By Dennis V. Hickey

History has an odd way of repeating itself. This observation applies with special force when one examines the role that China plays in America's presidential campaigns.

One way or another, the "China issue" often seems to find its way into election-year politics. This unfortunate trend continues to this day.

In 1952, Dwight D. Eisenhower, then the Republican candidate for president, assigned Richard M. Nixon, his party's vice-presidential candidate, the unpleasant task of using the success of the Chinese Revolution as a weapon to bludgeon the Democrats.

Nixon condemned the Truman administration for the "loss of 600 million people to communism", while never mentioning the inadequacies of Chiang Kai-shek.

In 1960, John F. Kennedy, the Democrat's candidate for president, turned the tables on Nixon. He claimed that if his party was responsible for the "loss of China", then Nixon's party must take responsibility for the "loss of Cuba."

But the two candidates also quarreled over America's commitment to defend Jinmen and Matsu, the Kuomintang-occupied islands located only several km offshore from Chinese mainland. Unlike Kennedy, who argued that the islands were militarily useless, Nixon declared that he would never "hand over one foot of the Free World" to China in the hope that this hard-hitting declaration might help garner votes.

To his credit, Nixon changed his approach to China during his second try for the presidency in 1968. He wrote in Foreign Affairs that the US must "come to grips with the reality of Chinawe simply cannot afford to have China forever outside the family of nations".

After his landmark journey to Beijing in 1972, President Nixon used the visit to help him secure his landslide victory over the Democrats that same year.

China became a campaign issue, albeit a minor one, during the 1980 presidential election. At the time, Ronald Reagan, the Republican candidate, declared that he would re-establish diplomatic relations with Taipei. The charismatic president not only failed to follow through on this promise, he also pledged to reduce arms sales to Taiwan in US-PRC Joint Communique on Arms Sales.

Reagan's cordial relations with China contributed to his reelection in 1984.