The United States and China in Power Transition - Strategic Studies ...

pher at his confirmation hearing, “Our policy will seek to facilitate
a peaceful evolution of China from communism to democracy. . . .,”
U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee, January 13, 1993. In addition,
there is a large literature on U.S. engagement policy toward
China.
28. See Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy, New York: Simon &
Schuster, 1994, for an excellent account of the evolution of the U.S.
beliefs in the world order and its mission to promote it. Review
also Francis Fukuyama’s “The End of History?” National Interest,
Summer 1989.
29. See the literature on “democratic peace” from the early
1990s on for its influence on the U.S. sense of mission and its determination
to promote democracy in the world. See also the U.S.
National Security Strategies from the George H. W. Bush administration
to the latest National Security Strategy of 2010.
30. President George W. Bush’s National Security Strategies of
2002 and 2006 have perhaps the strongest words on China’s incomplete
transition to modernity and its role as a stakeholder.
31. American analysts also agree that democratic peace theory
may not be as solid as the proponents have established. Recent
studies continue to challenge the theory.
32. Samuel P. Huntington, Political Order in Changing Societies,
New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1968. Chinese government
and policy analysts have always used Huntington’s theory
to justify China’s authoritarian rule. Readers may want to review
Joseph T. Siegle, Michael M. Weinstein, and Morton H. Halperins’
challenge to Huntington’s work in their study on “Why Democracies
Excel,” Foreign Affairs, September/October 2004.
33. Li Zhongzhou, “An Irresponsible Stakeholder,” China Daily,
June 26, 2007.
34. I use the term “construct” for the lack of a better word.
Chinese unqualifyingly call the harmonious world construct a
“theory.” This is a typical Chinese misuse of the term “theory” in
China. The harmonious world is more of a Chinese government
foreign policy call. Xu Shaomin (许少民) is one of the very few
208