Forgotten Vanguard : Informal Diplomacy and the Rise of United States-China Trade, 1972–1980

The trading relationship between the United States and China, though now robust, was a recent and hardly inevitable development. Political animosity stemming from the Korean War and America's subsequent strategic embargo of China broke off economic and cultural ties. Following two decades of China's international isolation, as the United States sought to realign the geopolitical order in the 1970s, Washington began to engineer a restoration of its relationship with China. Diplomatic historians have carefully documented the formal and governmental intrigues of Nixon, Kissinger, Mao, and Zhou Enlai. As this book shows, a vigorous reconstruction of bilateral ties was unfolding simultaneously at the level of informal diplomacy, especially in the realm of US-China trade. Central to understanding the renewal of bilateral commerce is the National Council for United States-China Trade, an organization that, although nongovernmental, was established in 1973 with Washington's encouragement and oversight. The Council organized major American corporations not only to engage in commercial exchanges with China, but also to function as a diplomatic backchannel between Washington and Beijing before the two nations restored formal relations in 1979. Using the Council to historicize the entangling of the American and Chinese economies, Forgotten Vanguard not only reveals globalization's contingent path but also exposes the hidden importance of informal trade diplomacy in building the modern US-China relationship. This book will appeal to those with an interest in Cold War history, international relations, and the history of American diplomacy, with particular emphases on informal diplomacy and the modern history of the US-China economic relationship. More than a series of rites of passage through the landmarks of growing up and growing old, Jewish and Christian life-cycle rituals give the members of each religious tradition theological and ritualized definitions of what a life should be. In this volume, the fourth in the acclaimed series Two Liturgical Traditions, eight scholars explore the models of human life implicit in Judaism and Christianity by unraveling and exploring the evolution and current condition of their life-cycle liturgies. By combining the historical-critical method of traditional scholarship with that of more recent theory drawn from the human sciences, Life Cycles in Jewish and Christian Worship provides a novel treatment of Jewish and Christian life cycles, past and present, and is a unique and invaluable guide to the history, practice, and theology of life-cycle liturgy.Contributors: Paul F. Bradshaw, Lawrence A. Hoffman, Ruth A. Meyers, Debra R. Blank, Karen B. Westerfield Tucker, Marjorie Procter-Smith, and Yoel Kahn.

More than a series of rites of passage through the landmarks of growing up and growing old, Jewish and Christian life-cycle rituals give the members of each religious tradition theological and ritualized definitions of what a life should be. In this volume, the fourth in the acclaimed series "Two Liturgical Traditions," eight scholars explore the models of human life implicit in Judaism and Christianity by unraveling and exploring the evolution and current condition of their life-cycle liturgies. The essays presented here emphasize the wholeness of a life as illustrated by the religious metaphors inherent in life-cycle rites. The contributors examine the history and shape of each life-cycle rite - including the rituals and practices associated with birth, adolescence, marriage, sickness, and death - and analyze the theological message that each rite represents.

Cover Half Title Title Page Copyright Dedication Contents List of Abbreviations Acknowledgments Introduction: The Forgotten Importance of the National Council ONE Disorder under Heaven: The Deep Uncertainty of Sino-American Trade TWO Backchannel to China: The Nontraditional Diplomacy of the National Council THREE Informal Trade Diplomacy in Détente and Rapprochement: A Comparative Analysis FOUR The National Council, 1974–1977: Capability and Contingency FIVE Deng Xiaoping, the Council, and the Normalization Breakthrough, 1977–1980 Conclusion: A Changed China, a Changed National Council Afterword: Complicating Models of Civil Society Interaction Appendix A. An Interview with Dwight Perkins Appendix B. An Interview with Eugene Theroux Appendix C. An Interview with Nicholas Ludlow Notes Bibliography Index Introduction: the forgotten importance of the National Council -- Disorder under heaven: the deep uncertainty of Sino-American trade -- Backchannel to China: the nontraditional diplomacy of the National Council -- Informal trade diplomacy in detente and rapprochement: a comparative analysis -- The National Council, 1974-1977: capability and contingency -- Deng Xiaoping, the Council, and the normalization breakthrough, 1977-1980 -- Conclusion: a changed China, a changed National Council