Writing China’s Rise. English-Language Newspaper’s perceptions of a rising China and its policy towards Hong Kong and Taiwan

This dissertation aims to explore perceptions of China’s rise through a discourse analysis of English-language newspapers’ writing on China’s actions in Hong Kong and Taiwan. Recognising a shift in China’s foreign policy towards “authoritarian initiatives” (Sutter, 2016, p.1) in Hong Kong and Taiwan, this study seeks to elicit from the text an understanding of the central themes and frames developed in regards to China’s rise and approach to Hong Kong and Taiwan. This study will analyse a corpus of English-language articles highlighting Chinese policy in Hong Kong and Taiwan; in Hong Kong articles dated June 2019 will be analysed regarding the emergence of protest and subsequent Government repression in relation to an un-popular Extradition Bill whilst in Taiwan, articles covering Chinese military incursions into Taiwanese airspace (timeframe as yet unconfirmed) will be analysed. This paper will use the MAXQDA 2020 programme to analyse the writing utilising a coding system to uncover regimes of “truth” and “knowledge” (Doty, 1996, p.2) on China’s rise and China’s approach to Hong Kong and Taiwan. This is predicated on Larsen’s assertion that long-term political changes can be studied through the construction of beliefs and discourses (1997, p.5). Central to this study’s objectives is to understand the conception of China’s rise and how China’s increasingly assertive approach to Hong Kong and Taiwan, both conceptualised as “core interests” (Zhao, 2018, p.4) by China, has been perceived and understood in English-Language newspapers in East Asia.