Discourse, Rhetoric and Shifting Political Behaviour in China

Using political discourse analysis, this book examines the extent to which the salient approaches of previous leadership generations have translated into present day policies shepherded in by Xi Jinping. On the strategic political level, the book includes comparisons of China's recent leadership periods with a focus on Xi Jinping's era, and contains examples of whether and how specific topics and tactics reoccur across generations. The state development strategy section then goes on to include chapters on shaping China's strategic narratives, neoliberal discourse within state developmentalism, and keyword evolution. The practical policies part looks at the issues of re-education, health, class, and ethnicity, analysing how the leaders talk about China's poor, frame the representations of megaprojects on social media, and discursively display diplomatic strength. As a study of the rule of Xi Jinping and the rhetoric of the contemporary Chinese political system, this book will be of huge interest to students and scholars of Chinese politics and political science more broadly.

Una Aleksandra Berzina-Cerenkova is Head of the Political Science PhD programme and China Studies Centre at Riga Stradins University, and Head of the Asia Programme at the Latvian Institute of International Affairs. She has held a fellowship at Fudan University and a Fulbright scholarship at Stanford University, and is affiliated with King's College London and MERICS. She is the author of Perfect Imbalance: China and Russia (World Scientific 2022), and publishes on PRC political discourse, contemporary Chinese ideology, EU-China relations, Russia-China, and BRI.

Discourse, Rhetoric and Shifting Political Behaviour in China: An Introduction Una Aleksandra Berzina-Cerenkova, Riga StradinS University 1. Thought Reform, Re-education and the Politics of Language and Discourse in China Mirjam R.L. Eggli, University of Oxford Reza Hasmath, University of Alberta Part I DISCOURSE OF STATE DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY 2. State Developmentalism and the Chinese Leadership: Ideology, Cultural Heritage, and Self-reinvention Qing Cao, Durham University 3. The RED TRIANGLE of the Chinese people, the Chinese Nation and the Communist Party of China: Meaning Generation in Speeches of the Chinese Fifth Generation Leadership Lutgard Lams, Catholic University of Leuven 4. Jingshen: a Governmental Keyword in 21st Century China Beatrice Gallelli, Ca'Foscari University of Venice Part II DISCOURSE OF PRACTICAL POLITICAL ISSUES 5. (Un)Problematising and Reshaping: Discourse Analysis of the Rural Poor's Representation in Poverty-Alleviation Texts During the Xi and Hu Eras Le Cao, Masaryk University 6. China's BRI on Social Media - A Study of Xinhua's Discursive Adaptations in the Context of a Shifting Leadership Nie Yuxi, Fontys University of Applied Sciences Biographies of the Authors