The Discourse Construction Of American Transnational Corporations

The year of 2018 proves to be the most historical period for the American transnational corporations who run business in China,not only because it celebrates the 40 th anniversary of China's economic reform and open-door policy,but also because it witnesses the most uncertain period of the Sino-U.S.bilateral relations since they established diplomatic relations.The Sino-U.S.relation has been the most important bilateral relation in the world politics,which became even more obvious after Donald Trump took the American presidency since January 2017.Due to the two countries' different ideologies,the national economic policies prove to be the foundation to build up a positive development of their bilateral relations.Under such a context,it's quite obvious that the Sino-U.S.economic diplomacy has and will continue to take on a crucial role,therefore it is very necessary to conduct a research for the Sino-U.S.economic diplomacy,from the past to the present.Ever since the mention of the term “economic diplomacy” from early this century,both the Chinese and U.S.governments have been making efforts to solving the key economic issues through negotiation and other diplomatic ways,which has created great opportunities for the non-state actors who possess the economic discursive power to express their needs at some point of the whole diplomatic process,with the U.S.transnational corporations as typical examples.This dissertation conducts the research from the perspective of international relations and communication.By first illustrating the theory of Michael Faucoult's “discursive power”,its concept,structure and context,the paper further introduces the concept of “international discursive power” and its five dimensions.“Complex Interdependence” theory is also applied to trace the root cause of why the American transnational corporations can possess discursive power in the Sino-U.S.ecomonic diplomacy.On the macro level,the paper discusses both the Sino-U.S economic diplomacy mechanism and the American foreign policy making mechanism,the “discursive context”,under which the American transnationl corporations can find their position as the international discursive subject;on the microlevel,by applying the communication research methodology of discourse analysis and content analysis,the paper further answers how the American transnational corporations construct their discursive power within the frame of Sino-U.S.economic diplomacy,(discursive subject,discursive object,discursive content,discursive platform and feedback),together with how the discursive power changes during the twenty-year Sino-U.S.economic diplomacy history.Based on the above observation and analysis,the writer concludes the characteristics of the U.S.transnational corporations' discursive power mechanism,as well as the reasons for the historical changes.To further test the mechanism and figure out the influential factors for the discursive effects,three case studies are applied including “RMB exchanging rate”,“Sino-U.S.bilateral investment treaty” and “Tariff”.The paper also uses media content analysis to trace the historial changes of the Amercian transnational corporations' dimentions of discursive power during the then years,followed by a deeper analysis of the reasons attributed to these changes.Finally,the writer wraps up the research and points out some suggestions for the current and future Sino-U.S.economic diplomacy under the Trump Administration.