Examining strategic narratives in the Chinese official discourse under Xi Jinping's rule
On 29 May 2018, the Department of Informatics and Media hosted a higher seminar by Lutgard Lams, Ass. Professor of Media Discourse Analysis and Intercultural Communication at the KU Leuven, Campus Brussels. Title of the seminar was “Examining strategic narratives in the Chinese official discourse under Xi Jinping's rule”. Dr. Lams was introduced by Nico Carpentier, Professor in Media and Communication Studies at the Department of Informatics and Media, Uppsala University.
In her insightful seminar, Lutgard Lams presented her research on how China has used strategic narratives to construct an official discourse based on Xi Jinping’s rule over the last two decades. Her research attempts to examine the various strategic narratives that cumulatively constitute this ‘China story’, designed for the international as well as domestic audiences. In particular, it looks into divergences/convergences with the political discourse of previous generations of leadership by examining argumentation patterns and discursive strategies used in speeches and texts produced by top-level officials and their ‘core’ leader, Xi Jinping. Dr. Lams especially focused on Xi Jinping’s hallmark slogans, such as ‘the China dream’, the ‘new normal’ and the ‘Four Comprehensives’.
While she notices that no paradigmatic ideological change that emerges from these narratives, yet, the strategies to spread ‘the China story’ are more diverse and intentionally aimed to present an alternative world order of ‘Socialism with Chinese characteristics’. At the same time, her findings from the ideational content of the strategic narratives under Xi Jinping reveal continuity with the ideological line of his predecessors, except for the references to ‘democratic proletarian dictatorship’, which were also used during the fourth generation of leaders but have now become obsolete.
The presentation was well received by the audience and was followed up with an interesting discussion on the theme of the seminar. In the end, professor Nico Carpentier thanked the speaker and the audience for the successful and engaging event.
(Image removed) Lutgard Lams and Nico Carpentier at the seminar. Photo: Siddharth Chadha.