China at the United Nations: comparing Chinese & US media responses of President Xi Jinping’s maiden UN speech

This thesis undertakes a comparative investigation of media responses to Chinese President Xi’s maiden UN General Assembly Speech (28 September 2015), at a key moment when China is striving for recognition as a global superpower. China has increasingly focused on enhancing its national image and soft power at the principal institutional venue of world politics. The thesis will seek to find out how Chinese and US news frames differ in reflecting China’s national image at the United Nations. To do so, it will ask the following questions. (1) What were Chinese media’s intended frames in terms of assertives, directives and commissives? (2) What were the locally constructed frames in US media in terms of assertives, directives and commissives? (3) To what degree is there congruence or lack thereof between Chinese intended frames and locally constructed US media frames? To answer these questions framing theory will be employed in the examination of rhetorical structures in news frames in three Chinese newspapers’ and three American newspapers’ reportage of President Xi’s speech. President Xi’s speech will include the three possible types of speech acts, assertives that are essentially statements of belief; directives that call for compliance; and commissives that are promises and offers (Onuf, 2012). An imbalance weighted to the side of directives in reportage would be indicative of the view of the reporting media of a greater assertiveness in Chinese behaviour.