Memes, narratives and the emergent US–China security dilemma

Abstract

All major theoretical approaches that explain the growing rivalry between the United States (US) and China share a common prediction: as tensions develop, the US and China will each construct a master narrative emphasizing zero-sum interests, the efficacy of coercion, and the perceived blamelessness of the Self for the Other’s aggressions. However, the concrete process by which these narratives emerge has been neither explicitly theorized nor measured in practice. We theorize that in the digital media age, narratives emerge when ‘memes’—discrete, widely circulated images/descriptions of the Self or Other—are connected into coherent stories that eventually coalesce into a master narrative of rivalry. We therefore argue that tracking the speed and spread of memes provides a useful indicator of security dilemma dynamics. To this end, we note that in the United States the US–China rivalry is associated with a prominent meme that describes China as ‘challenging the international rules-based order’ (RBO). We use qualitative and quantitative text analysis, including network and plagiarism analysis, to track the spread of this meme. We provide preliminary evidence that the RBO meme and the ‘revisionist China’ narrative may be crowding out other, less malign narratives about China’s rise.