Identity Crisis, Face And The Choice Of Foreign Policy

The paper is an attempt to make and validate the hypothesis of"face influence the choice of foreign policy"through analyzing China's different foreign polices on identity crisis.During the later part of 19th century, as Myanmar, Vietnam and Korea were being colonized by Britain, France and Japan respectively, Qing dynasty of China plunged into identity crisis. The colonization policies were challenging the identity of China as the suzerain state. In east-Asia suzerainship, Myanmar, Vietnam and Korea played the same role as the vassal state of china, but Qing corresponded differently to the same kind of identity crisis. Qing negotiated with Britain about Myanmar issue and was blind to the help appeal from Myanmar. But it provided limited help to Vietnam and conflicted with France. Among the three issues, Qing was most sensitive to Japan'colonization policy in Korea, provided adequate aid to Korea and even interfered in Korea's domestic and foreign affairs. Why Qing took different policies on the same kind of identity crisis.what brings about the diference in foreign policies on the same issue?Rational choice model and ontological security model can help us understand it partly. The former holds state is motivated by the maximization of material interest, the latter emphasizes that realization of identity is the main drive of foreign policy. Both of them belong to the coherence theory, only to find what actor should do on the coherent principle. In this way, they are normative and thus can not help us under stand the different policies on the same kind of interest or identity issues. The paper aims to analyze the foreign policies from the psychological approaches.Inspired by the Chinese local social psychological concept—face, The author makes"face influences foreign policy"hypothesis, especially during identity crisis, the more the state feels loosing face, the more forceful the foreign policies are. It is based on the two assumption: namely (1)social recognition is basic need of state;(2)maintenance of identity is one of the foreign policy purposes. The paper defines"face"as following: Face derives from the need of social recognition, it depends on the supply and expectation of social recognition, if the other state can provide adequate recognition to the concerned state, it will feel having face, otherwise it will feel loosing face. The paper proceeds to the defense of the central hypothesis of"face influences the foreign policy"through the validation of two separate statements, namely (1) during the identity crisis, as the expectation of social recognition remain constant, the less the supply of social recognition, the more forceful of foreign policies are.(2) during the identity crisis, as the supply of social recognition remain constant, the more the expectation of social recognition, the more forceful of foreign policies are.For the validation of the above statements, the paper unfolds its arguments largely by analyzing and comparing the three cases. Comparing between Myanmar issue and Vietnam issue, we find Qing's expectation of social recognition on Britain was as much as that on France. But On the Myanmar issue the supply of social recognition could satisfy Qing's need, therefore Qing felt having face and thus took cooperative policy to Britain. On the Vietnam issue, the supply of social recognition could not satisfy Qing's expectation, therefore, Qing felt losing face and thus took conflicting policy to France. Comparing between Korea issue and Vietnam issue, we conclude although the supply of social recognition from Japan and France had no difference, Qing's expectation on Japan was much higher than on France. Qing felt losing face and thus took more forceful policy to Japan than to France.The paper constructs the foreign policy analysis model from the perspective of political psychology ,bring back the"recognition"into the IR studies, and may have some referential value.The paper is an attempt to make and validate the hypothesis of"face influence the choice of foreign policy"through analyzing China's different foreign polices on identity crisis.During the later part of 19th century, as Myanmar, Vietnam and Korea were being colonized by Britain, France and Japan respectively, Qing dynasty of China plunged into identity crisis. The colonization policies were challenging the identity of China as the suzerain state. In east-Asia suzerainship, Myanmar, Vietnam and Korea played the same role as the vassal state of china, but Qing corresponded differently to the same kind of identity crisis. Qing negotiated with Britain about Myanmar issue and was blind to the help appeal from Myanmar. But it provided limited help to Vietnam and conflicted with France. Among the three issues, Qing was most sensitive to Japan'colonization policy in Korea, provided adequate aid to Korea and even interfered in Korea's domestic and foreign affairs. Why Qing took different policies on the same kind of identity crisis.what brings about the diference in foreign policies on the same issue?Rational choice model and ontological security model can help us understand it partly. The former holds state is motivated by the maximization of material interest, the latter emphasizes that realization of identity is the main drive of foreign policy. Both of them belong to the coherence theory, only to find what actor should do on the coherent principle. In this way, they are normative and thus can not help us under stand the different policies on the same kind of interest or identity issues. The paper aims to analyze the foreign policies from the psychological approaches.Inspired by the Chinese local social psychological concept—face, The author makes"face influences foreign policy"hypothesis, especially during identity crisis, the more the state feels loosing face, the more forceful the foreign policies are. It is based on the two assumption: namely (1)social recognition is basic need of state;(2)maintenance of identity is one of the foreign policy purposes. The paper defines"face"as following: Face derives from the need of social recognition, it depends on the supply and expectation of social recognition, if the other state can provide adequate recognition to the concerned state, it will feel having face, otherwise it will feel loosing face. The paper proceeds to the defense of the central hypothesis of"face influences the foreign policy"through the validation of two separate statements, namely (1) during the identity crisis, as the expectation of social recognition remain constant, the less the supply of social recognition, the more forceful of foreign policies are.(2) during the identity crisis, as the supply of social recognition remain constant, the more the expectation of social recognition, the more forceful of foreign policies are.For the validation of the above statements, the paper unfolds its arguments largely by analyzing and comparing the three cases. Comparing between Myanmar issue and Vietnam issue, we find Qing's expectation of social recognition on Britain was as much as that on France. But On the Myanmar issue the supply of social recognition could satisfy Qing's need, therefore Qing felt having face and thus took cooperative policy to Britain. On the Vietnam issue, the supply of social recognition could not satisfy Qing's expectation, therefore, Qing felt losing face and thus took conflicting policy to France. Comparing between Korea issue and Vietnam issue, we conclude although the supply of social recognition from Japan and France had no difference, Qing's expectation on Japan was much higher than on France. Qing felt losing face and thus took more forceful policy to Japan than to France.The paper constructs the foreign policy analysis model from the perspective of political psychology, brings back the"recognition"into the IR studies, and may have some referential value.