Strategic Implications of Culture: A Historical Analysis of China's Culture and Implications for US Policy

摘要

In today's dynamic and multi-polar strategic environment there is a heightened potential for greater conflict. One reason for this lies in the different ways in which state and non-state actors interpret and respond to the myriad challenges and opportunities of a much more turbulent global context. These differences in interpretation and response are largely rooted in differences in culture for it is culture that forms the sub-conscious set of shared meanings that guide group behaviors, perceptions and actions in the world. Understanding culture in terms of the deep, underlying assumptions and shared mindsets held by both state and non-state actors is critical for today's strategic military planner to predict the potential for conflict and plan for effective conflict resolution. In this paper, the author used Mary Douglas group/grid typology model for framing culture to describe the strategic implications of culture and culture's response to a changing global context. The author then applied these concepts to analyze the effect of cultural change in China and its implications for current and future US-China relations. Through this analysis, the author revealed important differences in cultural perspective between China and the US, encouraging different solutions to the common strategic problems of security and prosperity and, thus, potentially causing misperceptions and dangerous miscalculations in policy. Long-term strategic cooperation with China requires US planners and policymakers understand these cultural differences and factor them into every realm of engagement with China.