China Talks Climate: A Frame Analysis of Discourses on Climate Change and the Environment in the PRC

Abstract

In 2007, China overtook the US to become the largest emitter of CO2 into the Earth’s atmosphere. China’s vital role in global efforts to combat climate change creates a pressing challenge to explore the unique characteristics of Chinese environmental values and policy processes, and to identify the frames that are employed to understand climate change and related environmental issues domestically. This paper investigates a) how the political context, as well as differing political agendas and policy goals within which actors operate, affects and sometimes constrains the frames they generally employ; and b) the specific frames used to understand and discuss climate change by interview subjects and in written documents. It finds that different frames are employed by those supporting the current regime and its attendant official discourses on climate change and the environment (mainly government officials) and those challenging or in opposition to such dominant framings (particularly NGOs).

Ecological Civilisation Discourse in Xinhua’s African Newswires: Towards a Greener Agency?

“…This suggests a key role for Chinese central media in sponsoring Chinese business interests in Africa and helping to drive shifts in China's export economy. It also conforms with the notion of Tong (2015) and Willats (2018) that Ecological Civilisation continues to prioritise economic development, albeit in a more sustainable and green way.…”

“…A further line of enquiry would be into the development of the Ecological Civilisation discourse. The sample presents a mostly coherent vision of the relationship between humanity and the environment, which largely conforms to the notions laid out by Tong (2015) and Willats (2018), in that it presents development and environmental protection as compatible. However, there are cracks in this coherency, with elements of risk discourses seeping into certain texts.…”

“…Common concerns of international criticism of Sino-African relations were nowhere to be seen. Instead, a relatively coherent discourse built around the concept of Ecological Civilisation appeared throughout the sample, broadly conforming to the patterns laid out by Tong (2015) and Willats (2018). However, the reports also covered a wide variety of topics, which highlighted complexities and tensions within the discourse.…”

“…These relations cut across disciplinary boundaries, and so CDA is inherently transdisciplinary, meaning that it has is no universal framework. The analytical framework employed is thus formed on the basis of the hegemonic and counter-hegemonic environmental discourses outlined by numerous scholars, including Tong (2015), Pan (2016), Geall (2018) and Willats (2018). The analytical method is based on Fairclough's threedimensional conception of discourse "as simultaneously (i) a language text […] (ii) discourse practice (text production and text interpretation), [and] (iii) socio[-]cultural practice" (2013, 132), which informs a corresponding three-dimensional approach to analysing texts.…”

“…However, its meanings are by no means stable or agreed upon within current scholarship, Chinese society, or the Party itself. For Tong (2015) and Willats (2018), Ecological Civilisation represents environmental protection as being compatible with economic growth, emphasising the roles of new technologies, national and global solidarity, and state-led intervention as the solutions to reduce resource wastage and restore ecological balance. For scholars like Pan (2016), it represents a more radical turn towards traditional values.…”