Discourse, Context & Media 51 (2023) 100669

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Discourse, Context & Media

Othering as mediated soft-power practice: Chinese diplomatic

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Keywords: This paper examines how Chinese Ambassador to the UK has employed Othering offensive to construct China-US
Chinese diplomatic discourse trade war when publishing opinion pieces in the British press to promote China’s image and seek partenership. It
Mediated soft-power practice draws on Discourse-Historical Approach to Critical Discourse Studies. The analysis demonstrates how the
Othering offensive
Ambassador has used strategies, such as nomination, predication and argumentation, to construct the US as a
China-US trade war
the British press
negative Other to delegitimize its trade policies and actions. Meanwhile, Othering serves as a foil for indirectly
Discourse-Historical Approach constructing a positive Chinese Self as a responsible major country and a positive ‘We-group’ between China and
the US European allies. It sheds some light on understanding the workings of Chinese diplomatic discourse in
legitimating China’s worldview on ‘rules-based international order’. It also contributes to understanding the
interplay between the media logic of British/Western press and the soft-power efforts of Chinese/non-Western
government. The role of British/Western press in Chinese/counterhegemonic diplomats’ mediated soft-power
practice is both enabling and constraining.

1. Introduction 2019; Zhou, 2019), Chinese diplomats take a more vocal role by actively
authoring opinion articles to the foreign press in response to President
Soft power is ‘the ability to get preferred outcomes through the co- Xi’s call to better tell China’s stories to the rest of the world and make
optive means of agenda-setting, persuasion, and attraction’ (Nye, China’s voice heard. While it is very common soft-power practice for
2011: 16). Mass media has been widely recognized as playing a crucial diplomats of any country to author opinion articles to foreign press, the
role in the quest for soft power (Chouliaraki, 2007; Hayden, 2012; Snow utmost enthusiasm Chinese diplomats have for this practice deserves
and Cull, 2020). Over the past two decades, the notion of ‘soft power’ special attention.
has been politically utilized with unrivaled enthusiasm by the Chinese This paper aims to address three questions: (1) How do Chinese
leaders, who particularly highlight the importance of strengthening in­ diplomats employ discursive strategies when publishing opinion pieces
ternational communication capacity to promote China’s global image in the British press to promote China’s global image and seek parte­
and thus to safeguard its national interests (Cao, 2014; Hartig, 2016; nership? (2) How do their discursive constructions work to legitimize
Rawnsley, 2020). Under President Xi Jinping, China’s diplomacy ap­ China’s policies and actions and its worldview on the rules-based in­
pears more confident and proactive to befit the posture as a major ternational order? (3) How does the media logic of the British press
country. Meanwhile, the Trump administration adopted a tougher China interplay with Chinese diplomats’ own efforts to promote China in a
stance and ushered in a more adversarial relations. In early 2018, Trump good way? The aims are specifically achieved by examining the opinion
started setting tariffs and other trade barriers against China, as well as its pieces on China-US trade war written by Chinese Ambassador to the UK,
traditional European allies, including the UK. China-US trade war began Liu Xiaoming and published in the British press. The questions are
in July 2018, when the US implemented duties on $34 billion of Chinese analytically answered by focusing on Othering offensive and adopting
imports and China retaliated immediately. Since then, the world’s two Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA, Reisigl and Wodak, 2001, 2016;
largest economies have been engaged in multiple rounds of tit-for-tat Wodak et al., 2009) to Critical Discourse Studies (CDS, Wodak and
escalations, along with back-and-forth negotiations. Meyer, 2016), which offers a theoretical lens for examining the complex
Against the backdrop of rising mulifaceted China-US competition (Li, relations between media power and mediated political discourse. There

E-mail address: tangtlp@zjnu.cn.

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dcm.2023.100669
Received 14 April 2022; Received in revised form 16 January 2023; Accepted 19 January 2023
Available online 1 February 2023
2211-6958/© 2023 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
L. Tang Discourse, Context & Media 51 (2023) 100669

