Linguistic tools of empowerment and alienation in the Chinese official press: Accounts about the April 2001 Sino-American diplomatic standoff

Lutgard Lams

Abstract

Attempts at reinvigorating mythical sensations of shared values and cultural identities happen particularly at times of dislocatory events in a community’s history, when ‘the national Self’ is perceived to be threatened by external forces. Such a critical moment for China was the collision between a US surveillance plane and a Chinese F-8 jet fighter on April 1, 2001, and the ensuing diplomatic standoff between the US and China. As the Chinese authorities and the state media viewed this incident in a series of ambiguous incidents involving the US, it was concluded that the collision had been the inevitable outcome of US hegemonism intended to provoke China. It is this concurrence of events, triggering feelings of disempowerment of the Self that causes recurrent flurries of heated anti-Other rhetoric. Boundaries of exclusion/inclusion along cultural, historical and political lines set up the Other as the negative mirror of the Self, which as a consequence is positively reasserted. Informed by insights from Language Pragmatics and Critical Discourse Analysis, this paper sets out to examine linguistic tools of alienation and empowerment in the Chinese official press narratives about the collision, comprising the Chinese-language Renmin Ribao, its English equivalent The People’s Daily and the English-language China Daily. It aims to trace processes of meaning generation, in particular discursive practices of an ideological nature, such as antagonistic portrayals of in- and outgroups, hegemonic exercise of power, as well as naturalized conceptualizations of contingent processes, structures and relations.

Keywords:
Quick links
A browser-friendly version of this article is not yet available. View PDF
Anderson, B
(1983) Imagined communities: Reflections of the origin and spread of nationalism. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Bau, B
(2001) Dzai Jungmei zhuangji shijian yingchi de jiching beihou: meiti chaujung he minyi kungzhi [Behind the emotion after the Sino-Am. EP3 collision: media manipulation and public opinion control]. Dandai Zhongguo yanjiu [Contemp. Chinese Studies] 2.73: 74-76.Google Scholar
Bakhtin, M
(1986) Speech genres and other late essays (V.W. McGee, Trans). Austin: University of Texas Press.Google Scholar
Beckett, K
(1996) Culture and the politics of signification: The case of child sexual abuse. Social Problems 43: 57-76. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Beller, M., and J. Leerssen
(eds.) (2007) Imagology: The cultural construction and literary representation of national characters. A critical survey. Amsterdam: Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Billig, M., S. Condor, D. Edwards, M. Gane, D. Middleton, and A. Radley
(1988) Ideological dilemmas. London: Sage.Google Scholar
Brady, A.M
(2006) Guiding hand: The role of the CCP Central Propaganda department in the current era. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 3.1: 57-77. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Brantlinger, P
(1990) Crusoe’s footprints: Cultural studies in Britain and America. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Chan, W.S
(2002) Media discourse and image construction: A study of New York Times’s reports about the Hainan spy-pane collision incident. Hong Kong Journal of Sociology 3: 123-146.Google Scholar
Chang, D.J
(2001) Tsung hungkuan hishi shiye jiedu mei “jung” chunji pengzhuang shigu [Interpreting/decoding the ‘Sino’-American EP3 collision incident from a macro-historical point of view]. Chinese Communist Party Studies 27.5: 104-106.Google Scholar
Cheng, M
(2002) The Standoff- what is unsaid? A pragmatic analysis of the conditional marker ‘if’. Discourse & Society 13.3: 309-317. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Cheng, J.Y.S., and K.L Ngok
(2004) The 2001 “Spy” plane incident revisited: The Chinese perspective. The Journal of Chinese Political Science 9.1: 63-83. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clausen, L
(2005) Intercultural encounters in the global transmission of news: the perception and production of cultural images. Nordicom Review 26.2: 103-131.Google Scholar
Clifford, J
(1988) The predicament of culture: Twentieth-Century ethnography, literature, and art. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Creutz-Kämppi, K
(2008) The Othering of Islam in a European context. Nordicom Review 29.2: 295-308. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dai, J.H
(2001) Behind global spectacle and national image making. Positions: East Asia Cultures Critique 9.1: 161-186. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Donnelly, E
(2004) The US-China EP-3 incident: Legality and realpolitik. Journal of Conflict and Security Law 9.1: 25-42. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Dyserinck, H., and M. Fischer
(eds.) (1985) Internationale Bibliographie zur Geschichte und Theorie der Komparatistik. Stuttgart: Anton-Hiersemann.Google Scholar
Edgar, A., and P. Sedgwick
(1999) Key concepts in cultural theory. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Entman, R.M
(1991) Framing US coverage of international news: Contrasts in narratives of the KAL and Iran Air Incidents? Journal of Communications 41.4: 6-27. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
(1993) Framing: Toward clarification of a fractured paradigm. Journal of Communication 43.4: 51-58. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fill, A
(1986) ‘Divided illocution’ in conversational and other situations – and some of its implications. International Review of Applied Linguistics in Language Teaching 24.1: 27-34. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fursich, E
