stimulates rather than stifles progress toward open and representative systems.”

As Professor Stephen Knott later wrote, “Although Bush abhorred the Chinese government’s violent crackdown in Tiananmen Square, he did not want to jettison improved U.S.-Sino relations… Many in Congress cried out for a harsh, punitive response to the Chinese government’s killing of peaceful protestors, but the Bush administration imposed only limited sanctions.”

James R. Lilley was the U.S. ambassador to China from 1989 to 1991. He said in an interview that “some Members of Congress from the Democratic Party were using this issue to bash President Bush with. The phrase commonly used was: ‘Send them [the Chinese leadership] a signal’ by withdrawing our ambassador. President Bush made it clear that he wasn’t going to do that.”

In addition, Bush sent his national security adviser, Brent Scowcroft, and the deputy secretary of state, Lawrence Eagleburger, on secret missions to Beijing in July and December 1989. As Scowcroft wrote in 1998, “The purpose of my trip … was not negotiations – there was nothing yet to negotiate – but an effort to keep open the lines of communication.”

Nevertheless, the two secret visits to Beijing were symbolically significant and heralded a further change in the direction of U.S. China policy yet again. As Professor David Shambaugh commented, “Scowcroft had gone to Beijing in the hopes of establishing a pathway through which the Chinese leadership could climb out of the traps they had laid and were in.” And Professor Evan Medeiros has argued that in 1989, the U.S. government “wanted a return to stable and positive relations more than Beijing. The White House made numerous efforts: a secret trip, multiple letters, and the briefing after Bush’s summit with Gorbachev.”

Along with two secret visits, Bush wrote two letters to Deng Xiaoping, China’s top leader at the time. In the first letter, Bush attempted to justify his choices: “the actions I took as president could not be avoided… the clamor for stronger action remains intense… I have resisted that clamor, making clear that I do not want to see destroyed this relationship that you and I have worked so hard to build.”

In the second letter, he wrote that he saw “many areas of importance today where China and the U.S. have similar interests… On the broader subject that is a constant concern to me, how to normalize relations between us, I will continue to try to find some answers. With respect, I hope China will try to do the same.”

Like many Americans and Chinese overseas, political scholar Ted Galen Carpenter critiqued the letters. “The United States needs to preserve a decent relationship with Beijing. But no one should have any illusions about the profoundly evil nature of China’s communist regime,” Galen wrote. “Bush preserved the China tie, but he did so at the cost of his personal dignity and American values. That mistake must not be repeated.”

But the die was cast. Bush started to return to the engagement policy after an all-too-short period of prioritizing human rights in U.S. China policy. Except for keeping some sanctions, the Bush administration began to restore a comprehensive relationship with China. In particular, Bush separated Most Favored Nation (MFN) treatment from sanctions and human rights, and he vetoed any bills of Congress that linked the two together. Bush vetoed such bills in both 1991 and 1992, allowing China to receive annual MFN treatment.

Just three years after the Tiananmen Massacre, the Bush administration ultimately returned its China policy to one of pragmatic engagement. Bush’s weakened emphasis on human rights became a target of criticisms from Democratic presidential candidate Bill Clinton in the 1992 election. However, when Clinton took office, he also decoupled human rights from China’s MFN status.

There are two reasons why the United States’ China policy returned to the track of engagement. First, the U.S. needed to unite with China to confront the Soviet Union before its collapse in December 1991. Second, after the end of the Cold War, China’s enormous population and market – a source of potentially huge profits – became a primary driver of U.S. engagement. Simply put, decoupling with China was not pragmatic, and national security and economic interests profit have always ranked higher than human rights in the priorities of U.S. foreign policy.

Still, there were consequences to the dramatic return to the original U.S. China policy after the Tiananmen Massacre. The about-face not only showed the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) regime the reality and flexibility of U.S. policy but also forced human rights advocates in China to re-evaluate the role of the U.S. government in advancing Chinese human rights and democracy. It became clear that the U.S. government wanted to maintain a permanent pragmatic engagement with China instead of sanctioning or even decoupling from the Chinese government over human right abuses. Both the CCP and China’s pro-human rights community recognized that the U.S. advocates for human rights but does not always treat them as a priority.

As the famous Bible verse goes, “There is nothing new under the sun.” After revisiting Bush’s choices 36 years ago, Trump’s China policy today should not surprise us. It’s just another incarnation of the long-standing focus on realism and engagement policies. However, there is one major differences: Bush and other presidents still mentioned human rights and democracy as a goal. Trump refuses to mention human rights and democracy in his China policy, while wiping out U.S. values and soft power from global diplomacy. Trump’s second term thus marks the worst iteration of the United States’ realist and pragmatic approach to China.

On the 36th anniversary of the Tiananmen Massacre, the Chinese who are promoting China’s democratization should internalize the lessons learned not only in 1989, but also in 1992. They should not only depend on the U.S. but should make an effort to receive aid from Europe, Japan, and Taiwan. Within the United States, they should not rely solely on the executive branch of government; instead, they should focus on American society, including Congress, NGOs, think tanks, and universities.

One lasting truth is this: the people promoting China’s democratization must fight to the end, regardless of external assistance, until we finally prevail.

Baosheng Guo is an M.A. student in Asian Studies at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs and a well-known Chinese dissident. He was a major participant and organizer of the student movement in Beijing universities after the June 4th Incident in 1989.

Source: The Diplomat