Local Factors On American Foreign Policy

Based on the unique historical experiences, geographic conditions and political system of the United States, localities are playing an important role in U.S. foreign affairs. To be more specific, state and local governments are important actors in foreign affairs; local political factions, interest groups and ideologies are influencing American foreign policy.State and local governments are participating in U.S. foreign affairs, which is not only a historical heritage, but guaranteed by the political institution and to some degree, allowed by the constitution. State and local governments'participation covers many fields and influences the whole foreign affairs of the United States. In U.S.-China relations, U.S. state and local governments not only have close economic and cultural connections with China, but intervene in some sensitive political issues, such as Taiwan issue and human rights issue. Generally speaking, Economic and cultural participation can have a positive effect on the bilateral relations, which helps to stabilize the overall relationship; while the intervention in political issues will have a negative effect, which complicates the already complicated bilateral relations.Local factions, interest groups and ideologies are collectively called local forces in this dissertation. Local forces are the combined effect of economic, political and social factors. In foreign affairs, driven by the local interest, local forces try to affect U.S. foreign policy by every possible means. This is true in U.S.-China relations. By affecting America's China policy, local forces have a doubled-edged effect on the bilateral relations: on a certain issue, when a local force and China have the same demands, the local force's influence is positive; however, when local force's demands conflict with that of China, its influence is negative. In the latter situation, if a local force is powerful enough, policy makers of the federal government will usually sacrifice China's interest and the overall relationship to satisfy the local force. To some degree, America's China policy is the outcome of the conflict and compromise of different local forces.In view of the localities'important effect on U.S.-China relations, full attention should be paid to the localities in American politics. Further, more effective measures should be taken to make use of the localities'role in stabilizing the bilateral relationship, and to safeguard China's national interest.