National image and foreign policy preferences: Between the United States and China

Based on previous social psychology and public opinion research, I propose a hierarchical model allowing for the effect of national image to understand the formation and change of foreign policy preferences. I hypothesize that foreign policy preferences toward another country are multidimensional in nature, building upon one's affective image of the target country and one's general beliefs in specific issue areas. I carry out empirical tests of relevant hypotheses, focusing exclusively on U.S.-China relations. I argue that the conventional method of exploratory factor analysis is not adequate to empirically test the structure of foreign policy attitudes. As an alternative I apply Structural Equation Modeling (SEM) methods to foreign policy polling data from both United States and China to confirm the existence of national image as a distinct and significant dimension underlying one's policy preferences toward the other country. A case study on U.S.-China relations after the Cold War sheds interpretative light on the statistical findings. Finally, a quasi-experiment conducted among university students explores how their image of China as derived from personal experience affects their foreign policy preferences toward China. These various tests show that how the Americans view China and how the Chinese view U.S. are important factors predicting their foreign policy preferences toward the other country.