Wei Zongyou, "The Image of China’s ‘One Belt, One Road’Initiative by U.S. Media," International Review, No.1, 2018

Abstract: The United States is not a formal participant of China’s “One Belt, One Road” (OBOR) Initiative. Nevertheless, it has shown increasing interests and attention to the initiative. Since 2013 when China first put forward the idea, the U.S. mainstream newspapers, including The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Wall Street Journal, have all paid attention to China’s OBOR Initiative from various perspectives, which peaked in 2015 and 2017 respectively. However, careful text reading reveals that, while the three newspapers talked of opportunity of possible U.S.-China cooperation in the initiative, on the whole, they cast of dark and gloomy attitudes towards China’s initiative, questioning China’s motives, doubting the feasibility of the initiative, and worrying about the potential geopolitical and geo-economic impacts of the initiative. Given the framing and shaping power of U.S. mainstream newspapers in terms of public opinions and even policy agenda-setting, China should place a high priority on how to respond to these negative narratives.

Keywords:  U.S. Media; One Belt One Road Initiative; China-U.S. Relations  

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