Doak And Their Chinese Study

A. Doak Barnett was an outstanding expert on China studies and a founder of the study of contemporary China in the United States. He devoted all his life to the China studies and the improvement of the US-China relations. As a preliminary attempt, this dissertation made an overall analysis of his academic thoughts and influence on American China policy.This dissertation consists of six parts: one introduction and five chapters. The introduction discussed the important role Barnett played in developing China studies in the US and the theoretical and practical significance of studying his academic thoughts.Chapter 1 expounded what Barnett heard and saw when he was on assignment to Chinese mainland and Hong Kong for Chicago News Daily and as a field researcher of lNCWA and AUFS from 1947 through 1956. What he heard and saw in this period laid a firm foundation for his later study of China and great achievements in this field.Chapter 2 inquired into the organizing and training works Barnett did in 1960s. This period was a "developmental decade" of contemporary China studies in the US. It was also the time when the Sino-US relations began to thaw. Barnett, in order to promote the relaxation of Sino-US relations, wrote many articles and books to educate the public and suggested a set of practical measures for the American Government to improve US-China relations.Chapter 3 examined Barnett's view of Causes and effects of The Great Cultural Revolution in China as well as his policy proposals to normalize Sino-US relations.After diplomatic relations was established with China in late 1970s, Americans' attitude toward China changed greatly and they were a little unreasonably optimistic, thinking that China was "becoming more and more like the United States." But their attitude went to another extremity when the bilateral relations suddenly deteriorated in 1989. Some thought that China would soon collapse following the USSR and Eastern European countries or retrogress from the policy of reform and opening-up. Chapter 4 discussed Barnett's realistic evaluations of the development of China and his criticism of the arguments mentioned above such as Chinese westernization, China collapse and China retrogression. This Chapter also covered Barnett's efforts to maintain the Sino-US relations stable whenever crises occurred.As a conclusion, the last chapter summarized Barnett's views of China and research models, and his academic thoughts and their enlightenment as well. It pointed out that Barnett thought China underwent a Change from a totalitarian society to an authoritarian one, and correspondingly his research model evolved from totalitarian one to conflict one and to authoritarian one. Barnett's academic thinking was summed up as follows: (1) emphasis on China's uniqueness; (2) scholarly idea of studying for practical use; (3) emphasis on the importance of mastery of Chinese history to understand Contemporary China; (4) realistic view of international politics; (5) emphasis on employing research instruments of social sciences; and (6)emphasis on using the first-hand materials.