Research On American Presidential Personality Anddecision-making Toward China

It is the vital importance of Sino-US relations that has made the relationship a permanent subject of international political researches.Since the founding of the People's Republic of China,Sino-US relations have developed by twists and turns.In response to the reasons for the changes in Sino-US relations,scholars at home and abroad have carried out fruitful researches and made theoretical contributions to understanding and promoting the sound development of Sino-US relations.However,due to the limitations of the international situation and the discipline tradition,most researches belong to the macro-level study,but the reasons for the changes are diverse.The neglect of micro-level reasons by macro-theories obviously causes the poor interpretations about Sino-US relations.In this regard,from the micro level,this paper considers that the presidential personality is one of the significant micro-motivations affecting Sino-US relations by influences American decision-making toward China firstly.The US decision-making toward China is the result of the joint action of its entire decisionmakers according to their national interests,but every single president is the most powerful decisionmaker among them.And all information about China is finally brought to them,so their personality and perception of China will inevitably affect the decision-making toward China.Therefore,this paper mainly combined the personality theory and perception theory of policymakers in international political psychology,firstly analyzed the personality and political behavior of 13 American presidents from Truman to Trump with the theory of presidential personality type,and meanwhile examined the misperceptions of the presidents of different personality types in their perception of China with the theory of misperception,and finally demonstrated the major decisions toward China during each presidential and the characteristics of Sino-US relations with the theory of decision-making style and the theory of decision-making model.Thus,under the present American system,it can be found that the presidential personality and perception certainly have an impact on the decision-making toward China and it is particularly evident in times of crisis.It is the irrational factors-the personality of policymakers-that made the state not an absolutely rational actor,and international politics is often full of uncertainties.Therefore,in order to understand the Sino-US relations,it is necessary to return the research object from the assumed abstract rational actor to the president with the power of decision-making;and the promoting of the sound development of the Sino-US relations requires the joint efforts of China and the United States.It not only requires China to have a thorough understanding of the American policy-makers,especially the presidents,but also requires the United States to have a comprehensive and objective understanding of China.