China's National Identity and the Sino-U.S. National Identity Gap: Views from Four Countries
Author: Gilbert Rozman, See-Won Byun, Ming Wan, William Callahan
Region: Asia
Theme: Foreign Relations, Security, Politics
Published September 3, 2013
Download PDFThe countries bordering China are in the forefront in facing the challenge of a widening divide between China and the United States. Others, including those in Parts I and III, treat this divide as a question of security or economic organization. In the following four chapters we focus instead on the increasing national identity gap between the two powers, starting with responses to Chinese identity as it is being reconstructed and proceeding to reactions to the way its gap with the United States is seen. Before the views from three neighbors are reviewed, one chapter covers the debate inside China on identity themes that separate it from the West, notably the United States. As tensions over identity-laced topics intensify, these chapters break new ground in developing a triangular perspective useful in an era when great and middle powers are repositioning themselves strategically, while at the same time searching for a national identity response to what is perceived as growing cultural bipolarity.
This section contains the following chapters:
Introduction by Editor-in-Chief Gilbert Rozman
The Debate Inside China
William Callahan, University of Manchester
The View from Japan
Ming Wan, George Mason University
The View from South Korea
See-Won Byun, George Washington University
The View from Russia
Gilbert Rozman, Princeton University