“APEC Blue” and the Images of China: The Case of the Chinese Websites of the BBC and The New York Times

To examine the images of China on the website of the BBC and The New York Times, this thesis focuses on the history of how the international media were established and how they affected to the international information flow. By using the Discourse – Historical Approach, this study analysis news coverage of the “APEC Blue”. The results show that the BBC Chinese and The New York Times Chinese covered the APEC Blue issue as part of global climate change problem, and kept China’s discursive power down to make China as an “otherness” in the international relations. To The New York Times Chinese, China is a country which had strong class consciousness, and China is more concerned about protecting its images as a nation-state than anything else. However, there was a turning point in the BBC Chinese reports. The BBC Chinese first regarded China as a ridicules country which only saw the short-term benefits and neglected the roots of the air pollution problem. During the year of 2015, the BBC Chinese turned to defensing China. The BBC Chinese portrayed China as country that was tended to do more than just saying to solve the global warming problem.