CWP co-director discusses 'Identity, race and US China conflict' in New Zealand

Claims about differences in identity pervade foreign policy discourses in the United States and China. Sometimes these claims stress differences in political and ideological identity. Sometimes they stress differences in cultural identity. But sometimes these claims are about differences in ethnic, and even racial, identity. Discourses about identity difference tend to predict to greater inter-group conflict. What role might these claimed differences in identity play in the intensification of the US-China rivalry?

Identity, race and US China conflict—Sir Howard Kippenberger for Centre for Strategic Studies. Full video on YouTube here. 

Alastair Iain Johnston (PhD University of Michigan, 1993) is the Gov. James Albert Noe and Linda Noe Laine Professor of China in World Affairs in the Government Department at Harvard University. He has written on socialization theory, identity and political behavior, and strategic culture, mostly with application to the study of East Asian international relations and Chinese foreign policy. Recently he has become interested in the effects of social media on inter-state security dilemmas. Johnston is the author of Cultural Realism: Strategic Culture and Grand Strategy in Chinese History (Princeton 1995) and Social States: China in International Institutions, 1980-2000 (Princeton University Press, 2008), and is co-editor of Engaging China: The Management of an Emerging Power (Routledge 1999), New Directions in the Study of China’s Foreign Policy (Stanford 2006), Crafting Cooperation: Regional Institutions in Comparative Perspective (Cambridge 2007), Measuring Identity: A Guide for Social Scientists (Cambridge 2009), and Perception and Misperception in American and Chinese Views of the Other (Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 2015).

Photo Credit: Victoria University of Wellington Youtube Channel - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LnUT13zi2zg