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Social Cognition Research, The Sino-indian Relations

Posted on:2006-04-24Degree:DoctorType:Dissertation
Country:ChinaCandidate:X M SuiFull Text:PDF
GTID:1116360152488299Subject:International relations
Abstract/Summary:PDF Full Text Request
Sino-Indian relations in the perspective of social cognition cannot go beyond the national interests that are not inherent preferences or priori elements, but constructed with the interactions of perceptions and behaviors between China and India. Both China's and India's national interests are converted into specific forms from abstract concept by actor's perceiving exact issues, choices of foreign policy, and the actions relative to perceptions on concrete issues. There is, therefore, a cause-effect relation between the perceptions that consist of both the self-perceptions and object-perceptions, and Sino-Indian relations. And the latter is the function of the former, that is, the process and structure of cognition is the independent variable, and the bilateral relation the dependent one.Different from the analysis of cognitive psychology, the perspective of social cognition studies the agent's beliefs, learning process, and internal and external environments as the core factors to impact China's and India's perceptions, which shape the remote causes of bilateral relations as the sub-variables of social cognition. Sino-Indian relations are the logical results of their mutual-perceptions and interactions.Now that mutual-perceptions between China and India define the choice of foreign policy and the model of behavior, consequently they shape the structure of Sino-Indian Relations with interactions. In view of the essence of social cognition that cognitive subject perceives the objects, it is unavoidable that there exists misperceptions or mismatch of perceptions within both China's and India's process of cognition and structure of perceptions. In addition to such attributes of social cognition as cognitive consistency, evoked set, cognitive rigidity, wishful thinking, and cognitive dissonance, once misperceptions or mismatch take place, subsequently there are a malignant spiral of perceptions and actions among agents. Those features of social cognition are exemplified, to different extent, by boundary disputes and border war, Tibet issue, and security issue within bilateral relations. As a result of interactions of perceptions in which there are some misperceptions and behaviorsbetween China and India, the boundary dispute has been kept unsettled, Tibet issue an obstacle to improve bilateral relations, and security mutual-confidence lower level. Within most of more than 50 years China-India relations are also kept in an antagonistic or indifferent status except the transient and brotherly friendships in the midterm of 1950s.The overall way of mutual-perceptions between China and India goes as follows: from non-enemy and non-friend to benevolence and friend, to enemy and threat, and back to the very beginning state-— non-enemy and non-friend. In correspondence with the way of perceptions in more than 50 years, the Sino-Indian relations has shaped respectively such patterns as cooperation in clash, friendly cooperation, border conflicts and war, hostility and indifference, and competitive cooperation.Such attributes of social cognition as cognitive consistency, evoked set, cognitive rigidity and dissonance, do not preclude the flexibility of social perceptions. The deviation of original beliefs under the external pressure, learning process, and changes of international environment, are the dynamic factors to the asymptotical adjustment of both China's and India's cognitive process and structure of perceptions. In accordance with logics of social cognition, adjusted perceptions help both China and India improve their foreign policy decision-making, adjust their orientation and structure of behavior, reconstruct bilateral relations. The improvement of Sino-Indian relations since 1990s has verified the logics of social cognition. Communications, learning from firsthand and indirect experiences and from international institutions, and reflection on the past can increase the perceptions to correspond with objective facts, then decrease or avoid misperceptions. It is this logics of social cognition that help both China a...
Keywords/Search Tags:Sino-Indian Relations, Social Cognition, Perception, Belief, Learning, Security, Boundary Issue, Tibet Issue
PDF Full Text Request
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