The Trump Administration’s Human Rights Pressure Campaign on China: How Cynics, Norms, and Social Construction Transformed US-China Relations

ABSTRACT:The Trump administration puzzlingly made human rights instrumental to US policy toward China even though human rights were not promoted across the board and many in the government exhibited strong authoritarian tendencies. Normalizing much of Trump’s China policy, President Biden has framed contest with China as a defining fight between authoritarianism and democracy. Current high tensions between the two nations cannot be understood without a nuanced understanding of the human rights dimension. US-China relations are constituted socially, and human rights are a big part of that process although its relative importance varies over time and issues. The Trump administration’s success shows that cynical policy entrepreneurs may counterintuitively contribute to social construction of human rights norms by joining hands with norm believers to form a movement to redirect a bilateral relationship.