American National Identity And Its Impact On American Foreign Policies After9·11

The United States is an immigrant country. Discussions and debates about the national identity of the United States have never stopped. The founding factors of the United States are not common ancestor, same religion, unified territory, shared culture heritage or one specific language. The national identity of the United States today may be somewhat different from that in the very beginning, but the core remains to be the same. The United States is now the sole world superpower, the national identity and its impact on the U.S foreign policy obviously has significant influences on global peace, stability and development.In recent years, studies on the contents, formation of American national identity and its relation with internal and external policies have become an important subject studied by American scholars and experts. The author has been long following how China can properly deal with the possible influences according to the changes of American national identity. Chinese scholars have up till now only limited studies on American national identity and its influence on America's internal and external policies, which are mostly based on the analysis of American scholars'works and essays from separate aspects of politics, culture, ideology, nationality and religion. This thesis, based on the research achievements of other scholars, aims at providing a more comprehensive view on the American national identity and its influence on America's foreign policies, especially highlighting the combination of theory and practice, history and reality, research and application.There are four chapters and the summaries of each chapter are as follows:The first chapter discusses the formation, contents and changes of the American national identity. Regarding what American national identity really means, there are no clear-cut answers. This thesis proposes that though the American national identity varies at different periods of time, the essential meaning is basically consistent, and the core of it is American Creed, that was originally put forward by Thomas Jefferson, who was the3rd American president and drafted the Declaration of Independence. To him, the American Creed meant English language, Christianity, British concept of legal governance, government responsibilities, personal rights, Protestant value like morality and individualism. He believed that Anglo-Protestant culture had long been in the center of American culture and while it brought common grounds to Americans, it also caused differences between Americans and peoples in other parts of the world.The second chapter discusses how to understand the American national identity. American national identity basically should be observed from the following four parts: ethnic group, nationality, culture and politics. With the evolution and development of population and history, the importance of ethnic group and nationality declined starting from19th century. Many even believe that these two elements no longer exist, while culture and politics become the core elements. The formation of American core culture experienced a long time with contributions by those immigrants from different countries, churches and cultural background. The formation of American core culture is a result of inter-influences of various cultures. It experienced a process of religious intolerance to inclusiveness, political and conceptual conflict to understanding, merging and spreading. As an immigrant country, culture variety and nationality dilemma puzzle Americans from time to time, yet the confusion has never stopped the formation of America's nationalism. This chapter also discusses why the United States favors using military force in dealing with international affairs. The factors that drive the United States to go for wars are many, but geopolitics, energy and natural resources, economic and trade market, values count most.The third chapter discusses the influences of American national identity on the grand strategy of anti-terrorism. The9.11terrorist attacks brought unprecedented pains to the Americans. After the terrorist attack, the White House and the Pentagon issued various strategic reports and made significant strategic decisions. George W Bush put forward lots of new concepts, such as anti-terrorism war, national territory security, axis of evil, preemptive strike, elimination of mass destruction weapons and nuclear attacks. The America's new national security strategy buried the old ones built upon the cold war structure. In recent years, Americans become more and more worried about the decline of the power and strength of their country. The report issued by World Bank on China's economic size surpassing that of the United States within this year aggravated Americans'worries and drove America thinking hard on how to contain China.The fourth chapter discusses the suffering conscientiousness of the American national identity and its influence on America's strategy of pivoting to Asia-pacific region. After President Obama took office, he made a significant adjustment on America's global strategy and shifted its focus to the Asia-pacific region, imaging that the biggest challenge would come from new emerging powers, namely China. America has been a hegemonic state for over a century and is now still a country with leading economic and military strengths in the world. Debates on whether the United States was in decline in the past always triggered important strategic adjustment or even shifts. The strategic adjustments and decision choices made by US in the future will have significant influence on world peace, security and stability.The conclusion part of the thesis summarizes the meaning of American national identity and its influence on US foreign policies, as well as suggestions on how China should deal with this. American national identity is the American road with individualism as the motivation, freedom and democracy as the ideology, checks and balances as the political model, market economy as the developing path and hegemony as the objective. It is the product of America's unique history, culture, political system, economic development, ethic, religion and natural resources. The American identity and the American strategy supplement each other and get strengthened when things go right, yet get into trouble when thing go wrong.Thought America's history is only over200years, American national identity is very complicated. The thesis, in combination of the U.S. global strategy, applies concrete major events and policy actions to disclose the influence of American national identity on America's foreign policies. Generally speaking, the United States has been holding high the flag of freedom and democracy in one hand, and the stick of super strong strength on the other hand to safeguard its led international system and order, to expand America's political, economic and military interests in the whole world. Expansion is the most appropriate word to describe the influence of American national identity on America's foreign policies. To put it in a simple way, the history of the United States is a history of expansion, including the "substantive expansion" of territory and economic interest and the "soft expansion" of ideas and values. The essential motivation of America's expansionist spirit is the pursuit of freedom and wealth. American politicians deeply believe that expansionist policy will bring American people more freedom and wealth, which would in turn win more supports from the voters. From the historical point of view, during the period of the significant changes of powers and adjustment of international structure and order, the competition and struggle among major powers were very fiercely. The existing hegemonic power would usually be more aggressive and risky in order to prevent the challenges from the emerging powers.It will not benefit China if the decline of the U.S. power is exaggerated. After over30years of development, China is now coming to the centre of the world stage and is unprecedentedly close to the rejuvenation of the nation. Under the complicated international circumstances, China must keep its confidence on its development path. Meanwhile, we should fully realize the problems and challenges in the process of development and the complication of external environment. The interests between China and the United States intertwine deeply with each other. The two countries have reached important agreements to build a new model of major power relation. This process will not be a smooth one and may be filled with twists and turns. Both sides should commit themselves to break the old traditional rule of conflicts between major powers and shoulder the political responsibility to open a new model of major powers relationship.