The Discourse Power Issue In China’s Climate Diplomacy

The severity and integrity of Climate change issues divide the international societyinto two groups in global climate governance, justice or injustice, there is notintermediate position.Although as a country with the most amount of energy greenhousegas emission in the world , China has adopted various measures to address suchproblem., it is still suffered from the reproach from the international society. But whydoes China get into such trouble when it has the legitimacy foundation to participate inthe global climate governance? This paper holds the view that the weak of theinternational discourse of china in global climate governance is the reason. It is reallydifficult for a country to transmit the domestic information into the international societywhen its power of international discourse is weak. And the weak of international climatediscourse power of China directly results in two issues in global climategovernance ,one point is that all the information whatever the achievement or thehardship can’t be transmitted into the international society very well, then another is thatthe international society, especially the west group ,chooses not to receive theinformation. So how to get rid of the dilemma is the key point in this paper. This paperchooses the theory of post-structuralism as the theoretical basis. This theory holds theidea that discourse has the function of constructing the national identity and thediplomatic policy of a country. This paper will take such viewpoint as the researchperspective, analysis on the reason which causes the dilemma of China’s climatediplomatic discourse in global climate governance, and then put forward some feasiblesuggestions.Global climate governance: the best solution of the climate change issues which is always concerning the welfare of the human society. As a governance way, internationalclimate congress can’t be such a place where only one discourse is centered. ThereforeChina need to take more attention to its international discourse power in global climategovernance, enhance the power of China’s climate discourse, do best to change theexisting structure of international climate discourse and create a fair environment inwhich each member of human society would participate in the global climategovernance willingly and actively.There’re several factors which has a great influence on the international discoursepower, so does the climate diplomatic discourse power. This paper chooses the theory ofpost-structuralism as the theoretical basis. Discourse, national identity and diplomaticpolicy are three important variables in this theory, and the influence factors in climatediplomatic discourse power in this paper as well. Post-structuralism takes the idea thatdiscourse is the meaning structure which is created by the language, and everything inthe world catches their social meaning only when the discourse constructs them, so doesthe international social knowledge. The knowledge, created by the discourse, exertsnormative influence on the international actors, this process endows the discourse withthe power. The diplomatic discourse has the ability of creating the national identity,while the diplomatic policy is decided by the national identity. The relationship betweennational identity discourse and diplomatic policy discourse requires both of them tokeep a kind of inherent consistency. This kind of consistency is the precondition bywhich the discourse structure is constructed. That is to say, the international discoursewill be questioned when the consistency is destroyed. Based on this theory, this articlehas the view that the correspondingly weak state of the China’s climate diplomaticdiscourse power is caused by its questioned identity discourse which has been alwaysdefined by the dominant discourse of the west group. It not only disturbs theconsistency between the identity and the policy discourse in China’s climate diplomacy,but also, to some degree, makes China encounter the identity crisis from part of the international social members, such as impoverished developing countries and islandcountries in global climate governance. It needs to enhance and improve the content ofChina’s climate diplomatic identity discourse so as to change the existing discoursedilemma in global climate governance. As a main participant, China needs to undertakemore responsibility and take more attention to the global climate governance, especiallywhen the willingness of the west society in climate governance decreases. That’s thebest means to obtain the identification of the international society, which is thelegitimacy foundation of participating in the global climate governance. In order toexpand the communication space of diplomatic policy discourse, china needs to spareno effort to construct the diversification of the diplomatic identity discourse. In addition,integrating into the existing dominant discourse is also an effective method for China toconsolidate the legitimacy foundation and create an environment in which China’sclimate identity discourse power could be enhanced. Meanwhile resisting thedisturbance in the definition of our climate diplomatic identity discourse from the westcommunity is necessary. Doubting about the consistency of the hegemonic discourse byrevealing the logical vulnerability of the discourse between the identity and thediplomatic policy will be a feasible way to reduce the credibility of the west hegemonicdiscourse. As to the dominant discourse which has the firm legitimacy foundation, theclimate diplomatic discourse of China needs to integrate into and cooperate withactively, for that is the best method to obtain the power of the discourse in the globalclimate governance.