China in the Contemporary American Geopolitical Imagination

Latham, Andrew

doi:10.1080/00927670109601492

Cited by 10 publications

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“…US historian Gordon Chang argues that the communist takeover in 1949 represented the moment that “China became a sensitive domestic political issue,” and views on the country have remained contentious between Democrats and Republicans in the US (quoted in [ 5 ]). Nevertheless, in an overarching sense, China stands in the US geopolitical imagination as a “dangerous” state “that cannot be counted on to act in accordance with the norms of civilized international relations” ([ 28 ]: 145). This characterization has had lasting effects; some argue that “[a]lthough the specific language and target of racist nativism has changed over time, similar themes still reverberate in the contemporary anti-immigrant discourse in the USA as it did during the CEA” ([ 40 ]: 675).…”

Section: Bringing Together Globalization Nationalism and Culture: Amentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The US background representations on China have historically painted the country, and the Chinese Communist Party in particular, as a dangerous juggernaut [ 9 , 26 , 28 ]. This sentiment is reflected in the WSJ opinion piece about China as the “real sick man of Asia” that opens the COVID-19 narrative battle we portray.…”

Section: Bringing Together Globalization Nationalism and Culture: Amentioning

confidence: 99%

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The Politics of Blaming: the Narrative Battle between China and the US over COVID-19

Jaworsky

Qiaoan

2020

J OF CHIN POLIT SCI

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During the COVID-19 pandemic, we are witnessing a surge of nationalism throughout an ostensibly globalized world. In this article, we focus on the "narrative battle" over COVID-19 that has escalated between two competing major powers-China and the US. Guided by a cultural sociological approach, we reveal the meaning-making processes behind the narrative battle through in-depth, hermeneutical reconstruction of the "reactive performance" of each country, as articulated in political speeches and mass media. We point out that, in the Chinese narrative, the country emerges from a "century of humiliation," becoming a major world power that will no longer be subject to the "bullying" of the West. In the US narrative, even though Trump initially highlights the country's "very good" relationship with China, as the storyline unfolds, China is blamed for the global pandemic, assuming again the role of a dangerous actor on the world stage. Our research shows that the current reactive communicative mechanism is not only unsustainable, but also dangerous in times of crisis. We suggest that recognition of the narrative battle and acknowledgement of its performative function in the public sphere is the first step toward mutual understanding and meaningful dialogue between these two world powers. Keywords Sino-US relations. Narrative battle. Nationalism. Cultural sociology. COVID-19 "Distress rejuvenates a nation" (多难兴邦). Wen Jiabao (2008, quoted in [45]). Arguably, the COVID-19 pandemic is not only the "inevitable result" of globalization but may also threaten globalization as we know it [50]. As is typical in times of crisis, we are witnessing a surge of nationalism throughout an ostensibly globalized world. Nation states are retreating into a self-protective mode; yet, at the same time,

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Section: Bringing Together Globalization Nationalism and Culture: Amentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Bringing Together Globalization Nationalism and Culture: Amentioning

confidence: 99%

The Politics of Blaming: the Narrative Battle between China and the US over COVID-19

Jaworsky

Qiaoan

2020

J OF CHIN POLIT SCI

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“…(Henrikson, 2002: 439-440) While reinforcing the importance of the influence of geographic cognitions on foreign policy, Henrikson's work has had few followers. While some studies dedicated to geographic cognition associated to international politics have been published in recent years (see Bilgin, 2004;Glassman, 2005;Latham, 2001;Le Rider, 2008;Scheffler, 2003;Walker, 2000), most have tended to focus on regional perspectives. Other works, while more global in scope (see Bialasiewicz et al, 2007;Lewis and Wigen, 1997;Sloan, 1988), have not focused directly on the way that geographic mental maps inform the decisionmaking and policy-making processes 16 , rather concentrating on the way geographic constructions have justified foreign policy decisions.…”

