Agenda and particularization in Chinese political discourse: an evolutionary analysis on the trade war with the United States

Abstract

Modern Chinese political discourse, regarding foreign policy, has aroused considerable interest in the academic world, both by Western intellectuals and by Chinese scholars. In both cases, this interest is found in the possibility of generating a kind of translation of the particular Chinese discursive logics towards significant standards for the West. Furthermore, as an ultimate goal, it is hoped that this interpretive task may favor better political understandings between China and the West. In this sense, the current trade war between China and the United States represents a relevant object of study, to analyze from a Chinese political and discursive perspective.

In this research paper we ask: what trends can be identified in an evolutionary analysis of the Chinese agenda in the trade war with the United States? The research analyzes two official documents on the subject (White papers) from the highest echelons of the government of the People's Republic of China: The Facts and China's Position on China-US Trade Friction (September 2018) and China's Position on the China-US Economic and Trade Consultations (June 2019). These two documents represent the official vision of China and its evolution, in accordance with contextual changes.

The research develops a theoretical framework focused on Chinese political rationality and its peculiarities. To make this conceptual framework transparent, it is compared with western political rationality. Different dimensions are worked on: political inclusion of actors in decision-making processes, framework for political action, processes of political action, the logic to determine solutions, and time horizon of political action. In the West, democratic horizontality grants argumentative flexibility, and stable frameworks for action restrict it. In China, institutional dynamism grants argumentative flexibility and the hierarchical and particular order restricts it. Democracy with stability versus hierarchy with change: both political schemes establish the argumentative limits. In other words, the dimensions of political rationality have a direct impact on the content and form of Chinese political discourse.

Agenda studies is used strategically in this research to analyze Chinese political discourse. The pragmatic use of language and the combination of Confucianism and Marxism in Chinese political discourse can be identified from the perspective of agenda studies. In other words, an agenda approach allows us to consider different dimensions of Chinese political rationality and rhetoric: hierarchy established in a text; non-linearity of the solutions agenda; enabling, contradictory and strategic frameworks; particular context and its relation to general context; and finally, dynamism of the information content.

The two specific research questions in this article are: How does China define and particularize its agenda in the trade war with the United States? What trends can be identified in an evolutionary analysis over this agenda? Our research hypothesis is: In Chinese official documents on the trade war with the United States, there are trends regarding political agenda, particularistic resources and an articulation of both.

From a methodological point of view, the emergence of new technologies has allowed for the expansion of the frontiers of textual analysis. The present work uses cutting edge automatic natural language processing tools to study the Chinese agenda, such as: identification of parts of speech (Part of Speech Tagging), construction of concordance matrices (with Key Word in Context framework), named entity recognition, and relationship vectors calculation. Also, comparative analysis techniques are used to analyze evolution of the PRC's agenda in the trade war with the United States.

In this way, the work proposes an original contribution (theoretical and empirical) to the field of social and political agenda studies, by adapting them to Chinese political rationality and discourse.

As conclusions, this investigation demonstrates the fulfillment of the hypothesis, since in the official Chinese documents related to the trade war with the United States there are tendencies on the political agenda, the particularistic resources and the articulation of both.

The document The Facts and China’s Position on China-US Trade Friction expands the trade discussion towards industrial chains and investments. In this text, measures that correspond to national interests and those that affect the international community are listed, specifying the latter in the WTO arena. Also, goods and services of trade and their rates are particularized with data and proper names. Two other frameworks are relevant: the discussion on intellectual property, and the rules and regulations to foster cooperation. This second one (quite restricted) acts as an enabling framework, although it omits Chinese rhetoric of values and principles.

China’s Position on the China-US Economic and Trade Consultations document maintains the trend of the central axis of the 2018 document, but it is less aggressive, by centralizing cooperation as an objective. The 2019 document does not offer as important a backing of authoritative resources as the 2018 document does. In addition, the trend of intellectual property debate in China remains very important in the 2019 document. However, as a relevant change, this second document presents a political agenda much closer to the contradictory and dialectical frameworks of China's classical Confucian and Marxist rhetoric (terms such as mutual benefit, mutual respect or win-win relationships are used).

There is a marked trend of important coincidences (expanding the discussion from commercial to economic, criticizing protectionism and holding a position in the debate on intellectual property in China), but the differences between documents are also relevant. In particular, the 2019 document embraces in a more friendly way the Chinese political rhetoric of cooperative values and principles, and avoids resources of authority. In this sense, less particularization implies lower levels of orientation.

From the point of view of our theoretical framework, both documents seek to highlight collective effectiveness (the development of a global community), and work on problem-solution logics. Furthermore, the change between the two documents reflects the dynamism in China's use of discursive resources.

In short, the second document of 2019 shows greater characteristics of a Chinese political discourse which encourages pragmatism. The first document of 2018 develops a more deconstructive position over the western rhetoric of the trade conflict, even using tools that are more typical of scientific discourse (with deductions or inductions from authoritative resources).

Chinese political discourse is dynamic, adapting to the context in a multiplicity of possible ways. Identifying continuities and changes in Chinese discourse from the theoretical understanding of its political rationality is essential to interpret current conflicts.