The Power of History and Memory: National 'Patriotic Education' and China's Conflict Behavior in Crises with the U.S., 1991 - 2001

This dissertation explores what happens to politics when historical hatred, national humiliation, and insecurity come to the center of political discourse. In particular, it examines how the Chinese people's collective historical consciousness about the country's traumatic national experience, combined with the state's political use of the past, have become powerful forces in the way China conceptualizes, manages, and resolves external conflict. It represents the first systematic research concerning the politics of history and memory in Chinese domestic politics and foreign-policy decision-making.

The research focuses initially on how China's humiliating modern history has been used by the communist government to conduct national ideological re-education. In 1991, the government launched the "Patriotic Education Campaign" to reinvigorate the legitimacy of the post-Tiananmen leadership and to fill the "spiritual vacuum" given thebankruptcy of official Marxist and Maoist ideology. During this process, the new content of history and memory has become institutionalized in China's education system, popular culture, and public media.

The dissertation then explores the impact of this institutionalized historical consciousness on political discourse and foreign policy through three recent crises between China and the U.S.: the 1995-96 Taiwan Strait confrontation, the 1999 Belgrade embassy bombing, and the 2001 EP-3 crisis. Findings indicate that historical memory very often serves as a major motivating factor in international conflict, especially when the confrontation is perceived as an assault on the nation's fundamental identity, face, and authority. In particular, the historical memory variable helps explain why China generally cooperated with the U.S. in the same period of time but turned aggressive in these three incidents, as well as why China has treated the U.S. differently from other countries when managing conflict. This study argues that even though existing theories and explanations illuminate certain aspects of China's conflict behavior, a full explanatory picture emerges only after these actions are analyzed through the lens of history and memory.

This research also aims to contribute to methodological discussions concerning the use of identity as a variable to explain political action. Evidence is gathered from a large volume of history textbooks, official documents, memoirs, and interviews.