Replication Data for: The Taming of the Red Dragon: the Militarized Worldview and China's Use of Force, 1949-2001

For a long time, the People’s Republic of China was known to be prone to use military force to settle foreign policy crises or interstate disputes. Extending Alexander Wendt’s analysis of different cultures of anarchy, I argue that Beijing’s famed violence proneness—that is, its propensity to use force—was historically a product of the militarized or Hobbesian worldview held by China’s leaders during Mao’s reign, when the PRC acted as a revolutionary challenger against the international system. Since Mao’s death, however, China has been increasingly integrated into the system and, consequently, has experienced a Lockean turn in its worldview, which softens its predilection for violence. A systematic, quantitative test of my theory provides strong evidence that the evolution of China’s militarized worldview, rather than its expanding relative power, played a key role in driving Beijing’s resort to force between 1949 and 2001.

长期以来，外界普遍认为中华人民共和国倾向于以军事手段解决外交政策危机或国家间争端。本文拓展了亚历山大·温特（Alexander Wendt）对无政府状态多元文化形态的分析框架，提出北京方面广为人知的武力使用倾向——即其诉诸武力的偏好——在历史上源于毛泽东执政时期中国领导人所持有的军事化或霍布斯式（Hobbesian）世界观；彼时，中华人民共和国作为革命挑战者，与整个国际体系相对抗。然而，自毛泽东逝世后，中国日益融入国际体系，其世界观也随之发生了洛克式（Lockean）转向，这弱化了其偏好使用暴力的倾向。对本文理论开展的系统性定量检验提供了强有力的实证支撑：1949年至2001年间，推动北京诉诸武力的核心因素，并非其相对实力的持续扩张，而是其军事化世界观的演变。