are two motivations for conducting this research. The first one is to shed policy white papers, government gazette), presidential speeches, press
some light on understanding China’s official ideology and political conferences, political interviews, elite academic writings, and more
discourse in the Xi era, a research agenda that is gaining increasing importantly, news reports and articles. The reason why political media
scholarly attention, but still far from being sufficient (Klimeš and texts, which are published by journalists, commentators or editorialists
Marinelli, 2018). The second one is to shed some light on understanding in Chinese official media outlets, attract most scholarly attention, is
the soft-power practice for Chinese diplomats to author opinion articles largely due to Chinese leadership’s increasing emphasis on the impor­
to Western press in specific and the mediated soft-power efforts of non- tance of enhancing China’s international communication capacity.
Western/counterhegemonic governments in general, which has received Another shared focus is on the discursive strategies of ideological po­
scant attention (Tang 2021). larization, which are found to be consistently present in Chinese official
media’s constructions of foreign issues, such as Donald Trump and
2. Literature review America in the 2016 presidential election (Pan et al., 2020), and China-
Western relations, particularly in conflict situations, such as 2001 China-
Mass media functions as an essential tool for soft power, which has Japan fishing boat collision and 2010 China-US plane collision (Lams,
been widely recognized in multiple disciplines, especially international 2017), China-US trade disputes/war (Chen and Wang, 2022; Wang and
relations, international communication and CDS (Chouliaraki, 2007; Ge, 2020; Zeng and Sparks, 2020). Nevertheless, scant attention has
Hayden, 2012; Snow and Cull, 2020). As Snow (2020: 5) noted, ‘when a been paid to opinion pieces written by Chinese diplomats and published
nation has greater access to multiple communication channels that can in foreign press (with rare exceptions, e.g. Tang 2021), a distinctive
influence how issues are framed in global news media’, it can gain one of mediated soft-power discursive practice featuring in the Xi era. The
the footholds in soft-power advantage. Indeed, the wide currency of this interplay between media logic of the foreign press and Chinese diplo­
idea has led many countries, including China, to make media-based ef­ mats’ efforts to promote China in a good way through it has received
forts to enhance soft power (for case studies of the nation-states, see, for very scant attention.
example, Hayden, (2012), Snow and Cull, (2020)). With respect to how
media contributes to soft power, Pan et al. (2020) summarizes it into 3. Theoretical framework and analytical approach
resource-cum-transmission view and discursive perspective. The former
treats media as ‘both a type of soft power resource and a conduit through CDS, as an interdisciplinary paradigm of ‘deconstructing ideologies
which soft power resources are amplified and transmitted’, while the and power through the systematic and retroductable investigation of
latter emphasizes ‘the critical role of the media in the production of semiotic data’ (Wodak and Meyer, 2016: 4; for an overview, see 2016:
meaning in soft power relations’ and treats soft power as ‘socially con­ 1–22), has substantially and fruitfully analyzed media texts of various
structed through discourse and, most fundamentally, deals with the genres as instantiating differing political discourses since its earliest
identity question of who we are (and who we are not) (ibid: 55, italics in stages (e.g. Chouliaraki, 2007; Fairclough, 1995; Fowler et al., 1979;
original). Kelsey, 2020; van Dijk, 1996, 1998). Central attention in this literature
If measured by greater access to multiple communication channels, is directed towards the complex relations between media power and
the US, together with a few other Western countries, has long had global mediated political discourse, which offers a theoretical lens for this
communication superiority while the other countries are at an disad­ paper.
vantage (Snow, 2020; Stevenson, 1988; van Dijk, 1996). Nevertheless, Media power is essentially ‘soft’, for it is ‘generally symbolic and
