The Dutch Image Of China During The Covid-19 Pandemic

The 21 st century geopolitical landscape is rapidly changing.We are transitioning from a unipolar system of US dominance towards a multipolar system characterized by a distribution of power in which the US and China have nearly equal amounts of military,cultural,and economic influence.Given the newly acquired role of China as a global superpower and upcoming world leader,alongside China’s interest in strengthening economic ties with European nations,it is of strategic importance for China to understand how its newly acquired global presence is portrayed in the media of smaller European co-players like the Netherlands.Due to the COVID-19 pandemic,media attention for China soared throughout 2020.Dutch media have speculated extensively about the impact of the pandemic on China’s geopolitical rise.Would the pandemic accelerate China’s emergence as a world leader,or would it prove to be a geopolitical ‘game-changer’? The virus outbreak certainly put China at the center of attention in the Dutch media.It exposed both the advantages and disadvantages of China’s political regime;China’s model to combat the COVID-19 pandemic has been both criticized and praised extensively.This paper investigates how China is portrayed in the Dutch media throughout the COVID-19 pandemic,and what influence this had on the Dutch image of China more generally.Through a combination of quantitative content analysis and qualitative critical discourse analysis,this research aims to understand how the four most widely read newspapers in the Netherlands portrayed China during the COVID-19 crisis,and how the Dutch image of China has changed over time throughout the crisis.This research concludes that(1)media attention for China almost doubled in 2020 due to the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic.(2)China’s image in the Dutch news was highly political and economic in nature during the pandemic.(3)From a geopolitical perspective,China’s role as a strong international presence during the crisis has increased awareness among the Dutch media that China is going to replace the US as the new world leader.(4)From an economic perspective,the Dutch media came to realize how dependent the Dutch economy is on that of China throughout the crisis.(5)From a politics perspective,the success of China’s authoritarian regime in dealing with the COVID-19 crisis has led the Dutch media to take on a more nuanced,less Western-centric view of China’s domestic politics.Though there are many factors that play into the construction of an ‘image’ of a nation,this research argues based on the above-mentioned conclusions that media coverage of China throughout the COVID-19 pandemic has favorably influenced the Dutch image of China as a newly emerging world leader in the 21 st century geopolitical landscape.The COVID-19 pandemic can be seen as what Erving Goffman calls an “astounding event”.Media coverage of China throughout the COVID-19 crisis led the Dutch public to doubt their overall approach to China.In other words,the COVID-19 pandemic challenged the western-centric view of China and its political regime as inferior and led the Dutch public to alter their collective cognitive frameworks about China.Deeply rooted believes about democracy were undermined during the COVID-19 pandemic,and the positive news coverage of China during the pandemic may have a long-term effect on the Dutch image of China not only in the context of the pandemic,but also more generally.