| Summary: | 碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 政治學研究所 === 101 === After more than thirty years of opening and reform, China’s massive economic growth has driven a rapid increase in its national power. Looking back, on September 15th 2008, the United States’ fourth largest investment bank, Lehman Brothers, declared bankruptcy. This not only caused upheaval in the World’s financial situation, but even more so caused people to suspect that the United States’ national power was starting to decline. Both American and Chinese scholars hold the opinion that the financial crisis will cause Sino-American relations to enter a new turning point. In the past, research focussed on US-China bilateral relations rarely used media text surveys. But because the media is quite an important tool in the shaping of the image of other countries, the author will focus on the time period from the start of the financial crisis to the end of 2011 and carry out a study on China’s image in American media. The texts used come from the United States’ two largest élite newspapers, namely editorials concerning China in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal.
As for editorials on China written in the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal, the author’s selected research method consists of a quantitative content analysis and a qualitative critical discourse analysis. The hope is to be able to answer the following questions: 1. In the analysis of the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal on editorials concerning China, what kind of positive or negative attitude was there portrayed?2. While investigating the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal editorial contents, what sort of issues concerning China were there observed? 3. In observing the financial crisis until the present, the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal editorials described what kind of image of China to the reader? 4. In the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal editorials about China, was there a discrepancy present in the way they were written?
Through this research, the author discovered that the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal mainly produced a negative image of China. The most commonly focussed-on topics were from three main categories: military/strategic/diplomatic behaviour, international economy/international trade and human rights/democracy. Relating to China’s military/strategic/diplomatic behaviour, this thesis mainly revealed the view that China’s rise in military power will threaten system status quo; discussions relating to international economy/international trade chiefly revolved around the charge that China’s manipulation of the Renminbi (Yuan) exchange rate will constitute a threat to the World’s economy; and on the human rights/democracy issue there appeared commentary on China’s attitude of brutal repression towards citizens striving for rights and its opposition to people’s demands for political reform. The two large newspapers in their editorials concerning China also presented differences in writing techniques. The Wall Street Journal tended towards conservatism, opining that the United States and China had no common interests to speak of. The New York Times on the other hand tended towards liberalism, while criticising China all the same, the text implied that the United States has the responsibility to encourage China towards change, as well as allow China to take on more international responsibilities, and thus there exists common interests between the two countries.
Although the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal presented a broadly negative image of China in their editorials during the period from the 2008 financial crisis until the end of 2011, there is still allowance of the United States and China to observe and tolerate one another with a more open mind, and to substitute antagonism with pluralistic cooperation.
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