A Dangerous Game: China's State Media Perceptions of Strategic Competition with the United States
Abstract/Contents
- Abstract
- The perception of a “rising China” and “declining US” among Western academic and policymaking circles has sparked fears of an emboldened China that views military conflict as beneficial to their interests. This research aims to provide clarity on this issue by analyzing how Chinese state media portrays strategic competition with the US. Drawing from online Chinese-language news articles from media institutions that reflect the Chinese Communist Party’s official party line (People’s Daily, PLA Daily, Global Times, and Xinhua), I examine how these outlets depict economic, technological, military, political, and international competition with the US. This research analyzes these depictions against the backdrop of pivotal moments in 21st century US-China relations: the 2008 Great Recession, the 2012 Power Transition, the 2018 US-China Trade War, and 2020 COVID-19 Pandemic. Taking a random sample of articles from each time period, I assign each article a score ranging from “-1” to “1” to measure tone and calculate the percentage of positive, negative, and neutral stories within each time period and category of strategic competition. Second, I conduct a qualitative analysis of the articles within each random sample to identify general themes and messaging. This research identified a drastic rise in negative coverage of the US across the four time periods and five categories. This research also determined that Chinese state media has propagated a “peak-US” theory. According to this theory, the overall decline of the US has made it a more hostile power that aims to suppress China’s development and resurrect a “New Cold War.” Despite these views of a hostile US, state media narratives urged the US to return to cooperation and avoid war due to a recognition that China benefits more from overall cooperation with the US, especially in terms of economic and technological development.
Description
| Type of resource | text |
|---|---|
| Date created | August 21, 2023 |
| Publication date | August 22, 2023 |
Creators/Contributors
| Author | LaRocca, Andrew | |
|---|---|---|
| Degree granting institution | Stanford University | |
| Degree granting institution | Stanford Global Studies | |
| Degree granting institution | Stanford Center for East Asian Studies | |
| Thesis advisor | Diamond, Larry |
Subjects
| Subject | US-China Relations |
|---|---|
| Subject | Stanford East Asian Studies |
| Subject | Propaganda, Chinese |
| Subject | Great powers > Foreign relations |
| Genre | Text |
| Genre | Thesis |
Bibliographic information
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- Use and reproduction
- User agrees that, where applicable, content will not be used to identify or to otherwise infringe the privacy or confidentiality rights of individuals. Content distributed via the Stanford Digital Repository may be subject to additional license and use restrictions applied by the depositor.
- License
- This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial 4.0 International license (CC BY-NC).
Preferred citation
- Preferred citation
- LaRocca, A. (2023). A Dangerous Game: China's State Media Perceptions of Strategic Competition with the United States. Stanford Digital Repository. Available at https://purl.stanford.edu/cb005fs3386. https://doi.org/10.25740/cb005fs3386.
Collection
Stanford Center for East Asian Studies Thesis Collection
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- Contact
- andjroc2022@gmail.com
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