This paper focuses on the impact of differences in political culture on Sino-US relations: its analysis and case studies. It is divided into six chapters.Chapter I introduces the purpose of the author to write this paper and its outline.Chapter II presents a literature review on the development of politico-cultural studies. Emphasis is put on the definition of political culture and the ways in which political culture affects foreign policy making.Chapter III focuses on the introduction of distinctive features of the American political culture. The author believes that the American political culture is mainly composed of the following three elements: the American dream-individualism, equality and the right to pursue happiness; the American exceptionalism; and the pragmatic tradition. The three elements are given after the author analyzed the history, religion, among other things, of the United States.Chapter IV focuses on the introduction of distinctive features of the Chinese political culture. The author believes that the Chinese political culture is mainly composed of the following three elements: the key concepts of Confucianism-ren and //; the recognition of wen superiority over WM; and the Chinese idealism-dao and datong. The three elements are given after the author analyzed the politico-cultural tradition of China, which is characterized by Confucianism, Buddhism and Daoism.Chapter V is devoted to the study of two cases including the Kosovo crisis and the air collision incident. In the process of the analysis, the author first briefly introduces the beginning and the end of the incidents. Then the author tries to analyze, through politico-cultural approach, the development of the situation including different ways in which the two countries handle the incidents, the response from the public and the final solution. Emphasis is put on the impact of differences in political culture on the incidents.Chapter VI is a conclusion. Through the above analysis, the author draws the conclusion that differences in political culture do have profound influence on Sino-US relations.The author hopes that this paper may draw more attention from scholars to the study of political culture in explaining Sino-US relations and help those interested in this topic to get a general understanding of the study in this field.
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