The Global Times and The China Threat Narrative: An Empirical Analysis

Abstract

China’s Global Times has become more popular in the Australian media than ever, and its editor, Hu Xijin, has also gained worldwide attention. The Global Times presents a nationalistic narrative about China and the world. This study, the first of its kind in the academic literature, examines the relationships between the Global Times narrative and the China threat narrative in Australia and worldwide. By applying time series econometric models to weekly datasets from May 2020 to April 2021, this study finds that the Global Times narrative is significantly associated with the level of the China threat narrative in Australia, and the same is true for the corresponding global relationship. This study makes original and significant contributions to the academic literature and has useful implications for policymakers.

The Rise of China’s Zhao Lijian Diplomacy: A Time Series Analysis

“…It may be because an internet search is not an expressive act, as answering survey responses is (Mellon, 2013). Liu (2021b) is the first to use Google Trends as a narrative measurement in international relations.…”