Partner And Potential Threat:Analysis Of The Australian Media Dichotic Way Of Framing Of China Over The Stern Hu Case And The Reasons For The Framing

China's rise and economic partnerships with many countries have been given increasing media coverage around the world. Among them, Sino-Australian partnership has experienced growing exchanges in various aspects, which has led to gradual mutual reliance since their establishment of diplomatic relationship in1972. However, they are still distinctively different from each other especially with regard to culture and ideology. Australia still holds a strong distrust of China, especially to China state-owned enterprises' investment. The Stern Hucase in2009is one of the examples reflecting this attitude. It has drawn substantial media coverage from Australian media such as The Australian and Australian Broadcasting Corporation from various perspectives. These media coverage of China over the Stern Hu case deserves close analysis for reflecting dominant perceptions of China in Australia. So this research tries to analyze how China is framed and the reasons for why it is framed this way in The Australian and ABC surrounding the Stern Hu case.According to news framing analysis and discourse analysis, both media have framed China from various perspectives including Australian bilateral relationship with China, the Chinese government's transparency and judicial system and human rights. On the one hand, Sino-Australian business partnership has brought Australia prosperity; on the other hand, China's rise has caused huge panic and uncertainty in Australia. Overall, China is framed in a dichotic way as an important business partner and a potential threat to Australia. Using Foucault's Power/Knowledge theory and Intergroup Linguistic Bias theory, the research has found this framing is formed under two significant influences:political influences from Australian government officials' position on the Stern Hu case; the other is the Western ideology underpinned in the intergroup bias and prejudices against China in the Australian society, to which Australian media tend to appeal. So under this context, the two contributing factors behind the framing of China in the two media are the Australian political influence and stereotype bias and prejudices influence. Economic and cultural factors are also analyzed in the construction of China in the two Australian media.