Societal Factors in Evaluating Policy for China and Islamism
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Date
2017-08-28
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Johns Hopkins University
Abstract
America’s enduring conflict with both the Chinese and Islamism proceeds without the requisite understanding of the cultural drivers of the actual struggle. Policy and overt military action against these two different societies to date uses an antiquated method to determine foreign policy and national security. Further, this approach fails to consider internal ideology and relevant data that may reveal inadequacies or the unsustainability of the adopted policies and military strategies. This thesis revisits the argument between multipolar and universal global society perspectives by conducting a qualitative analysis of each culture against Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” theoretical model. Additionally, quantitative data is used to assess the implications of the fertility rates of each society with respect to recommendations for policy changes.
The societal analysis of these two civilizations using religion, culture, history, and population reveals that: 1) the core tenets of Islamism rejects liberal principles; 2) Due to historical and cultural aspects, current U.S. policy appears imperialistic to a distrustful and wary China; and 3) the growth of the Islamic population and the decline of the Chinese civilization offer opportunities for the U.S. to revise its strategy and foreign policy toward these two societies. These ideas challenge some of the foundational elements of our liberal democracy, and they support the need to re-evaluate theory in relation to civilizational clashes. This study provides a contribution to the growing body of research on similar topics concerning foreign policy and cultural analysis.
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China, Islamism, clash, civilization, culture, population