News Discourse on CPEC and Challenges for Civil-Military Relations

Abstract

The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a multi billion-dollar infrastructure investment project, is heralded as a game-changer for sustainable development and democratic consolidation in Pakistan. However, the implementation of such a mega project came with a lot of challenges. Among all, the major challenges were balanced civil-military relations, peace, and revised policy with Afghanistan. The objective of the current paper is to examine the coverage of CPEC in the news stories of two English newspapers of Pakistan i.e., Dawn and The News, in the context of civil-military relations. The study incorporated a method of discourse analysis for examining style, slant, themes, and discourses. Results revealed that both the newspapers remained positive in their slants.Moreover, both newspapers appreciated the efforts of COAS not only for protecting mega project but also for bringing peace to the region. Both newspapers also appreciated that the civilian government and military were on the same page for over coming security challenges effectively.

Economic Spheres! Media Framing of CPEC in Pakistan

“…Shah et al (2020) conducted a study on the posts of Facebook pages of Pakistani newspapers and found that theses posts framed the CPEC in positive terms with development, political, social, economic and strategic frames. Zulfiqar et al (2022) conducted a discourse analysis of Dawn and The News and argued that the newspapers generated a heated debate on military and civil relations in the context of the CPEC.…”