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Constructing national prestige at home.

The People’s Daily and the 2014 APEC Summit in Beijing

Simone Dossi1

In the everyday discourse on international politics, prestige plays an important role. Specific

policy decisions are portrayed as strengthening or jeopardizing the prestige of a nation. Referring to

the 2003 war on Iraq, for instance, it was argued that “Bush's war saw US prestige in the Middle

East hit an all-time low” (Black 2009, italics added). Similarly, Obama’s rapprochement to Russia

was criticized based on the idea that “the only thing being ‘reset’ by the current policy is Russia’s

dominance over eastern Europe and a decline in US influence and prestige” (Williams 2014, italics

added).

While central to ordinary understandings of international politics, however, the issue of

prestige plays a minor role in much of International Relations (IR) theory. Very little has been

written on this topic from the theoretical perspective that has long dominated IR literature: Realism

in its mainstream interpretation. In fact, classical Realism was well aware of the importance that

prestige might play in international politics, as argued below. Yet the issue of prestige was

completely removed from the IR agenda by structural realists, whose focus on power distribution—

generally conceived as a matter of material capabilities—left no room for subjective variables in the

analysis of international politics. As a result, prestige still remains a largely unexplored territory for

IR theory.

This is especially the case with the politics of prestige that takes place at the intersection

between the international and the domestic arena. Prestige is in fact a currency that can be spent on

two different tables. On the one hand, national governments use prestige in international politics, as

a tool when interacting with their peers. On the other hand, they exploit prestige in the sphere of

domestic politics, in order to legitimate themselves in front of their own societies. The prestige that

a government is able to build in the international arena is thus leveraged domestically as a source of

political legitimacy. A key-role is then played by the media, which actively contribute—or resist

doing so—to the process of constructing and spreading the government’s international prestige

among the domestic public. In this respect, the domestic uses of prestige represent the ideal

1 Simone Dossi is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Milan, Department of International, Legal, Historical and

Political Studies (Dilhps), and a Research Fellow at the Torino World Affairs Institute (T.wai).

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laboratory for an interdisciplinary research agenda that integrates IR theory, Comparative Politics

and Media Studies.

The aim of this paper is to move some steps in this direction using a case study on China.

There are two reasons why the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is a good choice for a preliminary

study in this field. The first one is the peculiar process by which the Communist Party of China

(CPC) legitimates its rule. As argued below, legitimacy rests on the CPC nationalist credentials,

with the Party presenting itself as the political force that saved China from foreign domination and

re-established China’s big-power status. The PRC’s international prestige is thus a core component

in the CPC claim to legitimacy. The second reason has to do with the functioning of the media

system in the PRC. The Party and the government still exert control over a wide array of media

outlets, including news agencies, newspapers, TV stations, websites (Stockmann 2013, 50-73; Shirk

2011). Against this background, we expect that the process of constructing and disseminating

international prestige among the domestic public will be more easily recognizable.

The remainder of this paper is organized as follows. The first section will go back to the

theoretical issue of prestige, to analyse how it has been addressed in IR theory. The second section

will then move to the Chinese case, with a focus on the nexus between CPC legitimacy and China’s

international prestige. The third section—which constitutes the bulk of the paper—contains the

empirical evidence: an analysis of how the CPC’s mouthpiece, the People’s Daily (Renmin ribao,

人民日报 ), represented China’s international role during the 2014 APEC summit. On 5-11

November 2014, leaders from all over the Asia-Pacific region convened in Beijing to promote

economic cooperation. The summit offered China an extraordinary platform to project its prestige—

and to do so first and foremost towards its own domestic public. How was China’s role in the

summit represented by the People’s Daily?

Prestige and its domestic uses

As mentioned above, before the structural turn in IR theory, classical realists had been well

aware of the role of prestige in international politics. One of the most important contributions in this

respect was made by Hans J. Morgenthau. In his Politics Among Nations, prestige is conceived as

the “reputation for power”: a policy aimed at increasing such a reputation is what Morgenthau

defines “policy of prestige”. Its purpose is “to impress other nations with the power one’s own

nation actually possesses, or with the power it believes, or wants the other nations to believe, it

possesses” (Morgenthau 1948, 78). That states pursue prestige in their mutual relations is a

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consequence of the social nature of international politics, which is not different in this respect from

any other form of political interaction: “Actually, the policy of prestige (…) is as intrinsic an

element of the relations between nations as the desire for prestige is of the relations between

individuals” (ibid., 77-8). Yet the pursuit of prestige is rarely an end in itself, according to

Morgenthau: generally speaking, it is in fact functional to the pursuit of other interests. A well-

conceived policy of prestige helps to expand one’s own room for manoeuvre, by altering the

interlocutor’s perceptions:

The foreign policy of a nation is always the result of an estimate of the power relations as they exist

among different nations at a certain moment of history and as they are likely to develop in the immediate and

distant future. (…) It is the primary function of the policy of prestige to influence these evaluations. (ibid., 86)

A similar definition of prestige was later used by Robert Gilpin in his War and Change in

World Politics: “[p]restige is the reputation for power, and military power in particular. Whereas

power refers to the economic, military, and related capabilities of a state, prestige refers primarily to

the perceptions of other states with respect to a state’s capacities and its ability and willingness to

exercise its power” (Gilpin 1981, 31). Prestige is therefore the “everyday currency” of international

politics, as state interactions are generally oriented by the relative prestige of the parties involved.