the information and communication gap in the global media landscape persuasive, in the sense that the media primarily have the potential to
is diminishing and arenas for non-Western perspectives are emerging control to some extent the minds of readers or viewers’ (van Dijk, 1996:
(Coban, 2016; Khalil and Downing, 2016). In the case of China, the Hu 10), though media power may not be termed as ‘soft power’ in many
Jintao administration initiated global media campaign to counter CDS works dealing with issues of international relations (with some
negative images in the US-dominated international media, and the exceptions, e.g. Akşak, 2020; Chouliaraki, 2007; Pan et al. 2020). Highly
campaign gets upgraded and accelerated in the Xi Jinping era (Cao, valued as one form of consequential public discourses, media discourse
2014; Hartig, 2016, 2020; Rawnsley, 2020; Thussu et al., 2018). Given has become a crucial power resource that elite groups such as politicians
the rapidly expanding global presence of China’s multiple media outlets, have privileged access to. Contemporary political discourse is increas­
such as China Global Television Network, China Radio International, ingly what Fairclough (1995: 188) terms ‘mediatized political
Xinhua news agency, China Daily and People’s Daily, some findings show discourse’. Discourses are sustained by ideologies (i.e., systems of group-
that China’s ability to shape global public opinion is on the rise and specific beliefs and values), and vise versa (if ideologies are understood
China’s image gets partially improved, especially in some developing as not purely discursive). Just as Reisigl and Wodak (2016: 25) noted,
countries (Bailard, 2016; Cho and Jeong, 2008; Kurlantzick, 2007). ideologies ‘serve as important means of creating shared social identities
Other studies note that there are some limits to the efficacy of China’s and of establishing and maintaining unequal power relations through
global media campaign - it has been received with growing caution discourse […] In addition, ideologies also function as a means of
especially in some Western countries, and the foreign audiences tend to transforming power relations’. To effectively realize the goals and pro­
be skeptical of Chinese media outlets and seldom use them as informa­ tect the interests of a specific social group, an ideology always involves a
tion sources (Zhao, 2013; Hartig, 2020; Rawnsley, 2020). Enhancing its macro-strategy of what van Dijk (2016: 73-74) calls the ‘Ideological
soft power in Europe, which is pertinent to this paper, has been one of Square’ - the ‘rhetorical combination of hyperbolic emphasis and miti­
the strategic priorities for China, but it seems very challenging due to the gation of good or bad things of ingroups and outgroups’. Such strategies
differences in political values between China and the West (Dams et al., of ideological polarization are found to be quite revealing in decon­
2021). structing the mediated political discourses about ethnic, racial, national
To further contextualize this study, the focus is placed on the and international issues (e.g. Reisigl and Wodak, 2001; van Dijk,
growing (but still very limited) literature related to Chinese diplomatic 1988ab, 2016; Wodak, 2015; Wodak et al., 2009).
discourse (e.g. Bhatia, 2006; Cao, 2014; Chen and Wang, 2022; Lams, To analyze Chinese mediated diplomatic discourse, I will adopt the
2017, 2018; Li and Zhu, 2020; Liu and Wang, 2020; Pan et al., 2020; DHA, a major approach to CDS. The DHA has been fruitfully applied in
Wang and Ge, 2020), which demonstrates a strong interest in the researching on discursive construction of (trans)national identities in
discursive construction of China’s images and identities in a rapidly media and political texts. It orients to five types of discursive strategies -
changing international political context. Major sources of data collected nomination, predication, argumentation, perspectivization, intensifica­
for various analyses include political documents (e.g. government work tion or mitigation. As shown by the analysis below in section 5, three of
reports delivered by Chinese Premier at the National People’s Congress, them (as illustrated in Table 1 below) stand out as salient features of

