Fighting on the Cultural Front: U.S.-China Relations in the Cold War

The Cold War conflict between the United States and the People’s Republic of China did not only encompass political, military, diplomatic, and economic clashes. The two powers also confronted each other on the cultural front. Despite a long history of extensive and mostly constructive cultural interactions, the two nations cut off existing ties in the late 1940s and early 1950s, and established new relationships aimed at attacking and isolating each other. Even after Beijing and Washington permitted cultural exchange as part of their effort to normalize diplomatic relations in the 1970s, the weaponization of cultural interactions continued.

Hongshan Li provides a groundbreaking account of the confrontation between the United States and the People’s Republic of China on the Cold War’s cultural front. He investigates the origins, evolution, and significance of the role of cultural interactions in the shifting relations between the United States and the PRC from the late 1940s through the late 1970s. Li demonstrates that the drastic transformation of U.S.-China cultural interactions not only altered the course of Sino-American cultural relations but also shaped the Cold War experience of the two peoples.
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