Sutter, an authoritative China scholar who spent 24 years with the Congressional Research Service, offers an impressive interpretation of Congress's role in US-China relations. Though this study looks at a 200-yearperiod, its primary focus is how the US has engaged with China since the early 1970s, Nixon-Mao era. Sutter uses questions from James Lindsay's The Domestic Sources of American Foreign Policy (2018) to ascertain whether Americans believed they faced external threats, inclining Congress to rally behind the president. If members of Congress perceived the president's policy had dubious benefits to them or their constituents, they responded in a partisan fashion (for example, the policy hiccup with the passage of the Taiwan Relations Act in 1979). A less important factor was whether the president's party controlled Congress. However, since 2017, strongly bipartisan majorities have collaborated with both Trump and Biden administration leaders "in carrying out the remarkable US government hardening against very serious Chinese challenges to American interests" (p. 215). Sutter believes this hardening approach will continue in future years. Highly recommended. General readers through faculty; professionals.

Choice Reviews

Robert G. Sutter brings to this impressive study a half-century of first-hand experience as a respected scholar of US-China relations and a former Congressional staff member and US government official. He has written the definitive study of this highly important, but neglected, aspect of the Sino-American relationship. It should be read by every member of Congress, their staff, and all those who seek to understand the dynamics of US policies towards China.

David Shambaugh, George Washington University

No one is in a better position than Robert G. Sutter to write about the evolving role of the US Congress in America’s China policy since the beginning of engagement with China in the 1970s. This authoritative book draws from Sutter’s personal experiences as a research staff in Congress and his thorough research as a scholar. Anyone interested in the US-China relation, US foreign policy, Chinese foreign policy, and great power dynamics cannot afford to miss this unique and fascinating book.

Suisheng Zhao, University of Denver and editor of Journal of Contemporary China

Robert G. Sutter, a former National Intelligence Officer for East Asia and the Pacific, presents a clear-eyed, dispassionate view of U.S. China policy since the Nixon-Mao era. This book argues that congress has never been more important in policymaking than in the past five-plus years of America’s hardening against Chinese challenges and predicts that its influence will endure for the foreseeable future.

June Teufel Dreyer, University of Miami