How was China viewed in the 1980s and 1990s?

[Bootes Void]

not quite a global power but past Mao's communism, how was China viewed at the time?

[buritobr]

I don't remember the 1980s.

But I remember that in the 1990s, China was still not the world's 2nd superpower, but it was already recognized as an important power. However, China was seen as a country located in the area of the influence of Japan, like the Tigers and the New Tigers.

[TDAS04]

From what I know, from Nixon’s visit until Tiananmen Square, I don’t think Americans considered China an enemy or a threat.  China may even have been viewed as a partner against the “evil empire” (USSR).

After Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, American public opinion of China declined.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

From what I know, from Nixon’s visit until Tiananmen Square, I don’t think Americans considered China an enemy or a threat.  China may even have been viewed as a partner against the “evil empire” (USSR).

After Tiananmen Square massacre in 1989, American public opinion of China declined.

https://mobile.twitter.com/fravel/status/1366931639935393798

In the '80s, it was an up & down view of China. Interestingly enough, right before the Tiananmen Square massacre, Americans had the highest favorability of China ever on record (February/March 1989). Then, after Tiananmen, China's favorability rapidly declined.

China's favorability remained low for the entire '90s but it did tick up in the late '90s and early '00s. Bill Clinton visited China in 1998 and then he signed a trade deal with China in 2000 (and pushed for China to join the WTO).

China's approval remained in the late 40s for the entire 2000s. I don't know why China's approval reached it's recent peak at 53% in 2018 though. That's odd. Regardless, China's favorability is the lowest ever on record right now.

[buritobr]

The neoliberals have a relation of love and hate with China. In the 1980s, despite the Deng Xiaoping reforms, China was still viewed as a communist country. During the 1990s and the 2000s, when there was the Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao administrations, the neoliberals started to love China. They used to consider the country as a sucess story due to low social safety net and low labor protection. They started to think that the name of the party, the red flag and the Mao portrait in the center of Beijing were only symbols of the past. In the 2010s, during Xi Jinping administration, the neoliberals started to hate China again. State planning became stronger and Jinping started to increase the relevance of the communist symbols again.

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

The neoliberals have a relation of love and hate with China. In the 1980s, despite the Deng Xiaoping reforms, China was still viewed as a communist country. During the 1990s and the 2000s, when there was the Jiang Zemin and Hu Jintao administrations, the neoliberals started to love China. They used to consider the country as a sucess story due to low social safety net and low labor protection. They started to think that the name of the party, the red flag and the Mao portrait in the center of Beijing were only symbols of the past. In the 2010s, during Xi Jinping administration, the neoliberals started to hate China again. State planning became stronger and Jinping started to increase the relevance of the communist symbols again.

A large part of this is just the wishful thinking that many people deluded themselves into thinking regards to China politically.

[Motorcity]

Most Americans viewed China as some communist backwater in the 80s and 90s. At best, some exotic place children learned about in school. China wasn't seen as a threat or rival.

Japan was the big threat back than.

[SInNYC]

I think conservatives viewed Russia as the evil empire and had secret desires  to team up with China (which had disputes with Russia of its own) and contain Russia. I'm including the 70s since many of the views evolved from then.

This included hidden support of China over Russia in assorted proxy wars. In Cambodia, it was China and [secretly] the US for the Khmer Rouge while Russia weakly supported the Vietnamese installed government. In South Asia, USA and to a lesser degree China supported Pakistan while Russia supported India. In Afghanistan, the US and China supported the Mujahadeen/Taliban in its fight against the Russian installed government. In assorted third world countries with russian and chinese communist parties/organizations, the US often turned a blind eye toward the Chinese one.

This doesn't always hold of course - China and the USSR were on the same side in the Korean and Vietnam wars, though China eventually broke with Vietnam.

[Agonized-Statism]

China was viewed as a dupe that would eventually become the state the West wanted them to be due to their economic dependence on the West and apparent political instability from the 1970s onward. They had foolishly given the West leverage over them out of desperation. Their 2001 admission to the WTO was looked at as a checkmate, IIRC, because their economy would supposedly collapse from a flood of cheap imports and their government and society would be infiltrated. The one to worry about was Japan, which would embarrass the US with all their high-tech innovation- except they didn't, because the ASIMO robot is still barely walking and they failed to take advantage of the Internet.

The neocons correctly predicted before anyone else that China would use its economic strengthening to become a power in its own right, and that they were only playing the West's game for a time, but their attempts to preserve US hegemony post-9/11 failed spectacularly. No one expected China to be a tech powerhouse building an international trade network independent of the West by 2021- ironically, more US infrastructure development strategies and less wars and nation building could have helped the West maintain a competitive advantage, but now everyone's freaking out and wants a war.

The 2000s were a really interesting bridge between the two takes. You almost had a kind of Sinophilia, with China being looked at as a pragmatic, admirable technocracy. Sci-fi like Firefly and Michio Kaku's 2057 did predict a Chinese ascension, but as a friendly competitor and partner with the United States toward a better world. Those assumed a China that would still be submissive in some capacity to international norms determined by the West, though. People who predicted otherwise were paranoid and stuck in the Cold War- see Stan Smith's "the red dragon awakes!" in American Dad (I know, I know, BRTD moment, but it's good insight into the attitudes of the time).