Constructing Attractiveness: Chinese Diplomatic Actors’ Cultural Soft-power Discursive Practices through the British Press

Abstract

ABSTRACT Based on a critical review of Nye’s conceptualization of soft power, this paper extends the literature by examining how Chinese diplomatic actors deploy cultural soft-power discursive practices when publishing opinion pieces in the British press to construct the attractiveness of China. It conducts a corpus-assisted critical discourse analysis. Findings show that they strategically deploy charm offensive, defensive denial and Othering offensive to construct a distinctively positive Chinese Self and a positive Us as inclusive as possible under the influence of ideological square. The identified major topoi are characterized by imbuing China’s foreign policies and its world vision with Chinese traditional cultural and moral values, hopefully to justify China’s extensive use of the economic prowess to gain soft power, and justify its ability and incentive to play a more important role in global governance. It sheds some light on understanding Chinese diplomatic actors’ distinctive cultural soft-power mediated discursive practices in the general context of a non-Western government communicating and engaging with Western audiences. It also contributes to the understanding of China’s strategic thinking and its world vision in the Xi Jinping era.