Tiananmen, Taiwan and Belgrade: The construction of conflict in Sino-American relations, 1989, 1995--1996, and 1999 (Serbia)

Between 1989 and the present, Sino-American relations has experienced three major low points---the Tiananrnen incident of June 4, 1989; the Taiwan Strait crisis of 1995--96; and the Kosovo intervention and American bombing of China's embassy in Belgrade in the spring of 1999. In trying to come to a better understanding of the dynamics of Sino-American relations, the three cases specified, and the efficacy of different approaches to international relations and foreign policy studies; this study poses two questions. What were the factors and/or interests that were most important in bringing about these three low points, and what approaches to international relations and/or foreign policy studies prove to be most helpful for understanding this bilateral relationship and these three cases? Functioning primarily at the second/unit level of analysis, and focusing on elite decision makers, the study utilizes a tripartite methodology based in scientific realism and consisting of an analysis of Chinese and American official statements, secondary literature in both countries, and the results of interviews of 28 Chinese and 30 American experts on China, the United States and/or Sino-American relations in 2002. It concludes that ideational and social (non-material) factors and interests drove policy more than material factors and interests in the three cases. More specifically, as it concerns the reasons decision makers in both capitols chose the policies they did in the period under study, rather than security interests, balancing behavior or economic interests, the study found the following weightier: non-material issues like values, ideology; perceptions, mutual images, and social interaction, as well as domestic political factors and interests. This leads to the conclusion that material-driven Realisms are not very revealing as it regards the three cases under study here, "majoring in" things material as they do, often without enough emphasis on domestic politics and non-material matters. More promising are either Realisms that are not too material-driven, or social constructivism or other approaches that give more due to ideational; social, and domestic political interests and factors (and that do not make the other mistake of factoring out material interests and factors).