The Politics of Blaming: the Narrative Battle between China and the US over COVID-19
- PDF / 1,209,337 Bytes
- 21 Pages / 439.37 x 666.142 pts Page_size
- 8 Downloads / 172 Views
The Politics of Blaming: the Narrative Battle between China and the US over COVID-19 Bernadette Nadya Jaworsky 1 & Runya Qiaoan 2 # Journal of Chinese Political Science/Association of Chinese Political Studies 2020
Abstract During the COVID-19 pandemic, we are witnessing a surge of nationalism throughout an ostensibly globalized world. In this article, we focus on the “narrative battle” over COVID-19 that has escalated between two competing major powers – China and the US. Guided by a cultural sociological approach, we reveal the meaning-making processes behind the narrative battle through in-depth, hermeneutical reconstruction of the “reactive performance” of each country, as articulated in political speeches and mass media. We point out that, in the Chinese narrative, the country emerges from a “century of humiliation,” becoming a major world power that will no longer be subject to the “bullying” of the West. In the US narrative, even though Trump initially highlights the country’s “very good” relationship with China, as the storyline unfolds, China is blamed for the global pandemic, assuming again the role of a dangerous actor on the world stage. Our research shows that the current reactive communicative mechanism is not only unsustainable, but also dangerous in times of crisis. We suggest that recognition of the narrative battle and acknowledgement of its performative function in the public sphere is the first step toward mutual understanding and meaningful dialogue between these two world powers. Keywords Sino-US relations . Narrativebattle . Nationalism . Cultural sociology . COVID-
19 “Distress rejuvenates a nation” (多难兴邦). Wen Jiabao (2008, quoted in [45]). Arguably, the COVID-19 pandemic is not only the “inevitable result” of globalization but may also threaten globalization as we know it [50]. As is typical in times of crisis, we are witnessing a surge of nationalism throughout an ostensibly globalized world. Nation states are retreating into a self-protective mode; yet, at the same time,
* Runya Qiaoan [email protected]
1
Masaryk University, 601 77 Brno, Czechia
2
Department of Asian Studies, Palacky University, Křížkovského, 14 779 00 Olomouc, Czech Republic
B. N. Jaworsky, R. Qiaoan
many are engaging in a politics of blaming. In this article, we focus on the “narrative battle” over COVID-19 that has escalated between two competing major powers – China and the US. Guided by a cultural sociological approach [4], we reveal the meaning-making processes behind the narrative battle through in-depth, hermeneutical reconstruction of the “reactive performance” of each country, as articulated in political speeches and mass media. The Sino-US relationship is often called the most important bilateral relations in the world and, as such, it has been at the center of attention in international relations (IR) at least since the beginning of the twenty-first century. Although scholars have long proposed from various perspectives that the two powers need not necessarily clash [13, 22, 33, 49], the pessimis
Data Loading...