(2002) How can global journalists represent the ‘other’? Journalism 3.1: 57-84. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Galtung, J., and M.H. Ruge
(1965)  The structure of foreign news . Journal of Peace Research 1: 64-90. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gamson, W., and A. Modigliani
(1989) Media discourse as a symbolic contest: Constructionist approach. American Journal of Sociology 95: 1-37. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gans, H.J
(1979) Deciding what’s news. NY: Pantheon.Google Scholar
Graber, D.A
(1989) Mass media and American politics. Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly.Google Scholar
Gramsci, A
(1971) Prison notebooks. London: Lawrence and Wishart.Google Scholar
Gries, P.H
(2001) Tears of rage: Chinese nationalist reactions to the Belgrade embassy bombing. The China Journal 46, July: 25-43. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gries, P.H., and K.P. Peng
(2002) Culture clash? Apologies East and West” in Journal of Contemporary China 11.30: 173-178. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hall, S., T. Jefferson, J. Clarke, and B. Roberts
(1978) Policing the crisis: Mugging, the state, and law and order. New York: Holmes and Meier. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Hao, Y.F., and L. Su
(2007) Beautiful imperialist or warmongering hegemon? Contemporary Chinese views of the US. In D. Farber (ed.), What they think of us: International perceptions of the U.S. since 9/11. Princeton: Princeton University Press, pp. 74-94.Google Scholar
Höijer, B
(2007) A socio-cognitive perspective on ideological horizons in meaning-making. In B. Höijer (ed.), Ideological horizons in media and citizen discourses. Göteborg: Nordicom, pp. 33-49.Google Scholar
Hoffmann, J
(1980) Völkerbilder in Ost und West. Auswahlbibliographie. Dortmund: Rheinländisch Westfälische Auslandsgesellschaft.Google Scholar
Hook, S.W., and X.Y. Pu
(2006) Framing Sino-American relations under stress: A re-examination of news coverage of the 2001 spy plane crisis. Asian Affairs: an American Review 33.3: 167-183. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Huang, Y., and S.M. Leung
(2005) Western-led press coverage of mainland China and Vietnam during the SARS crisis: Reassessing the concept of ‘Media representation of the Other’. Asian Journal of Communication 15.3: 302-318. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Jenkins, R
(1996) Social identity. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kan, S.A., R. Best, C. Bolkcom, R. Chapman, R. Cronin, K. Dumbaugh, S. Goldman, M. Manyin, W. Morrison, R. O’Rourke, and D. Ackerman
(2001) China-US aircraft collision incident of April 2001: Assessments and policy implications. Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, October 10, 1-37.Google Scholar
Keefe, J
(2002) A tale of ‘two very sorries’ redux. Far Eastern Economic Review, March 21, 30-33.Google Scholar
Kluver, A.R
(2002) The logic of new media in international affairs. New Media & Society 4.4: 499-517. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Laclau E., and C. Mouffe
(1985) Hegemony and socialist strategy: Toward a radical democratic politics. London: Verso.Google Scholar
Lams, L
(2005) Language and politics in the Chinese English-language newspaper The China Daily. The Stockholm Journal of East-Asian Studies 15: 109-137.Google Scholar
(2007) Continuity or change in language practices of the Chinese official and media discourse since the late 1990s? Paper presented at International Conference “Defining the Field: Themes in Contemporary China Studies”, Centre for Research in the Arts,Cambridge University,13-15April.
(2008) From collision to compromise: “We are sorry” – one utterance, two interpretations. A discourse-analytical approach to the official rhetoric and the international media coverage of the US surveillance plane collision with the Chinese jet fighter. Paper presented at IAMCR International Media Research Congress, Stockholm, 20-25 July.
Lan, P.F
(2003) Rational reflections on the plane collision incident. Chinese education and Society 36.1: 73-78. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Le, E
(2006) The spiral of ‘anti-other rhetoric’: Discourses of identity and the international media echo. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lee, G.B
(2003) Re-taking tiger mountain by television: Televisual socialization of the contemporary Chinese consumer”. In G.B. Lee (ed.), Chinas unlimited: Making the imaginaries of China and Chineseness. London: RoutledgeCurzon, pp. 55-78.Google Scholar
Lewis, M.K
(2002) An analysis of state responsibility for the Chinese-American airplane collision incident. The New York University Law Review 77 ( Nov.): 1404-1441.Google Scholar
Littlewood, R., and M. Lipsedge
(1997) Aliens and Alienists: Ethnic minorities and psychiatry. London: Routledge, 3rd ed.Google Scholar
Lippmann, W
(1922) Public opinion. New York: McMillan.Google Scholar
Moerman, M
(1974) Accomplishing ethnicity. In R. Turner (ed.), Ethnomethodology. Penguin, Harmondsworth, pp. 54-68.Google Scholar
Mowlana, H
(1996) Global communication in transition: The end of diversity? London: Sage. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Morson, G.S., and C. Emerson
(1990) Mikhail Bakhtin: Creation of a prosaics. Stanford: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar
Moscovici, S
(1998) The history and actuality of social representations. In U. Flick (ed.), The psychology of the social. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 209-247.Google Scholar
Mulvenon, J
(2002) Civil-Military relations and the EP-3 crisis: A content analysis. China Leadership Monitor 1 (winter): 1-11.Google Scholar
Neibu tongxun
[Internal Report]. News Bureau, CCP Central Propaganda Department 2003/15: 4.
