Adding Fuel to the Fire

For decades, Washington has provided assistance to Tibetans in exile, which has long been of particular concern for Beijing.

In the 1960s, the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) poured more than $1.7 million annually into political action, propaganda and paramilitary activities meant to destabilize China.

These operations are said to have been discontinued in the 1970s. However, between 2001 and 2014, the United States provided $320 million for assistance programs in China through the State Department and the US Agency for International Development (USAID), according to a 2014 report by the Congressional Research Service.