Materials Discrimination And Theoretical Study Of Chinese Foreign Use

The Jinmen Bombardment in 1958 is a major event in the history of international relations, and it has attracted attentions from researchers both home and abroad. In the past decades, the researchers in both China and U.S. have made their own explanations on the motives or driving forces for China's decision to shell Jinmen from various perspectives by using different materials and theories.The main feature of Chinese studies is "that the studies depend upon materials". Researchers have made different conclusions with different materials. But their research is relatively weak in using theories. They have made their analysis on motives of the decision from the viewpoint of teleology, and levels of international environment, domestic politics and Mao Zeong. The American studies could be divided into two phases: the first is the studies of Maoist School, most of which analyzes the influences of Mao's thoughts and military strategies on decision-making; the second is the tendency of theorization, which mainly conducts theorized analysis by using balance of power theory, deterrence and communication theories, bureaucratic politics theory and domestic-international linkage theory. The main feature of these studies is the employment of theories in their studies. Theories have played a guiding role in collecting and organizing materials and thus lead to their final conclusions.Comparing the studies done by Chinese and American scholars on the Jinmen Bombardment, I could discover that Chinese researchers emphasize the macro aspect of materials, but neglect the micro ones. Besides, their views are rather narrow and their analysis on materials are not in depth. Moreover, our understanding on theories is quite different from that of American researchers. There lacks operational theories in our studies. By the comparison, we could see there are still a few unresolved questions for scholars of both countries.