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L. Tang Discourse, Context & Media 51 (2023) 100669

Table 1 examples to show that Chinese diplomats seek to utilize the UK elite
A selection of important DHA categories (taken from Reisigl and Wodak, 2016: press, which is powerful in influencing the political agenda of other mass
32-33). media, to reach the audiences there or beyond. Notably, The Telegraph,
Strategies Objectives Questions including The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph, published 15 of
Nomination Discursive construction of How are social actors, events
23 (65.2 %) articles.
social actors, events and and actions named and referred Regarding the genre, opinion pieces are persuasive articles in the
actions to linguistically? press that make clear arguments usually about timely topics. Regarding
Predication Discursive qualification of What characteristics, qualities the author, Liu Xiaoming served as Chinese Ambassador to the UK for
social actors, events and and features are attributed to
eleven years (2010–2021), and by far is the longest-serving of all Chi­
actions (positively or social actors, events and
negatively) actions? nese ambassadors of all time. And he is viewed as ‘one of the most
Argumentation Justification and questioning What arguments are employed prominent defenders of China on the global stage’ (The Times, 29
of claims of truth and in the discourse in question? December 2020). In my print edition data, 18 of 23 (78.3 %) articles are
normative rightness accompanied by a small color professional headshot of him in the author
name portion, with 4 of the 18 headshots having China’s national flag as
Chinese diplomatic discourse. Reisigl and Wodak (2001) provide more background. These images foreground the author’s professional iden­
details of these strategies, but here, argumentation is explained a little tity, indicating that these articles do not express the author’s personal
bit more. ‘Topoi’ (singular ‘Topos’) are central parts of argumentation, opinions, but express opinions on behalf of the Chinese government.
which serve as conclusion rules to justify the transition from the argu­ These articles are only occasionally (6 of 23 articles, 26.1 %) accom­
ments to the conclusions. They are not always expressed explicitly, but panied with larger graphics. Given that language is the most prominent
can be made explicit as conditional (if x, then y) or causal (y, because x) meaning resource for constructing reality, and detailed examination of
paraphrases (for more details, see ibid: 69–80). Examples of content- the inter-relationship between language and images requires more space
related topoi can be seen in Table 3 below. by adopting a critical approach in multimodal discourse analysis (e.g.
I find the DHA very relevant to this research mainly for two reasons. Kress and van Leeuwen, 2001), I will focus my analysis on the text data,
First, notions of ‘positive self-presentation’ and ‘negative other-presen­ but will include some graphics in the analysis to briefly show how they
tation’ are employed as controlling goals to involve all these discursive may shape China’s image and frame the Ambassador’s discourse. The
strategies (Reisigl and Wodak 2001: 31), and thus is particularly useful text data were processed by adopting a traditional qualitative textual
in examining the discursive constructions of national image. Second, the analysis. The articles were read and reread carefully to identify the DHA
DHA is one of the few approaches of CDS with ‘a strong and organized categories and were thus coded manually. This allowed me to generalize
focus on argumentation’ (Reisigl, 2014: 67), and thus helps to capture the recurring Othering discursive strategies, as presented in the
persuasion and legitimation in diplomats’ discursive practice, which is following section.
essentially persuasive as cited above in Nye’s (2011: 16) definition of
‘soft power’. 5. Analysis
To analyze Chinese mediated diplomatic discourse, I also find Pan
et al.’s (2020) recent study, which analyzes the China Daily data to 5.1. Constructing the negative US other as a foil for a positive Self/Us
examine China’s soft-power discursive practice, inspiring to inform the
focus of this paper. They proposed a three-dimensional typology: charm Analysis of discursive strategies employed by Ambassador Liu
offensive, Othering offensive and defensive denial. The strategies of Xiaoming reveals that the US (mainly referred to as ‘the US’ or ‘America’
‘charm offensive’ and ‘Othering offensive’ roughly correspond to what in my data) is constructed as a negative Other in trade wars against
van Dijk calls ‘positive self-presentation’ and ‘negative other-presenta­ China, as well as its European allies, including the UK. He seems to
tion’ while ‘defensive denial’ is singled out to mean a ‘largely reactive refrain from using deprecatory labelling to nominate the US with only
strategy of resisting or denying negative discourses about the Self’ (ibid: two exceptions, i.e. ‘troublemaker’ (The Sunday Telegraph, 8 July 2018;
58). Their study directs my attention to ‘Othering offensive’, which is The Evening Standard, 16 May 2019). However, he relies a lot on pred­
defined as ‘the construction of a negative and repulsive Other as a foil for ication strategies for Othering-processes. Among the most frequent
indirectly fashioning a positive and attractive self-identity’ (ibid). They negative features predicated to the US, the following predications are
concluded: ‘As China’s global media expansion has caused alarm in salient, as summarized below in Table 2 (hereafter in examples, bolds
many countries […], the discursive practice of Othering may play a still my emphasis):
bigger role in China’s ongoing quest for soft power’ (ibid: 64). However, One more interesting finding worth mentioning here is the scarcity of
Othering is ‘perhaps the least understood of the discursive practices of referential identification of then-President Donald Trump as a key actor.
Chinese soft power’ (ibid: 56). There are only two articles mentioning him: one article (The Guardian,
10 April 2018), mentions ‘the Trump administration’ twice and con­
4. Data and methodological considerations structs it as a bad actor by assigning all these four aspects of negative
qualities to his government, while the other article (The Daily Telegraph,
The data was intended to include all the opinion pieces on China-US 12 December 2018) mentions ‘president Trump’ in an almost positive
trade war written by Chinese diplomats and published in the British context, who was depicted as having ‘a successful meeting’ with his
press between 1 January 2018 and 31 December 2019. The website of Chinese counterpart during the G20. The scarcity is perhaps surprising,
Chinese Embassy in the UK (https://www.chinese-embassy.org.uk/eng/ for Trump’s trade wars have even dismayed US European allies and
ambassador/dsjhjcf/) was found very useful in collecting data because it identifying Trump or his administration as a negative Other seems useful
routinely publicized news on the publications, where the screen shots in enhancing the persuasion of the Othering discourse. Here, Liu
and full texts of those published articles were available. Xiaoming’s avoidance in reference to Trump can be seen as more sub­
The search yielded a data set of 18,224 words in 23 opinion articles, tlely strategic - American unilateralism and protectionism is constructed
with an average of 793 words per article. They were all authored by as a rising trend rather than a result of an idiosyncratic approach of a
Chinese Ambassador to the UK, Liu Xiaoming. They appear in a range of particular president or his administration. This avoidance strategy may
7 ‘prestige’ or ‘quality’ publications, including 4 newspapers (The Tele­ be intended to discourage the foreign audiences from hoping that the US
graph, The Financial Times, The Guardian, The Evening Standard) and 3 will be a reliable ally again once the Trump administration ends.
magazines (Political First, Asia House Insights, First). They can be seen as Regarding the nomination of the event, Ambassador Liu Xiaoming
consistently referred to it as ‘trade war’, except for very occasional

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L. Tang Discourse, Context & Media 51 (2023) 100669

