Framing China from afar: Argentina's media on the BRI

VILA SEOANE, MAXIMILIANO FACUNDO

Congreso; LASA 2021; 2021

Abstract: China?s rise as an economic power is affecting most nations across the world, however, how this story is told differs considerably within each country. This article contends that such variation depends on the political leaning of each media and on specific thematic issues. This result is based on comparing how five Argentinean national media of different political leanings frame two important aspects of the contemporary bilateral relation with China, namely, the Belt and Road Initiative and Covid-19. While the latter scrutinizes how national media covered the spread of the coronavirus in China until it was controlled, the former examines President Xi Jinping?s landmark project to increase connectivity with other regio ns, aiming to increase mutual development. The analysis is based on Van Gorp?s approach to investigate framings in a corpus of articles for each issue. Results show that contrary to the ?China Threat theory? a mostly positive framing towards the BRI exists in Argentinean media. This may be a consequence of the economic importance of China for Argentinean exports, and also, due to its lack of a close strategic alliance with the US. By contrast, the coverage of Covid-19 exposed cleavages among national media, which published more negative articles on China and its handling of the crisis. Many of them echoed biases and racism that uncover a troublesome dependence on Western sources to report on such a strategic partner. The article concludes by drawing the implications of these findings for the bilateral relation between Argentina and China.