AMERICAN STUDIES QUARTERLY Spring 2002，Vol. 16, No. 1 ARTICLES The ABM Treaty and U.S. Missile Defense Program Wu Zhan(7) The article is a summary of the history of U.S. missile defense in the past fifty years. Owing to the extreme difficulties in the technologies, the United State s and the Soviet Union signed the ABM Treaty and stopped the deployment in 1972, but the research and development continued. The United States played an important role in the technological race in the decades afterwards, doing a lot of fruitless work. The later disintegration of the Soviet Union gave rise to Russia and some independent republics which are no longer major threats to the United States. Meanwhile, Third World countries began to develop ballistic missiles, constituting new threats even though backward in technological terms. The United States has given notice to Russia in withdrawing from the treaty and will make use of its experience in ABM development to defend itself against missile attacks from the Third World countries. Key Factors in the Congressional Foreign and Security Policymaking and Its PostCold War Features Ni Feng (22) The U.S. Congress is an important policymaking body in foreign and security affairs and has been playing an even bigger role in this field since the end of the Cold War. This article identifies five key factors that exert influence on the Congressional decisionmaking process, namely the leadership, the leading role, the interest groups, the public opinion, and party politics and organizations. To get a deeper understanding of U.S. foreign and security policies, the article focuses on the new political features in the postCold War era. A Shadow of “Blue Team” over G.W. Bushs China Policy Zhang Ruizhuang (40) The “Blue Team,” which emerged in American political circles around the time when G.W. Bush became U.S. president, is an origin of the adverse current in U.S. Congress and news media against China and a force that has driven Bushs China policy to a hardened line. On account of its wide social basis and gigantic political energy, the Blue Teams harmful influence on the ChinaU.S. relationship should not be underestimated. The Rise and Fall of the “Revisionist’ View of Japan in the United States Yu Tiejun (57) The article starts from the investigation of the rise and decline of the American “revisionist” view of Japan in the late 1980s and early 1990s and its influence on Americas Japan policy, especially the trade policy. The article then explores the role of perceptions in international policies and the relations between perceptions and power. While recognizing the importance of perceptions, the author argues that perceptions can be better understood only through the actual situation in the power equation, because the change in the balance of power often conditions the ground for political views to play their role. The interaction between power and perception provides a key to better understanding the U.S.Japan relationship in recent times. The Control of Healthcare Costs in America Zhang Qilin (70) The healthcare system of the United States is the most expensive throughout the world. Based on the ideas of management and competition, the American government and private sectors have adopted many measures to control the escalating costs since the 1970s. But the effect is not satisfactory. Cost curtailment is still one of the major tasks of the American healthcare reform. Freedom of Expression: The SpeechAction Dichotomy in the case of U.S. Supreme Court's Principles Regarding Flag Desecration Shao Zhize (82) With constitutional disputes in cases of flag desecration as the main point, this article discusses the speechaction dichotomy in the American freedom of speech. On what conditions action can be put under equal constitutional protection as oral speech, or is equal to oral speech, and on what conditions action can not be, the Supreme Court has been wavering. The justices introduced the concepts of symbolic expression, speechplus, and expressive conduct to deal with different lawsuits related to the first amendment of the Constitution and finally reached a clearer norm in the “Texas vs. Johnson” case of 1989. ChurchState Relations in Colonial America Zhang Hongju (96) Owing to the great complexity of the religious situation in the time of colonial America, there are divergent views among scholars of the then church and state relationship. In accordance with their religious legislations and practices, the colonies can be grouped into three categories. The first category includes those colonies that practiced the separation of the church from the state and the freedom of religion. The second incorporates those which affirmed the Established Church of England as their official religion. The third is the territory in northern New England where most settlers were puritans. REVIEWS The Economic “Iron Curtain”: Comments on American Cold War Strategy And China Committee, COCOM(1949-1994) Liu Fangmin and Zhang Minjun(109) Racial Issues in the PostCivil Rights Era: Thoughts on Reading Race Matters by Cornel West Wu Xinyun(117) Education That Extinguishes Civilization: Comments on Education for Extinction: American Indians and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928, by David Wallace Adams Cai Yongliang(127) A New Order in an Old System: Comments on Institution, Strategic Restraint And Persistence of American PostWar Order by G. John Ikenberry Mu Jianfeng(136) The United States and East Asia: Comments on Dual Containment: The Eisenhower Administration's East Asia Policy Wu Zhengyu(144) ACADEMIC ACTIVITIES Reviewing the History and Looking forward to the Future: A Symposiumheld by the Chinese Association for American Studies and the Institute of American Studies to Celebrate the 30th Anniversary of the Shanghai Communiqué Ni Feng(147) Reexamining the Normalizing Process of SinoU.S. Relations: An International Symposium on the Normalization of SinoU.S. Relations, 1969-1979 Wang Qiaorong(150) New Books(155) Editor's Note(160)