The US has been engaged in and influenced international affairs following different ways of translating its diplomatic ideas. During the Cold War, freedom had been seen as the core of the American diplomatic ideas, being rooted in the American historical and cultural traditions. Actually, as early as the World War II, the US had entered the war with the slogan “to achieve freedom” rather than “to defend civilization or democracy”. During the Cold War, the slogan of “freedom” had naturally and comprehensively been applied to the new struggle and became the banner of the US struggle against the Soviet Union. During this period, the US had been regarded as the leader of the Free World and adopted various strategies such as economic assistance, cultural propaganda and religious movements to export the value of freedom to the world, forming a model of the Free Diplomacy.
    However, this does not mean that the US had not exported democratic values to the world at this stage. Rather, freedom and democracy have always been important values of the American diplomacy. At the beginning of the Cold War, America had grafted the western democratic system to Japan and Germany. However, during the Cold War, the concept of freedom occupied a more central position in the discourse of the American diplomacy. It was not until the end of the cold war when democracy was rising to be adopted in the national strategy and thus became the core idea of the American diplomacy. With the introduction of the strategy of participation and expansion, the US has gradually adopted various strategies such as economic assistance and sanctions, cultural propaganda, political infiltration and military intervention to export democratic values and American democratic systems, forming a model of the Democratic Diplomacy.
    There are many reasons why American diplomatic ideas have witnessed a shift from freedom to democracy. After the cold war, in order to establish and maintain the USdominant world order, it needs to establish the American democratic systems globally. While the threat of the Soviet Union does not exist there, the US has been confronting vague and generalized threats. Therefore, the US has to shape a secure international environment by forming the Democratic Diplomacy. At the end of the Cold War, the third wave of democratization also had an important impact on global politics. Democratic values have been deeply rooted in public awareness, and democratic discourses offer new supports for the hegemonic rule dominated by the US. Following this, the American liberal ideology has also been constantly strengthening, and the “Democratic Peace Theory” has been recognized by American foreign policy makers and has become a guiding principle of foreign policy. In addition, the rise of neoconservative forces has made a contribution to the turn of the US diplomatic ideas.

    The global species conservation strategy led by European and American countries has promoted the global species conservation process. However, it is necessary to recognize the current context of this strategy. International wildlife trade bans have been implemented widely, particularly having military measures to control poaching, while it has been quite difficult to achieve the sustainable use of the resources in developing countries. In fact, the combination of sustainable use and conservation is not only a consensus reached in a range of multilateral environmental agreements, but also an important position adopted by developed countries, particularly those European and American countries, in terms of protecting their native species. As species conservation has become an important issue in international environmental politics and has been used to maintain the dominant position of the European and American countries in the global species conservation strategies, the EuropeanAmerican global species conservation strategy differs from their domestic conservation actions. They are committed to promoting a narrow conservation agenda in other countries with the resources of species. Under this strategy, European and American countries use their dominance and flexible interpretation to constantly interfere with the equal application of the CITES between developed and developing countries.
    As a result, it imposes more stringent pressures on the countries of generating good conservation outcomes and restricting or prohibiting sustainable use, rather than choosing the best conservation approach in terms of populations and regional management. The narrow conservation agenda alienates species conservation concepts and confuses the causes of threats to species population. It not only deviates the conservation strategy from the real need to improve the status of populations, but also increases unnecessary costs of management in the countries, which ultimately hinders the longterm species conservation. The confusion of causality makes the public fall into the wrong perception of the main obligation of species conservation, and assigns the direct responsibility to indigenous people around the protected areas, while ignoring the various reasons closely related to justice, such as the huge consumption of wildlife and products by European and American colonizers for a long time and the economic development in developing countries. The EuropeanAmerican strategy has been rising in inequality within the colonial relations and developed in indirect maintenance of the unequal power of international relations. Undoubtedly, this strategy has hindered the achievement of sustainable conservation of global species. In order to improve the existing EuropeanAmerican strategy, it is necessary to construct local communities and countries as the effective stakeholders of protecting their native species and implementing pluralistic global conservation strategies.