A Study On Allen Whiting’s Chinese Studies

Allen Suess Whiting is one of the well-known and outstanding experts onChinese Studies. He served the American government, and engaged himself instudying and formulating US diplomatic policy on China as an important party. Prof.Whiting set foot in Chinese Studies first in the beginning of1950s. From1953to1957, he went investigating in Taiwan, Hong Kong and Japan, and joined the RandCorporation in1957. His papers about Sino-Soviet relations during this period canstill be found on the official web page of the Rand Corporation. He was employed inthe U.S. State Department as director of the Office of Far East Analysis in the StateDepartment in1961-1966, served as Deputy Consul-General in the U.S. ConsulateGeneral in1966-1968, and returned to U.S. academics as a Professor of PoliticalScience at the University of Michigan since1968, during which he also served ascounselor of National Security Council and the president of National Committee onU.S.-China Relations. He was awarded Regent Professor in1993. Prof. Whiting isincontrovertibly an expert on China diplomacy, and has won great reputation both inUS and in the world.Professor Whiting was one of the experts who argued to understand China fromChina’s point of view. He made an indelible contribution in the normalization ofSino-America relationship. Whiting’s multiple identity and his versatile achievementsmade him have the value to be researched. The paper chooses Whiting’s ChinaStudies to make case study to draw a comprehensive conclusion, firstly setting forththe value and significance of his China studies based on the background of the rise ofChina studies in America; secondly, comprehensively discussing the background ofhis growth, academic achievement, features of historiography study according totheories and methods of history and science of international politics, as well asdocument analysis method. The full text is divided into six chapters. The first chapter mainly explains the motives for why the author chooses thisspecific topic for the dissertation, and the significance of Whiting’s Chinese studies,the present research in Whiting studies home and abroad, and the basic research logicof the author in this dissertation.The second chapter targets on how Professor Whiting started his career in thesphere of American Chinese Studies and what made him so absorbed into ChineseStudies through probing into his historical, family and educational background as wellas his personal experience in his childhood and his youth. It also includes the briefintroduction and evaluation to the first work in his academic career, The Soviet UnionPolicy toward China:1917-1924.The third to the fifth chapter is the main body of this paper, classifying andintroducing Professor Whiting’s research findings on Sino-Soviet relation and China’sforeign policies. The third chapter focuses on Whiting’s studies on Sino-Sovietrelationship from1917to1949, which is the beginning and emphasis of his studies.Taking as the breakthrough point the struggle for the rights of Middle East Railwaybetween China and Soviet, Professor Whiting studied the Soviet Union policy towardChina in1920s and the combat on the strategic area, Xinjiang, between the twocountries. He pointed out the imperialistic means of Soviet under the communisticcover, denying the view that Soviet was selfless.The fourth chapter is mainly about his findings after going into the area ofChina’s foreign policy. He argued that, in the Korea War of1950, China never workedout in advance the plan of getting involved in the war. Basically, it was a decision, theone resulting from the invalidation of the prior warning to U.S. Similarly, there wasno evidence that the leadership of China had made the decision to launch theSino-India war on the early stage in1962. The war broke out only after the warninghad been invalid from China to India that the Indian troops should not advance anymore. Through launching war, China tried best to minimize the possibility of upgrade.Professor Whiting thinks that, in the1964war between China and Vietnam, Chinasent out signals of warning at times when U.S. was upgrading the level of the war,while China made a military preparation for war as well. All that worked, finally succeeding in avoiding the possibility of the military bases in China being bombedand of the upgrade of the war when U.S. was bombing in North Vietnam. In a ward,contrary to the popular view in America, Professor Whiting argued that the militaryactions of China were mainly reactive and defensive, only for the purpose ofdeterrence.The fifth chapter shows us the effort of Professor Whiting as both an official anda scholar to promote the normalization of the relation between China and America. Itincludes: the breach of Sino-Soviet’s relation provided a valuable opportunity for thenormalization of the relation between China and America; he argued the necessity ofthe normalization of the relation between China and America, made a preparation forpublic opinion with other scholars who stood by the normalization; he offered adviceon President Nicolson’s visiting China; he argued that the biggest barrier betweenChina and America was the issue of Taiwan and the stands of the three parties, and hissuggestion was that the two countries should realize the normalization in the Japaneseway.The sixth chapter concludes the four characteristics of Whiting’s Chines Studies:for the interests of America; with certain sentiment against the Soviet Union;appealing to understand the Chinese mode of thinking and see China from the view ofChinese; lay more emphasis on political practice than theory construction.