Section: Geographic Mental Maps and The Study Of Foreign Policymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In fact, many of these studies do not apply the "mental map" as their analytical concept. Many different terms are used to characterize the cognitively constructed geographies informing foreign policy -e.g., "cognitive geopolitics"(Criekemans, 2009), "geopolitical codes"(Dijkink, 1998), "geopolitical images"(O'Loughlin and Grant, 1990), "geopolitical imaginary"(Latham, 2001), "geopolitical imagination"(Agnew, 2003) "imaginative geographies"(Bialasiewicz et al, 2007), and "metageographies"(Lewis and Wigen, 1997).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Charting geographic mental maps in foreign policy analysis: A literature review

Vinha¹

2012

hgeo

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“…A geopolitical vision consists of ‘any idea concerning the relation between one's own and other places, involving feelings of (in)security or (dis)advantage (and/or) invoking ideas about a collective mission or foreign policy strategy’ (Dijkink 1996, 11). This concept does not claim that all policy‐makers in a given area of policy agree on every element of those relations, but rather that they form a set of widely shared assumptions in the way that officials, and others, view and act in the world (Ó Tuathail 1998; Latham 2001). Thus, the solidifying consensus described above clearly represents one increasingly prominent ‘geopolitical imagination’ of security.…”

Section: Geopolitical Imaginations: Territory Network Anarchymentioning

confidence: 99%

Netwar Geopolitics: Security, Failed States and Illicit Flows

Bourne¹

2011

The British Journal of Politics and International Relations

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Recent and emerging security policies and practices claim a mutual vulnerability that closely links human insecurity in failed states with the threat to powerful states from illicit flows. This article first examines this 'emerging orthodoxy' of transnational security issues that reinforces the securitisation of poverty and the poor. It then subjects this orthodoxy to theoretical and empirical critique. Theoretically it shows that this orthodoxy is formed as a 'geopolitical imagination' that associates and stabilises particular views of weak states and illicit flows in a 'netwar imagination' by reasserting and reconfiguring traditional assumptions of the spatiality and nature of threats. A final empirical section, focusing on drug production and nuclear smuggling, argues that those assumptions and their assemblage are a partial, incomplete and often self-referential reading of illicit flows.International security discourse and practice increasingly see 'weak' and 'failed' states as 'ungoverned' or 'dangerous' areas in which transnational security threats such as transnational criminal organisations and terrorists, and illicit flows of drugs, arms, people, nuclear materials and other harmful objects and actors converge and flourish. The first section of this article outlines the growth and breadth of this apparent consensus that combines the failed states discourse with the merger of security and development to produce particular understandings of the mutual vulnerability of north and south in which the transnational security problems of the north are seen as concentrated in 'ungoverned' areas of the south.The second section then uses the 'critical geopolitics' literature to argue that this asserted convergence is not a reflection of the globalisation of transnational threats but rather an evolving set of assumptions about the origin and nature of threats: a 'geopolitical imagination' that presents such places as nodes in a network for the organisation and transmission of illicit flows. Thus the failed states discourse and the merger of security and development, though widely criticised, are now integrated into a particular spatial imagination of security centring on the 'network'. However this represents a limited understanding of networks, in which traditional geopolitical assumptions are amended and re-stabilised rather than the full implications of network thinking being realised. In particular, by superimposing categories of network/non-state/criminal and hierarchy/state on to the map of 'ungoverned areas', more complex relations and geographies of the constitution and character of illicit flow networks are neglected.The final section seeks to highlight these more complex relations and geographies by assessing the relationship between these sites and networks and illicit flows of

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China in the Contemporary American Geopolitical Imagination

Cited by 10 publications

References 0 publications

The Politics of Blaming: the Narrative Battle between China and the US over COVID-19

The Politics of Blaming: the Narrative Battle between China and the US over COVID-19

Charting geographic mental maps in foreign policy analysis: A literature review

Netwar Geopolitics: Security, Failed States and Illicit Flows

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