Casting a Shadow” Over Trade

Scholarly work on the rapprochement between the People's Republic of China (PRC) and the United States that began in the early 1970s has mainly focused on the strategic and security concerns that underlay that development.1 Yet, during the early phases of the new relationship political-economic problems, involving claims for expropriated property and commercial policy matters, had a telling impact on U.S. policymaking and Sino-American relations. Believing that the development of trade between the United States and China could be a significant element of the rapprochement, the Nixon administration assumed that commercial prospects depended on resolving thorny difficulties from the years of overt hostility, mainly the PRC assets blocked by the U.S. Treasury and U.S. private claims over property seized by the PRC. During early 1973, U.S. and PRC diplomats began talks over ways and means to settle those problems. Yet, neither the Nixon nor the Ford administrations could reach a claims-assets settlement with Beijing; what became contentious negotiations deadlocked until after the Carter administration came to power

Administration (probate law · Alliance · Beijing · China · Economics · International trade · Negotiation · Political economy · Political science · Politics · Property rights · Settlement (finance · Shadow (psychology · Treasury · Chinese history and philosophy · Finance · Law · Vietnamese History and Culture Studies