The Cultural Factors In East Asia Cooperation Mechanism

This thesis primarily discusses the culture that has being used as research method and the application of the ontology in international relations theories. The culture is one of the important research objects of the international relations research. In the study of international relations, different from these factors such as the politics, economy and military etc., culture thoroughly permeates the politics, economy, military and other factors. Along with development of international relations study, researchers are dissatisfied with the research of the politics, economy and military, which are called "hard" factors. Particularly after the end of the Cold War, the culture, as a factor that is valued more and more, has played an important role in the international relations realm. Almost all the new and influencful western international relations theories originated from the culture.After the cold war, with the boost of globalization, political democratization and with the advent of information era, the diplomatic relationship between East Asia take on some new characteristics. The holistic relationship comes into a full-scale period when the both parties confront multi-ply options and there are uncertain factors both in the lengthways history and transverse realistic challenges. But there is one definite point, that there exist profoundly cultural factors for both sides. The essay uses constructivism as a frame and tries to explore those cultural factors, find out how they work, analyze the evolvement of their relationship and describe the scenarios for the future.The first part explores the cultural factors in the international mechanism from the theoretical perspective。Firstly, it defines the cultural concept, features and functions for the international mechanism. Secondly ,it analyze the related concepts of cultural identity and the role of international mechanisms.The second part historically analyzes the cultural background for the both sides.The third part, it analyzes the function of the culture in the East Asia cooperation mechanism.The forth part, it analyzes the possibility of bilateral collective identification. On the basis of Wendt's theory, it combines East Asia history and reality. The author believes that it is a long way to go to realize collective identification. The active contacting policy is still taking priority. In the acceptable field for the both sides, especially in the economic field, it can realize the top-rank mechanism. It may enhance communication in politics and security and tries to reduce misleading and conflicts.