A Critical Discourse Analysis Of News Reports From The Mainstream English Media In ASEAN Countries On The Belt And Road Initiative

The Belt and Road Initiative(hereinafter referred to as BRI)was first proposed by China’s President Xi Jinping in 2013.Since its proposal,it has received high attention from the international community and has gradually become a hot topic covered by domestic and foreign media.Affected by issues such as conflicts in culture,ideology,and realistic interests,international public opinion holds various attitudes towards the BRI.The Southeast Asian region has been an important hub of the "Maritime Silk Road" since ancient times.In recent years,ASEAN countries have become closer to China by virtue of their geographic advantages and historical origins.China regards ASEAN as a priority direction for its neighboring diplomacy and a key region for building the BRI with high quality.As important strategic partners in the BRI,ASEAN countries are indispensable for the realization of the Initiative’s goals.This study takes the reports of the mainstream English-language media in ASEAN countries on the BRI as the starting point,adopts a corpus-driven critical discourse analysis approach,uses Fairclough’s three-dimensional discourse model as the framework for analysis,and conducts critical discourse analysis on the selected corpus at three levels:text,discourse practice and social practice through a combination of qualitative and quantitative analysis.The study aims to explore the attitudes and positions of public opinion in ASEAN member countries on the BRI,and then provide reference for how Chinese news media report on the Initiative in the future.The study finds that the English-language media in ASEAN emphasize the positive value of the BRI to the regional economic cooperation and to the related countries when reporting on the Initiative.However,due to political and economic factors,there are still differences in the focus of media coverage of the BRI in ASEAN countries.Among them,the media in Laos,Brunei,Cambodia and Vietnam focus more on the positive value of the Initiative than other ASEAN countries.In addition,the media in Singapore,Thailand,Myanmar,and Malaysia tend to report news stories that are skeptical of the BRI while focusing on its positive benefits,which also indicates that these media have a relatively neutral attitude toward the BRI.Finally,the mainstream media in the Philippines and Vietnam tend to link political hotspots between China and ASEAN to the BRI more often than the media in other ASEAN countries,which leads to biased coverage of the Initiative in these two countries,rather than focusing on the Initiative per se.Based on the findings of this study,the author suggests that the China’s government and media should be more proactive in their outreach efforts to properly communicate and explain the positive intentions of the BRI to the people of each country.In addition,the discourse is only a version of reality,a tool for ideological communication,and readers should adopt critical thinking to grasp the truth in reality.