Table 2 by seeing what China is not and what ‘We-group’ is not. A contrasting
Identified salient negative predications. positive self-image is thus evoked: China is a responsible major country
Identified Linguistic devices Examples of realisation that is an innocent victim of the trade war, a great defender of world
predications economic order, and a staunch advocate of openness and cooperation.
America is to blame verbs denoting actions of triggering a trade war, These unspoken messages serve as a foil for stated ones. Here, some
for instigating and causing trouble or igniting a trade war, forcing headlines are taken as brief and clear examples of positive predications
escalating the trade worsening it China to take counter- of Chinese Self:
war. measures, brandishing the
baton of tariffs against China,
went back on its words,
(4) A more open China helps the whole world (The Daily Telegraph, 23
backtracking on bilateral April 2018)
agreements (5) China can’t let the law of the jungle harm world trade (The Daily
America is morally abstract nouns naming unilateralism, Telegraph, 4 October 2018)
wrong. wrong ideologies protectionism, “zero-sum
(6) Openness and cooperation is the only road leading to prosperity
games”, a “beggar-thy-
neighbour” approach, and development in Asia and the World (Asia House Insights, 22
protectionist and egoist November 2018)
policies, “America first”, (7) China is pursuing development at home while embracing the
arm-twisting hegemonism, a world (The Daily Telegraph, 18 February 2019)
hegemonic mindset, law of
the jungle, power politics
(8) China doesn’t want a trade war but will fight its corner (The
and self-centred Evening Standard, 16 May 2019)
unilateralism, “pride and
prejudice” At this point, it is noteworthy to mention that two articles, as
America is legally lexis denoting flouting well-established
headlined in Example (6) and Example (7), are accompanied by photos
wrong. illegitimacy international rules, willfully
undermining established (i.e. two of the six larger graphics as mentioned earlier). They are both
rules of multilateralism and about a bird’s eye view of Shanghai, by night and by day respectively,
free trade, a total disregard showcasing the prosperity, vibrancy and attractiveness of this global
for the authority of the World metropolis. Such photos of Shanghai may contribute to symbolizing a
Trade Organisation and its
prosperous, vibrant and attractive China and assuring and attracting the
dispute resolution system, the
abuse of US domestic laws audiences that China’s economy remains robust even amid China-US
America is dangerous nouns or verbs denoting the dangers of protectionism, trade war and it remains committed to openness and cooperation.
and threatening. ‘danger’ or ‘threat’ the risk of rising In examining the function of Othering offensive as a foil for indirectly
protectionism and
fashioning a positive ‘We-group’, two discourses are identified as
unilateralism, the threat of
raising tariff, undermine hopefully working to construct partnership between China and Amer­
their trading partners, ican European allies, including the UK. First, ‘unexpectedly, the US allies
damage the multilateral are victims too’; second, ‘we are all defenders of the world economic
trading system, threaten the order’. For an illustration of the first discourse, see the two extracts
very existence of the WTO,
below:
pose severe challenges to
the world trade regime, put (9) With increased tariffs on steel and aluminium from the EU,
the WTO in jeopardy Canada and Japan, the US wields its “tariff baton” against its tradi­
metaphors (e.g. war, surging protectionism and tional allies. […] That view on the world is known as “America first”,
natural disaster, bad unilateralism and looming
and it means that any one seen as having “moved America’s cheese”, be
weather, ghosts) used to trade war, the potential
provoke fear disaster of trade
it an ally or not, is punished. (The Sunday Telegraph, 8 July 2018).
protectionism, raging anti- (10) The real troublemakers in the global economy are those who
globalisation, the storm of rely on their superior power and frequently resort to the threat of raising
protectionism and tariffs, and who trigger “trade wars” at will, even against their allies,
unilateralism, the anti-trade
without hesitation. (The Evening Standard, 16 May 2019).
headwind, a spectre
stalking the world Extract (10) illustrates one of the two instances of nominating the US
as a ‘troublemaker’. Notably, the US is characterised as having proto­
typical membership in the category by using ‘real’ to up-scale or
references to ‘trade dispute/friction’. Such a metaphorical framing instensify the specification. The nomination is realized by defining the
transfers the negative elements of war, such as damages and fears, onto identity of the ‘real troublemakers’ with a transitivity structure of an
the related predications of the economic conflicts, which helps to identifying relational process, in Halliday and Matthiessen’s (2004)
construct a negative image of the initiator, as exemplified below: terms. The above two extracts well exemplify how negative predica­
tions, realized by a series of materical processes, are employed to
(1) However, the US recently went back on its words and the dark construct the US as instigating trade wars against its allies and holding
clouds of “trade war” are once again looming over the Amer­ immoral beliefs. Here, it is also worth noting that by way of ‘countering’
icas, Europe, Asia and Africa, and posing a severe challenge to (‘even’) and ‘denial’ (‘or not’) resources (Martin and White, 2005:
the world economic order and the multilateral trade regime. (The 118–120), the Ambassador first invokes an expectation that ‘the US did
Sunday Telegraph, 8 July 2018) not slap tariffs on billions worth of goods from the EU, Canada and
(2) The world economy needs to be open but surging protectionism Japan’ for ‘they were American traditional allies’, and then rules it out
and unilateralism and looming trade war have been a cause for totally. That is, this rejected expectation is represented as understand­
grave concern. (Asia House Insights, 22 November 2018) able or even logical since it is based on a not unreasonable expectation,
(3) By starting this trade war, the US has shot itself in the foot and which assumes to be generally held by the potential audiences in the UK
given the already sluggish world economy an even harder time. and beyond. However, the reality was that though China was not sur­
(The Daily Telegraph, 2 September 2019) prisingly high on the agenda of Trump’s trade war, he was equally
critical of American European allies and started to impose heavy tariffs
The US Other allows an insight into a positive self/Us-presentation on European goods, arguing that the European competition was

