| Summary: | 碩士 === 東吳大學 === 政治學系 === 89 === In the aftermath of the Soviet Union’s disintegration and the growing international economic interdependence, the bipolar world structure in the Cold War period ushered in a new era of drastic changes. Facing a very complicated and ever-changing post-Cold War world, China has adopted a new approach in conducting its foreign relations and, as a result, its diplomatic endeavors have achieved considerable success in recent years.
Many studies have pinpointed the importance of international environment in influencing China’s foreign policy. However, the question as to how the leaders’ perception of the external environment affects the PRC’s foreign policy has been scarcely touched upon. The statesman’s psychological environment (that is, his/her image, or estimate, of the situation, setting, or milieu) may or may not correspond to the operational environment (in which his decisions are executed). What passes for knowledge of the situation at the higher levels in the hierarchy of a great power’s government, consists mainly of generalized descriptions and abstracts, several degrees removed from on-the-spot observations. On most issues the individual or group responsible for decisions will have little time and only the most general knowledge for checking what is prepared at lower working levels of the organization. Therefore, in policy-making, as claimed by some scholars, what matters most is how the policy-maker imagines the milieu to be, not how it actually is.
With the end of the bipolar system, China could no longer enjoy the favorable strategic status between the two superpowers. Moreover, with the disappearance of the Soviet Union, the United States has begun to see Beijing as a competitor for global influence. Against this backdrop, this study adopts the “policy making process studies” approach, with special focus on the perceptional dimension, and analyzes what decision-makers say and write, in order to understand their image, or estimate, of the situation and their orientation to it. To find out Beijing’s views of the international environment after the Cold War, and examine China’s new approach to, and adjustment of its foreign policy.
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