China’s Image In The GCC Mainstream English Newspapers

The countries in the Gulf Cooperation Council(GCC),which are rich in oil and gas resources,are very important partners of China against the backdrop of the Belt and Road initiative.Therefore,it is of great significance to explore the image of China represented in the China-related news in the GCC mainstream English newspapers.Up to my knowledge,nearly no studies have been conducted on China’s image in their mainstream English newspapers.Within the theoretical framework of Critical Discourse Analysis,this dissertation adopts the triangulatory approach to make both qualitative and quantitative analyses on China’s image represented in the China-related news in the GCC mainstream English newspapers(2010-2020).A total of 6,988 China-related news(3,813,926tokens)from 1 January 2010 to 30 June 2020 in six mainstream English newspapers in the GCC countries have been collected.The research procedures are as follows.First of all,this dissertation,in light of Appraisal System,makes qualitative analysis on China’s image in terms of attitude,engagement and graduation resources that are used to appraise “China” in the relational clauses.Next,using the corpus linguistics approach,this dissertation explores how China is represented in the GCC mainstream English newspapers in a quantitative way.Specifically,the top 200 content keywords,especially the keywords that coincide with the content collocates of “China”,are investigated in order to explore the image of China represented by the GCC mainstream English newspapers.Then,this paper uses the corpus linguistics approach to explore the image of Chinese companies,the image of Chinese investors,the image of Chinese goods,the image of Chinese president,the image of Chinese government,the image of Chinese ambassador,the image of Chinese tourists,the image of Chinese nationals and the image of Chinese language.Finally,taking the production,distribution and consumption of China-related news in the GCC mainstream English newspapers into account,together with China-GCC political,economic and historical factors,the deep-seated reasons that contribute to the construction of China’s image in the GCC mainstream English newspapers are discussed.The study shows that China’s image represented by the GCC English newspapers is very positive as a whole.In the political field,China is a responsible and trustworthy country.Cooperation is the main tone of diplomatic relations between China and the GCC countries.The two sides have signed a series of strategic cooperation agreements and memorandums of understanding to establish or strengthen a comprehensive and long-term strategic partnership.The GCC countries are strong supporters of China’s Belt and Road Initiative.In the ecomonic field,China is depicted as the important trading partner of the GCC countries in the corpus,which is very strong in the economic power and plays an important role in the GCC countries and even in the world economic system.What’s more,a large number of Chinese companies are now operating in the GCC countries.The GCC countries have issued policies to attract Chinese firms and investors to invest and expand their businesses there.In the field of social culture,the United Arab Emirates,Qatar and Saudi Arabia offer visa on arrival to Chinese citizens and the number of Chinese tourists to the GCC countries is increasing year by year.Wealthy and high-spending Chinese tourists are warmly welcomed.A number of air routes have been opened up.In order to strengthen cultural exchanges,Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates have incorporated Chinese language and culture courses into the school education curriculum system.Although China is a strategic partner of the GCC countries,“China as Threat”and “China as a Demon” image spread by the Western media are occasionally constructed in China-related news in their mainstream English newspapers,such as the so-called China’s hegemonic rise,lack of human rights and the absence of democracy.It is found that the economic interests of the GCC countries,the historical friendly relationship between China and Arab States,the GCC countries’ “Looking Eastward” foreign policy,complex geopolitical factors and Western media’s hegemonic control over China-related news are the main reasons that contribute to the construction of China’s image in the GCC mainstream English newspapers.