U.S. – China Relations through the Perspective of Social-Constructivism

Abstract

"The twentieth century was marked, especially in its second part, by the rivalry of the United States and the Soviet Union, a rivalry that prompted many analysts to devise theories about this seemingly perpetual bi-polar international system. Yet after 1989 these theories crumbled under the seemingly unexpected dissolution of one of the two poles of the system, and thus new theories emerged, trying to better explain what was happening. One such theory, the Social-Constructivist one, tried to argue that identities, ideas and the way in which these are constructed also play a pivotal role in international relations. In the pages below I will try to analyze what is emerging to be a similarly century-defining rivalry, the one between the United States and the People’s Republic of China, through the ‘lens’ of Social-Constructivism, to find out if the theory laid out by Alexander Wendt almost three decades ago can still aptly explain the world of today. Keywords: U.S. – China relations, Social-Constructivism, Discourses "