领导集团更迭与外交政策调整

Change in Leadership Coalition and Foreign Policy Adjustment:A Study on Foreign Policy Compliance with China

他国对中国外交政策的突然调整,不仅会导致中国对外关系的波动,从而给中国的外交工作带来挑战,也可能导致中国海外投资环境的变化,并对中国企业造成经济损失。关于哪些因素导致了一国外交政策转向的问题,以往的定量研究多以其他国家与美国外交政策的相似程度及变化为分析对象,为中国外交提供的参考十分有限。作者立足于中国的实际需要,通过其他国家与中国在联合国大会投票的相似程度,衡量这些国家对中国的外交政策跟从,并利用回归及匹配的方法,对投票相似程度的绝对变化进行解释。整体上看,冷战结束后,各国外交政策变得更加灵活,其对华外交政策调整的可能性更大。在这样的大背景下,他国领导集团的更迭是促成该国对华外交政策调整的直接原因。领导集团更迭越剧烈,该国对华外交政策调整的幅度越大。而这些国家的对华贸易则发挥了显著的稳定作用,对华外交政策调整的幅度随着对华贸易的增加而减小。

Sudden adjustments in other countries' foreign policies towards China not only lead to disturbances in China's foreign relations,which makes conducting diplomacy more challenging to Chinese diplomats,but also alter the environment in which Chinese outward investments operate, causing economic losses to Chinese enterprises.What then explains changes in a country's foreign policy? In answering this question,the vast majority of the existing quantitative research focuses on similarities and changes in a country's foreign policy vis-a-vis that of the United States. The existing scholarship,therefore,offers limited insight to Chinese diplomacy and foreign services. To fill in this gap in the literature and serve the real needs of Chinese diplomacy, the authors use the similarity score calculated from the United Nations General Assembly( UNGA) votes to measure a country's foreign policy compliance with China. The au-thors explore the absolute changes in the similarity score with China through regression and matching techniques. It is found that in the post-Cold War period,foreign policy generally shows greater flexibility,resulting in higher probability of adjustments in other countries' foreign policies towards China. Against this background,the authors attribute such adjustment in foreign policies to changes in a country's leadership coalition. More drastic changes in leadership coalition are associated with greater magnitudes of foreign policy adjustment. The authors also find that bilateral trade with China has a significant stabilizing effect: as the country's foreign trade with China increases,the magnitude of foreign policy adjustments decreases.