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L. Tang Discourse, Context & Media 51 (2023) 100669

endangering US national security. That did dismay and alienate its Table 3
traditional allies, including the UK. When China and the US allies are Selected list of content-related topoi (adopted from Reisigl & Wodak 2001: 74-
constructed as sharing common victim identity, Manichean dichotomies 80).
are intended to be triggered - the US is ‘Our’ common victimizer and Topos Warrant
thus common foe, ‘We’ are all victims and thus friends and partners. Topos of responsibility Because a state or a group of persons is responsible for
As indicated above in Table 2, frequent occurrences of negative the emergence of specific problems, it or they should
ideological terms (e.g. unilateralism, protectionism) are very noticeable. act in order to find solutions of these problems.
As Fowler and Kress (1979: 212) put it, overlexicalization ‘points to Topos of justice If persons/actions/situations are equal in specific
respects, they should be treated/dealt with in the same
areas of intense preoccupation in the experience and values of the group
way.
which generates it, allowing the linguists to identify peculiarities in the Topos of law If a law or an otherwise codified norm prescribes or
ideology of that group’. This is thus understood as a very conscious effort forbids a specific politico-administrative action, the
of the Ambassador to construct a collective front between China and the action has to be performed or omitted.
US allies, including the UK - ‘We’ hold common values (multilateralism, Topos of danger or threat If a political action or decision bears specific dangerous,
threatening consequences, one should do something
free trade) to combat American unilateralism and protectionism and against them.
thus ‘We’ are friends and partners in jointly defending world economic Topos of uselessness or If one can anticipate that the prognosticated
order. For example, these unstated messages of ‘commonality’ and disadvantage consequences of a decision will not occur, then the
‘unity’ could not be clearer in the following extracts: decision has to be rejected.
Topos of numbers If the numbers prove a specific topos, a specific action
(11) Both China and the UK have promoted and benefited from
should be performed/not be carried out.
globalisation. Both are victims of unilateralism and protectionism. (The Topos of history Because history teaches that specific actions have
Sunday Telegraph, 8 July 2018). specific consequences, one should perform or omit a
(12) As promoters and beneficiaries of globalisation, both China and specific action in a specific situation (allegedly)
the UK are against unilateralism and protectionism (The Daily Telegraph, comparable with the historical example referred to.

19 October 2018).
(13) Both China and the UK are active participants, important con­ unfair, harmful and dangerous to economic development of the whole
tributors and firm defenders of the international economic governance world, all the other countries are the victims and should take joint ac­
system. (First, 29 November 2018). tions against the victimizer - ‘the US administration’. When he continues
(14) Both China and the UK support multilateralism, free trade and to argue that ‘This is a critical time when the international community
rule-based international trade system. (The Guardian, 26 February should be upholding the global trading system’, he further employs a
2019). combination of topoi - the topos of ‘danger or threat’, ‘law’, and ‘re­
The above four extracts well exemplify how nomination and predi­ sponsibility’, to presuppose that the US threatens the functioning of
cation, which cannot be separated neatly from each other, are employed global trading system by violating WTO rules and to call on the
to construct ‘China and the UK’ as a positive Us, specifically by means of responsible countries, as implied by the feel-good term of ‘international
transitive structures, i.e. relational processes, material processes and community’, to take collective actions against this common perpetrator.
circumstantial elements denoting ‘role’. Both are defined as responsible Then to enhance persuasion, he employs the topos of ‘history’ in com­
members of international community, having common enemy to fight, bination with topos of ‘uselessness or disadvantage’, and ‘numbers’, as
and shared values to protect. And notably, by way of bare assertions exemplified below:
(Martin and White, 2005: 98-102), the Ambassador constructs the au­ (15) The Smoot-Hawley Act of 1930 was adopted to protect US
diences as already sharing the same view that China and the UK are like- businesses and jobs and to increase government revenue by raising
minded. This suggests his belief that Trump’s disengagement from tariffs on imported goods. It led to a wave of international retaliation
multilateralism and free trade has shaken the foundation of rules-based and an exacerbation of the Great Depression. In 1933, US gross domestic
trading system, which the US, together with its allies including the UK, product plunged by 45 per cent compared with 1929, and the contri­
led to establish following World War II. So he attempts to project a bution of trade to GDP dropped from 11 per cent to 6.6 per cent. History
position that China is a more reliable friend and partner, for it not only is a mirror. Last week the US government announced new protectionist
brings opportunities and benefits, but also defends common values. This measures against China, resulting in the S&P 500 losing well over $1tn
view might have gained appeal when the UK, growing more distant from in market value. The impact was also felt by the European and Asian
the EU and more wary of the US, had benefited from the ‘Golden Era’ of markets. There is no need for history to repeat itself only for us to learn
China-UK relations, marked by President Xi’s state visit in 2015 (Li, the straightforward lesson that there is no winner in a trade war. (The
2019). Financial Times, 29 March 2018).
Here, he obviously applies the topos of ‘history’, evoking collective
5.2. Persuading audiences of the validity of specific claims of truth and memories of dire consequences of the Great Depression resulting from
normative rightness the US-Europe trade war in the 1930s. By equating the historical context
with the current one, he warns against repeating the past and calls on
In order to persuade audiences of the validity of specific claims Europe to unite with China against protectionism. Embedded into this
concerning the US negative Other, positive Self/Us, and what should be historical analogy, the topos of ‘uselessness or disadvantage’ serves to
done jointly, some topoi are found to be utilised frequently in combi­ construct the trade war as always harming others without benefiting
nation (as summarized below in Table 3). oneself, with local and global economic damage objectified by the topos
On 29 March 2018, a few days after the US ordered new tariffs on of ‘numbers’. By implicitly constructing American listed companies and
Chinese steel and aluminium, Ambassador Liu Xiaoming published a investors as suffering from the trade war, the US government is singled
signed article, titled ‘Europe and China must unite against protection­ out from its people as the victimizer to take all the blame. And by
ism’, in The Financial Times. Setting a tone for China’s position, here it is constructing European and Asian stock markets as negatively affected,
taken as a good example. By starting his article saying that ‘The recent again a shared victim identity of ‘We-group’ is constructed to polarize
protectionist measures by the US administration are dangerous and risk the US government as the bad common Other in the world.
triggering a trade war and hampering global growth’, he resorts to a A combination of topoi as exemplified above is repeatedly employed
combination of topoi - the topos of ‘justice’, ‘responsibility’, ‘danger or in the Ambassador’s subsequent articles. Here for an illustration of
threat’, and ‘uselessness or disadvantage’. The opening sentence is thus argumentation in the context of worsening ‘tariff war’ and ‘technology
rich in implications: if the US administration’s recent trade measures are

