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The staff delegation trips to China were welcomed and sought after by congressional staff and congressional support agency personnel, mainly from the Congressional Research Service of the Library of Congress, which had a growing interest in China and the issues it posed for US policy. The trips generally came twice per year and involved meetings with Chinese government officials and others responsible for key foreign affairs and domestic issues of interest to the Congress. The exchanges in these meetings were generally cordial and substantive, although the trips also included sightseeing and visits to parts of China of interest to the Congress.

In the United States, there have been a number of counterpart groups that have facilitated congressional exchanges. Among them are the Washington, DC-based US-Asia Institute (USAI), which has played a leading role in managing the congressional staff delegations side since 1985.³ The National Committee on US-China Relations did a pilot congressional staff delegation visit to China in 1976 and resumed involvement with such exchanges again during the past decade.⁴ In the 1980s, the Asia-Pacific Exchange Foundation (also known as the Far East Studies Institute) also managed a number of congressional staff delegations to China, while the US-Asia Institute has, since 1985, coordinated over 120 such delegations and exchanges to China. These visits have been done in cooperation with the Chinese People's Institute of Foreign Affairs (CPIFA) and the Better Hong Kong Foundation (BHKF). But the National People's Congress (NPC) has perhaps hosted the most trips, taking over a thousand congressional staff members to China. In these trips, members have traveled to nearly every corner of China, including Xinjiang and Tibet. In their discussions, they have covered a wide range of themes important to the US-China relationship. Staffers participating in such trips have clearly advanced their understanding of Chinese developments.

Congress and Turmoil in US-China Relations, 1989–2001

The number of the congressional staff delegations to China slowed following the collapse of congressional support for engagement with China after the Tiananmen crackdown in 1989. Congressional anger and the impulse to punish the Chinese government overrode past interest in constructive engagement. As a result, Beijing began relying more heavily on the US business community and its organizations, notably the Emergency Committee for American Trade, to persuade Congress not to end the most-favored nation tariff treatment for Chinese imports. The Chinese embassy and various lobbyists who were, or at least claimed to be, supported by the Chinese government also tried to limit the damage by seeking to convince congressional members that conditions in China were much better there than were depicted in American media at the time.⁵

Based on the reputation of its past efforts, the US-Asia Institute, presumably with the encouragement of its Chinese counterparts, strove to resume the staff dialogues and attracted a wide range of senior staff and support personnel, including some of

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