China’s belt and road initiative in Russian media: politics of narratives, images, and metaphors

ABSTRACT

Through the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) it is obvious that China is crafting a new space for itself in the international system and becoming more assertive and confident in its international dealings, including in Eurasia, typically considered by Russia as its backyard. This raises the question of how the BRI is presented and perceived in Russia. The article explores this question by examining the coverage of the BRI in Russia’s major newspapers between 2013 and 2019. It traces the visibility of different topics in Russian media coverage of BRI and maps the shifts in its focus over six years. The article demonstrates that while the definition of BRI in Russian newspapers includes multiple and often contradictory discursive frames that compete with each, Sino-Russian cooperation in Eurasia and, specifically, Russian proposal of “linking up” of the Eurasian Economic Union (EAEU) and BRI are unanimously supported and approved as a strategy that suits Russia’s international status. Consequently, it can be concluded that Russian newspapers support the official narrative of Sino-Russian relations and follow trends rather than create them.

KEYWORDS:

• Sino-Russian relations
• belt and road initiative
• Eurasian economic union
• discourse analysis

Acknowledgments

Our research draws heavily upon what we learned from the interviewees, and we thank them all for taking the time to share their knowledge and expertise with us. We also thank Fabienne Bossuyt, Marcin Kaczmarski, and the two anonymous reviewers for reading our manuscript and offering insightful comments that have helped us to improve our work.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.