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war’, in particular after stalled trade talks in May 2019, one more extract world (or at least its key regions) from ideological and economic
is taken as follows: penetration by the United States. This fear of ‘closure’ is inextricably
(16) As a follow-up to this agreement, China bought agricultural rooted in American liberalism and explains why the United States has
products from the US, including 2.27 m tons of soybeans from the end of such a difficult time coexisting with non-liberal states. (Layne, 2020:
June to the end of July. Instead of reciprocating, the US accused China of 381).
not purchasing its agricultural products at all and recently announced a However, European liberal states appear to have no interest in con­
10-25pc increase of tariffs on $550bn of Chinese imports. This was fronting China as aggressively as the US does. China’s acceptance of
increased by a further 5pc following retaliation from China, accompa­ multilateralism and its integration into global economic order serves
nied by a threat to pull American businesses out of the Chinese market. European interests, while Trump’s open hostility to its Europen allies
The US also added 46 Huawei affiliates to the Entity List, going back on and multilateralism, which even suggests America’s longer-term in­
its words that “US companies can sell their equipment to Huawei”. Such ward-looking trends, go against Europen interests. Regarding China’s
disrespect for commitments and consensus dampened confidence in diverging world views on the global political order, they may not
consultation. (The Daily Telegraph, 2 September 2019). perceive China as directly and seriously threatening their stability and
In June 2019 on the sidelines of the G20 summit in Japan, the interests as the US does. However recently, they started to harden their
Presidents of the two countries agreed to hold off on new tariffs and attitude on China’s political values. As evidenced by a document issued
restart trade talks. Trump also confirmed that US companies could by the European Commission (2019), China is referred to as a ‘systemic
continue to sell to Chinese telecom giant Huawei. Here in Example (16), rival promoting alternative models of governance’ for the first time.
the Ambassador first employs a combination of topoi of ‘justice’ and However, this document also referred to China as ‘a cooperation partner
‘numbers’, which relies on the conditional: ‘If the numbers prove that US with whom the EU has closely aligned objectives’. Probably it could be
does not honour the agreement while China has honoured, the US expected that the European liberal states tend to be more tolerant of
should be condemned’. The condemnation is further evoked via the coexisting with an economically powerful socialist country if they can
topos of ‘threat’: If ‘a threat to pull American businesses out of the rest assured that China will not advance an alternative model of
Chinese market’, which suggests the possibility of an ‘economic governance at the expense of European values of liberal democracy.
decoupling’ (Wei, 2019) between the two largest economies, bears the Besides, this paper serves as a worthwhile case study to shed some
devastating consequences not only for the two countries themselves but light on understanding the interplay between the media logic of British/
also for global economic prosperity and stability, We should work Western press and the soft-power efforts of diplomats representing
together to take actions against it. Finally, he employs the topos of ‘re­ China in particular, and non-Western/counterhegemonic governments
sponsibility’ to argue that the US should take all the blame for the series in general. It is argued that the role of British/Western press in Chinese
of escalations and current stalemate and should do more to demonstrate diplomats’ mediated soft-power practice is both enabling and con­
its good faith and a sense of responsibility. straining. On one hand, diplomats in general can be powerful in terms of
their access to foreign media. Their identity, as official envoys repre­
6. Discussion and conclusion sentive of a state accredited to another state, and their role as public
communicators arguably enable them to have special access to the local
The above analysis demonstrates how Chinese Ambassador Liu media and thus to tap the persuasive potential of press genres such as
Xiaoming deploys Othering strategies (especially nomination, predica­ opinion pieces, to engage in strategic communication with foreign au­
tion and argumentation) as soft-power discursive practice through diences, and thereby they endeavour to enhance national image and
writing opinion pieces on China-US trade war and publishing them in seek partnership. Notably, this common soft-power practice has been
the British press. Constructing the US as a negative common Other enthusiastically applied by Chinese diplomats, as evidenced by Liu
