China is not engaging the United States.
In recounting the ten myths of America's China policy, Dan Blumenthal cites as a myth the fact that the U.S. is engaging with China:
This is a surprising policy unicorn. After all, we do have an engagement policy with China. But we are only engaging a small slice of China: the Chinese Communist Party (CCP). The party may be large--the largest in the world (it could have some 70 million members). We do need to engage party leaders on matters of high politics and high finance, but China has at least one billion other people. Many are decidedly not part of the CCP. They are lawyers, activists, religious leaders, artists, intellectuals, and entrepreneurs. Most would rather the CCP go quietly into the night. We do not engage them. Our presidents tend to avoid making their Chinese counterparts uncomfortable by insisting on speaking to a real cross section of Chinese society. Engagement seen through the prism of government-to-government relations keeps us from engaging with the broader Chinese public. Chinese officials come to the United States and meet with whomever they want (usually in carefully controlled settings, and often with groups who are critical of the U.S. government and very friendly to the Chinese government). U.S. leaders are far more cautious in choosing with whom to meet in China. We do not demand reciprocity in meeting with real civil society--underground church leaders, political reformers and so on. China has a successful engagement policy. We do not.
What an odd thing to say. As I understand Blumenthal, the point of engaging Chinese lawyers, activists, religious leaders, etc., inside China is to put pressure on the Communist Party and get them to change their policies. As Blumenthal notes, when Chinese officials come to the states, they meet with people "who are critical of U.S. policy" toward China, but has that changed anything about how the U.S. governs itself or behaves toward China? Blumenthal cites no evidence to suggest it has, so this can hardly be called a "successful" engagement on China's part, can it?
