DOES IDEOLOGY MATTER - A CASE-STUDY OF SINO EX-SOVIET REPUBLICS RELATIONS

The interplay between domestic politics and foreign policy has long been a debating issue among scholars of international studies. This study focuses on the question of how political and ideological changes in the successor states of the former Soviet Union have affected their relations with the People's Republic of China, one of the few remaining communist countries in the world. The findings in this study show that relations between China and the successor states of the former Soviet Union have been affected least by ideology. These findings should not lead the reader to the conclusion that ideology does not matter in international relations, but rather, the author argues, that economic and geopolitical considerations tend to overshadow the ideological factor in relations among states.