serves as a foil for a positive self/Us-presentation by providing a sense of Xiaoming. Their practices can be interpreted as part of a more proactive
what China is not and what ‘We-group’ is not. China is thus constructed combined communication approach in response to President Xi Jinp­
as a responsible major country that is an innocent victim of the trade ing’s call to better tell China’s stories to the rest of the world and make
war, a great defender of world economic order, and a staunch advocate China’s voice heard. ‘[L]anguage is not powerful on its own – it is a
of openness and cooperation. China and the US Europen allies, including means to gain and maintain power via the use that powerful people
the UK, are constructed as responsible members of international com­ make of it, and an expression of power relations’ (Reisigl and Wodak,
munity, having common enemy to fight, and shared values to protect. 2016: 25). Chinese diplomats’ specific access to the British/Western
Nevertheless, it is noteworthy that the Ambassador restricts the press could have potential for reaching the British/Western audiences
common values only to economic aspects (e.g. ‘international economic with a Chinese perspective, when the international coverage of China is
governance system’, ‘rule-based international trade system’). This rep­ consistently dominated by Western media which inevitably shows an
resents China’s particular approach in dealing with ideological differ­ imbalanced prism of Western perspective (Dams et al., 2021).
ences with the Western countries. On one hand, it seeks common ground On the other hand, diplomats’ access to the foreign media can be
by selectively embracing certain values of rules-based international very limited and even resolutely denied, once their projected alternative
order, such as multilateralism and free trade, to show that China is a perspectives are perceived as a threat to the interests of the dominant
maintainer of global order rather than a ‘revisionist state’ (Allison, 2017; elites of the host countries. As van Dijk (1996: 27) noted, Western news
Johnston, 2003). On the other hand, it contends that to apply liberal media generally ‘supported Western resistance against the proposals for
values about democracy and human rights everywhere is driven by cold- a new international order […] and against any other change of the status
war zero-sum mentality, which should be discarded, and all the coun­ quo that would imply a more equal balance between the North and the
tries have right to independently choose social systems and development South’. In the case of Chinese diplomats representing a socialist country
paths, which should be respected. That is, China does not accept those to author opinion articles to Western press, they are more likely to be
norms and values sustaining Western-style liberal democracy, while the allowed limited access. Just as can be seen in one of Liu Xiaoming’s
US and its traditional European allies consider them as inextricable from articles to defend China’s position (Financial Times, 23 October 2019), he
the rules-based international order. wrote that ‘the newspapers have declined several times to carry my
To the US that sees China as a rising power challenging its global articles explaining China’s position’ on the issues relating to Hong Kong,
hegemony and is shaping a world antithetical to its values, China’s and thus he called into question the ‘freedom of speech’ in British press.
approach is the most unacceptable. As Layne put it, China is a problem These rejections could be signs that the constructions of China’s position
for American foreign policy establishment because it taps into their on Hong Kong issues may have been perceived as alarms of the immi­
deepest fear: that a powerful non-liberal state will be able to close off the nence of a ‘systemic rivial’. In comparison, discursive constructions of

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positive Self/Us against the backdrop of trade war appear more Klimeš, O., Marinelli, M. (Eds.), 2018. Ideology, propaganda, and political discourse in
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Declaration of Competing Interest Li, T., Zhu, Y.F., 2020. How does China appraise self and others? A corpus-based analysis
of Chinese political discourse. Discourse & Society. 31 (2), 153–171.
Liu, W.Y., Wang, Y.J., 2020. The role of offensive metaphors in Chinese diplomatic
The authors declare that they have no known competing financial discourse. Discourse, Context & Media 37, 1–10.
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the work reported in this paper Palgrave Macmillan, London.
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Johnston, A., 2003. Is China a status quo power? International Security 27 (4), 5–56. Liping Tang is Professor in English linguistics at Zhejiang Normal University, China. Her
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Introduction. International Journal of Communication 10, 3477–3484. foreign media in the Xi Jinping era.