Carbon Neutrality Initiative And China’s Image In Climate Action

For years,the Chinese government has taken efforts to coordinate its economic development and environmental protection,making huge contributions to the global fight against climate change.But these efforts have been overlooked or misinterpreted by the US media.This paper aims to examine the news reports of the US major newspapers on China’s environmental issues from the perspective of framing,so as to figure out what national image they have been created for China on climate issues.The framing theory believes that media deploy frame to consciously construct social reality and shape public cognition.From this framing perspective,this thesis collects the news texts on China’s environmental action published by The Wall Street Journal,The New York Times,The Washington Post from 2018.9.22 to 2022.9.22,and chooses China’s Carbon Neutrality Initiative(CNI)as a cut-in point,exploring what news frames that have been deployed.By comparing the news frames before and after CNI,this research finds some persistent prejudices in the news reports.Based on these findings,the thesis aims to help strengthen China’s international communication on environmental issues and better tell China’s story of fighting against climate change.The thesis finds that before the CNI proposal,the news reports grouped China into a stereotype “developing countries”,in which it refers to countries that are shy of making climate obligations.After the proposal,China was regarded as a role model for Japan,South Korea and other developed countries.Despite some frame changes brought by the announcement,there are some persistent prejudices in the news reports.Firstly,China’s climate contribution is deemed by the newspapers as a threat to the US “leadership” on climate action as they took climate issue from a geopolitical perspective.Secondly,there is a clear double standard of China’s status as a developing country.This status has been flagrantly played up in order to serve as a foil to the significance of the US “leadership”.Thirdly,the US newspapers create a consistent dichotomy between China’s economic growth and environment,viewing China’s coal-dependent energy structure as the biggest obstacles of realizing CNI.