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Understanding Sino-Japanese Relations: Proposing a Constructivist Approach in Chinese Studies

Abstract This paper proposes a “Cultural Constructivist” approach as a theoretical framework to capture how China's perceived identity of its significant Other is constituted and evolves through social interactions, and how such identity in turn gives meaning to the PRC's interactions with another state. Upon building a theoretical framework, it will first begin with a literature review and critique on Strategic Culture and Constructivism. It then argues that while both cultural factors and social interactions are important in foreign relations, the two IR streams failed to truly integrate the social and the cultural. The Cultural Constructivist approach is a theoretical framework that synthesizes the two to better understand the role of culture in social interactions among states. Using China as a referent point for analysis, the paper argues that China perceives its significant Other Japan through a culturally unique relationship widely known in the disciplines of anthropology, sociology and cross-cultural psychology as guanxi.