The China-threat discourse, trade, and the future of Asia. A Symposium

Abstract

Indo-Iranian peoples where Buddhism and Islam are the main religions and cultural influences dominated by Chinese, Indian and Arabian cultural traditions. This region is truly the region that is constituted by thousands of years of the Silk Roads, at least eight hundred years before Marco Polo wove his stories that spoke of the old trade routes and a form of early merchant capitalism (Peters et al., 2020). North Asia also reflects this tradition and also the Eurasian and Russian cultural influence. It is useful to remind ourselves that China as the world's most populist country shares a 1,500 kilometre border with Russia, the world's largest country. This alone speaks to the trading power embodied in the BRIthe Belt and Road Initiativewhich is President Xi's 'project of the century'. Both South and Southeast Asia incorporate Indian and Dravidian (Tamil-Brahmi) languages, Indo-Aryan languages, with Hinduism, Buddhism, Jainism, Sikhism as the major religions. Southeast Asia comprises the mainland states of Burma, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia, Thailand and Vietnam and the maritime states of Brunei, Indonesia, East Timor, Philippines and Singapore, reflecting China's 'paddy rice' culture and embracing the region's five major religions and unique combinations of them. In addition, Western Asia demonstrates the connection with the Arabic, Turkish, Jewish, Armenian and Persia languages and cultures.This teeming diversity is woven together through historic trade routes like the Silk Roads and the maritime routes that span the Indian Ocean and the South China Sea. More recently, much of the region shares an experience of European colonialism (Portuguese, French, German, British, Dutch) and American dominance since WWII. This region is also constituted through its international organisations, associations and blocs, both political and economic. But this is not a straightforward return to centuries-old patterns of trade and commerce because new nationalisms express new security patterns, trading relationships and even styles of government and political alliances.Asia is full of regional contrasts and huge differences in cultures, languages, religions and ethnicities, and natural resource endowments. Asia has been given various names to highlight geographic, cultural or economic significance of regions: Indo-China, Indo-Asia, Asia-Pacific, and so on. It is probably the case that few Asians see themselves as 'Asian' but rather use self-descriptions that recognize their ethnicity or nationality. Thus, the Chinese are Zhongguoren. Names can reflect orientalism or romantic admiration (Korhonen, 2002) such as 'the (mysterious) East' and 'the Orient'. Cultural divisions often overlap with geographical and political divisions. 'Asia', the name and concept that conflates regional identities, is the product of Western (and Japanese) expansionism which originated with the search for trade routes to India in the fifteenth century, the growing spice trade and the rise of the (British) East India trading company founded in 1600 that in the 1...

A Multi-method Approach to Analyze Australia-China Geopolitical Discourse on YouTube

“…A significant number of videos published by these channels presented negative sentiments towards relations between Australia and China, with the communities also disapproving of the CCP and Chinese military activities in the South China Sea, characterized by high levels of toxicity. While the majority of the opinions of these communities and channels on the topics were pro-Australia, they demonstrate how the YouTube discourse reflects the fears and anxieties cited in the China-Threat discourse (Peters et al 2021).…”

“…In a recent study, researchers cited the western discourse of fear and anxiety over China's rise in global power, referred to as the 'China-threat discourse'. They highlighted reports that stats that the Chinese economy would outgrow U.S. economy by 2028 and these statistics fuel the U.S., U.K., and Australia's Sinocentric fears of Chinese dominance in a scenario where China supersedes the US (Peters et al 2021). Recent studies have also investigated a similar online discourse within the blogosphere related to defense, trade, and diplomacy, with a focus on Australia and China.…”

“…The interactions during this period were about the leakage of the Communist Party of China's activities around the globe with an alleged mission to take over not just political systems but also businesses. This sense of threat is shared by governments and policymakers around the US, Australia, UK, New Zealand, Canada, Vietnam, Taiwan, South Korea, the Philippines, and India, with concern over China's aspirations and economic pacts across the globe (Peters et al 2021). The peak in November 2019 for Topic 5 relates to the Democratic debate in the run to the US elections.…”

US-China relations: Towards strategic partnerships

“…8 It is probably too early to register the political effects of the deteriorating relationship. Australia is a different story (Peters et al, 2021c).…”

‘Declinism’ and discourses of decline - the end of the war in Afghanistan and the limits of American power

“…China is only one player in the new multipolar international system although it is the one that has been most demonised in the China-threat discourse crafted by trump and to a large extent continued by Biden in the trade and tech wars (Peters, 2019(Peters, , 2021Peters et al, 2021). the belief in 'declinism' is to be traced to the western historiographical tradition dating from Edward Gibbon's (1974;orig.…”