Olausson, U
(2007) The ideological horizons of citizenship. National media as discursive bridge. In B. Höijer (ed.), Ideological horizons in media and citizen discourses. Göteborg: Nordicom, pp. 51-75.Google Scholar
O’Sullivan, T., J. Hartley, D. Saunders, M. Montgomery and J. Fiske
(1994) Key concepts in communication and cultural studies. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Pageaux, D.H
(1983) La recherche en littérature comparé en France. Aspects et problèmes. Paris: S.F.L.G.C.Google Scholar
Pan, C.X
(2004) The ‘China threat’ in American self-imagination: The discursive construction of ‘other’ as power politics. Alternatives 29: 305-331. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Potter, J., and M. Wetherell
(1992) Discourse and the legitimation of exploitation. New York: Columbia University Press.Google Scholar
PRC Foreign Ministry Press Release
(2001) Spokesman on Chinese military airplane bumped by a U.S. military surveillance plane, April 1, 2001. Available at http://​www​.fmprc​.gov​.cn​/eng​/9519​.html (accessed on 10/04/2001).
Pugsley, P.C
(2006) Constructing the hero: Nationalistic news narratives in contemporary China. Westminster Papers in Communication and Culture 3.1: 77-92. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Renwick, N., and Q. Cao
(2003) Modern political communication in China. In G.D. Rawnsley & M.Y. Rawnsley (eds.), Political Communications in Greater China. London: RoutledgeCurzon, pp. 62-82.Google Scholar
Riggins, S.H
(ed.) (1997) The language and politics of exclusion. Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage.Google Scholar
Said, E.W
(2003) [1978] Orientalism. London: Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Shen, S
(2007) “Holding nationalist flags against red flags” – anti-American icons in contemporary China and their reconstruction by the public (1999-2003). East Asia 24: 229-250. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Slingerland, E., E.M. Blanchard, and L. Boyd-Judson
(2007) Collision with China: conceptual metaphor analysis, somatic marking, and the EP-3 Incident. International Studies Quarterly 51.1: 53-77. DOI logo  MetBibGoogle Scholar
Simon-Vandenbergen, A.M., P.R.R. White, and K. Aijmer
(2007) Presupposition and ‘taking-for-granted’ in mass communicated political argument. In A. Fetzer & G.E. Lauerbach (eds.), Political Discourse in the Media. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company. Pp. 31-74. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Siebenmann, G
(2004) La investigación de las imágenes mentales - Aspectos metodológicos. In J.M.López de Abiada & A. López Bernasocchi (eds.), Imágenes de España en culturas y literaturas europeas (siglos XVII-XVIII). Madrid: Verbum, pp. 339-349.Google Scholar
Stanzel, F.K., I. Weiler, and W. Zacharasiewicz
(eds.) (1999) Europäischer Völkerspiegel. Imagologisch- ethnographische Studien zu den Völkertafeln des fruühen 18. Jahrhunderts. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Carl Winter.Google Scholar
Tajfel, H
(1981) Human groups and social categories studies in social psychology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Terrill, R
(2003) The new Chinese empire and what it means for the US. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar
Tian, D.X., and C.C. Chao
(2008) The American hegemonic responses to the US-China mid-air plane collision. In International Journal of Communication 2: 1-19.Google Scholar
Torode, G
(2001) Sides knew risk of close encounters, South China Morning Post, April 6, p.7Google Scholar
Van Dijk, T.A.
(1984) Structures of international news: A case study of the world’s press. Amsterdam: University of Amsterdam.Google Scholar
Van Dijk, T.A
(1988) A news analysis: Case studies of international and national news in the Press. Hillsdale: Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
(1989) Social cognition and discourse. In H. Giles and R.P. Robinson (eds.), Handbook of social psychology and language. Chichester: Wiley, pp. 163-183.Google Scholar
Verschueren, J
(1999) Understanding pragmatics. London: Arnold  BoPGoogle Scholar
Weisman, S.R
(2001) The art and artifice of apologizing to China. In The New York Times, 13 April, A16.Google Scholar
Wodak, R., R. de Cillia, M. Resigi, and K. Liebhart
(1999) The discursive construction of national identity. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. DOI logo  BoPGoogle Scholar
Xu Wu
(2002) Another collision: How mainstream Chinese and American newspapers framed the Sino- US spy plane collision. M.A. thesis, University of Florida.
Yee, A.S
(2004) Semantic ambiguity and joint deflections in the Hainan negotiation. China: An International Journal 2.1: 53-82.Google Scholar
Zhang, H
(2001) Culture and apology: The Hainan island incident. World Englishes 20.3: 383-391. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhang, J.Y., Q. Qiu, and G.T. Cameron
(2004) A contingency approach to the Sino-US conflict Resolution. Public Relations Review 30: 391-399. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Zhang, X.L
(2005) News framing: A comparison of the New York Times and the People’s Daily coverage of Sino-US spy plane collision of April 1, 2001. M.A. thesis, University of Florida.