Китайский стратегический нарратив о международной системе и его адаптация для разных иностранных аудиторий

Abstract

States seek to attribute preferable meanings to international order and its different dimensions and thus shape policy choices of other international actors. During the presidency of Xi Jinping, the PRC has accelerated the development of its discourse power, which includes attempts to promote its own vision of international order. While the contents of China’s strategic narratives about the international system have been quite well summarized and discussed in the existing scholarship, other aspects of China’s external communication have received less attention. This article aims to fill this gap and analyzes how China adapts its messages to different national audiences. We approach this question by comparing China’s strategic narratives about the international system disseminated by the PRC diplomats serving in the African Union, Kazakhstan, Russia and the US. Our analysis demonstrates that there is general coherence between the narratives that Chinese diplomats project. Appeals to the selected past experiences are used to question the fairness and inclusiveness of the contemporary world order dominated by western countries. Global challenges complicated by the exiting unfairness requires the new leader that can guide united response and fix the injustices. Despite the obvious similarities, the Chinese diplomats add details and emphasis to the narratives to fit in different communication environments. In particular, they use local jargon and appeal to different historical experiences and political myths. We show that local beliefs and values are incorporated in Chinese narratives to generate new shared meanings that accommodate China’s diverse foreign policy goals. For instance, in the case of African Union, colonialism and decolonization are examples of past experience most often used in China’s narrative, while in case of Russia these are appeals to Great Patriotic War.