Research On The International System, Domestic Constraints And The US Economic And Trade Policy Toward Chin

In recent years,the United States has increasingly regarded China as its primary strategic competitor,significantly affecting its economic and trade policy towards China.The core research question of this dissertation is: How can we understand the evolution of U.S.economic and trade policy towards China in the thirty years following the end of the Cold War? What are the reasons behind these changes?This dissertation constructs an analytical framework based on neoclassical realism,considering the international system structure as an independent variable.It measures this structure through two factors: the clarity of the system structure and the international security environment.Additionally,the dominant images of policymakers and national mobilization capabilities,two domestic factors,act as intervening variables.They filter and constrain the impacts brought about by changes in the system structure.For the United States,the system structure determines the general direction of its strategy to adjust the liberal international order,while domestic factors influence how this strategy is manifested in its foreign policy.U.S.economic and trade policy towards China is a specific manifestation of its international strategy on the China issue and is subordinate to the needs of the international strategy.The combined effect of international and domestic factors leads to the changes in U.S.policy towards China in different phases.In the case study section,the dissertation identifies four phases of the U.S.adjusting the liberal international order since 1993,marked by the administrations of Clinton(and George W.Bush),Obama,Trump,and Biden,respectively.These phases correspond to the expansion,revision,withdrawal,and reconstruction of the liberal international order.Consequently,U.S.economic and trade policy towards China has gone through four stages: integration,restriction,conflict,and exclusion.It is under the joint influence of international and domestic factors that the changes in U.S.international strategy determine the phased characteristics of its economic and trade policy towards China.During the Clinton administration,as the sole superpower,the U.S.sought to expand the liberal international order through free trade policies to strengthen its global dominance.Thus,the Clinton administration promoted the permanent normalization of trade relations with China and supported China’s entry into the World Trade Organization.In the subsequent George W.Bush administration,China continued to integrate into the international economic and trade system,gradually narrowing the gap in relative power between China and the U.S.The Obama,Trump,and Biden administrations essentially faced the same issue: how to respond to China’s rise and its challenge to the liberal international order.The Obama administration tried to revise international economic and trade rules through the TPP agreement to limit China’s economic and trade policies and actions.However,this international strategy conflicted with the interests of protecting domestic jobs and industries,leading to the failure of the TPP agreement in Congress.Trump,riding the wave of populism and anti-free trade sentiment,chose to abandon the liberal international order largely,withdrawing from various mechanisms and agreements,and initiating a trade war with China.The U.S.-China trade agreement,influenced by internal government disagreements and lobbying from different interest groups,turned out to be a mix of unrealistic demands.The Biden administration has inherited the Trump administration’s positioning of China as the major threat to U.S.global primacy,returning to the Obama administration’s approach of using the international order to counterbalance China.The Biden administration has introduced security factors into international economic and trade cooperation,attempting to reshape the global production and trade structure and create a protective and exclusionary international economic order against China.According to the analytical framework of this dissertation,the conclusion section suggests that the trend of long-term strategic competition between China and the U.S.is unlikely to reverse in the short term.This will significantly influence the future direction of the international order,and an era of globalization characterized by securitization may have already arrived.China and the U.S.must strive to find a way to coexist peacefully,avoiding large-scale,substantive economic decoupling,and enabling the world to develop in a better direction under the new international political and economic environment.