ABSTRACT
Material interests and international distribution of power are by no means irrelevant in explaining state behavior, but as we have seen, shared understanding, knowledge, perception and expectations inform the content of state identities and interest definitions, and these “ideational” factors have great importance in explaining interactions within and between states. Although Peter Katzenstein’s argument, that cultural and institutional norms shape states’ identity and affect their national security definition and policies, are not explicitly tested here,1 the analyses in the previous chapters agree with his contention that realist theories are likely to be wrong if they overlook either the significance of comprehensive definitions of national security going beyond narrow military concerns, or the legacy of the Sino-centric world system for the national security policies of China and the Asian states in the 1990s.2 This would be as true for realist theories as for any other methodological constructions purporting to explain China’s approach to territorial disputes. A framework of negotiations like that of twolevel games can only postulate the likelihood of reaching or ratifying an agreement by looking at the bargaining space in the presence or absence of certain domestic, institutional and leadership factors. It cannot explain when or why a disagreement, dispute or conflict arose between countries or people, nor determine the circumstances of where and how it happened, or for that matter, its duration, let alone predict future occurrences of such disputes or conflicts. For that, we have to examine the strategic thinking of state leaders, especially the cultural assumptions behind foreign policy formulation, the sources of domestic power politics, political participation and regime legitimacy, and a people’s perception of the historical and contemporary role of their country in the changing international scene. It is to these substantive issues, which form part of what I refer to as the “moral” and “realist” bases of the Chinese approach to territorial disputes with its neighbors, and on which the two-level game framework rests, that we now turn to in this concluding chapter.
