Limited Adversaries

This is a comparative study of U.S.-China mutual images in the post-Tiananmen and post-Cold War context. It theoretically and empirically explores three broad questions: what are the cognitive structures and ingredients of Sino-American mutual images, and how do they converge or conflict with each other? With the current mutual images of the American and Chinese elites as a base line, how have these images evolved since the 1970s, and what patterns of perceptual change have emerged? And finally, what are some of the important sources of image formation and evolution and how do they function for different image dimensions?