In fact, the hierarchy of prestige is for Gilpin one of the three forms of control over the international

system, together with the distribution of power and a set of international rules.

While prestige had a place in both Morgenthau’s and Gilpin’s approaches to the study of

international politics, the issue was completely neglected by structural realists. This is best reflected

in the most influential work of structural Realism: Kenneth N. Waltz’s Theory of International

Politics (Waltz 1979). The “materialist ontology” underpinning Waltz’s theoretical approach

“eliminate[d] the psychological or cognitive role played by considerations of prestige in other

realist frameworks” (Markey 1999, 130-1). This approach led Waltz to underestimate the role that is

in fact accorded to subjective factors in classical political thought: glory, reputation and prestige are

recognized as important motivations of human behaviour by Thucydides, Machiavelli, Hobbes, and

Rousseau—just to mention some of the sources of inspiration for Waltz’s own theory.2 The success

of Waltz’s approach—with the establishment of structural Realism as the mainstream in IR

theory—has thus led to a long neglect for the whole problem of prestige in the study of international

politics.

2 For an analysis of the “prestige motive” in the realist tradition of philosophical thought, see Markey (1999). For a

discussion of Waltz’s biased interpretation of Rousseau, see Stefanachi (2015).

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This picture has been partially changed by the constructivist turn in the Nineties. For

Constructivism, foreign policy decisions are not motivated by objectively defined national interests,

but by a search for social appropriateness, which in turn shapes how national interests are conceived.

Against this background, the quest for recognition is the driving force behind much of international

politics. For instance, Scott Sagan has argued that “nuclear weapons decisions are made because

weapons acquisition, or restraint in weapons development, provides an important normative symbol

of a state's modernity and identity” (Sagan 1997, 55). The same symbolic logic also applies to the

procurement of certain conventional weapons, for instance supersonic fighter aircraft (Eyre and

Suchman 1996).

On the whole, however, the role of prestige remains largely under-investigated in IR theory.

This is especially the case with the politics of prestige that takes place at the intersection between

international and domestic politics. As the reputation for (international) power, the prestige of a

state is produced at the international level through interactions with other states. At the same time,

however, prestige is an asset that can be mobilized in domestic politics—with national governments

leveraging on international prestige in order to consolidate their domestic legitimacy. That prestige

as a tool is not confined to the international arena was recognized by Morgenthau himself in his

critique of “prestige for its own sake”. “One-man governments—that is, absolute monarchies or

dictatorships—tend to identify the personal glory of the ruler with the political interests of the

nation”: they tend to pursue international prestige as a way of reinforcing their image as strong and

powerful leaders (Morgenthau 1948, 85). In Morgenthau’s view, this is a degeneration of prestige

that is typical of “foolhardy egocentrics” like Benito Mussolini and is ultimately doomed to fail.

Yet what might appear as irrational from the perspective of international politics could in

fact be rational from the point of view of domestic politics. Domestically, the pursuit of

international prestige might be leveraged to support government legitimacy in front of the

citizens—in a sort of two-level game that is turned upside down, with the (reputation of)

international power being used to consolidate domestic power. In this case, a crucial role is played

by the media and especially by the official ones, which are tasked with constructing international

prestige in front of the domestic public.

The Chinese case: nationalism, legitimacy, and prestige

It is in order to move some steps in an analysis of the domestic uses of prestige that we will

now turn to a case study on China. As mentioned above, the PRC is an interesting case because of

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the peculiar process whereby political legitimacy is built. Traditionally, the CPC has strongly relied

on its nationalist credentials in order to legitimize its rule. Even before the establishment of the PRC,

although the CPC “held the ultimate goal of imported communism, much of its appeal stemmed

from its promotion of Chinese nationalism” (Zhao 2004, 87). Established in 1921, the CPC was

able to merge the two principles of nationalism and communist internationalism into a form of

“indigenous communism” (ibid., 95-99). The nationalist credentials of the CPC would then grow

and consolidate during the war against Japan, with “peasant nationalism” soon becoming one of the

pillars for the construction of Communist power (Johnson 1962, 1-70). When the PRC was

eventually established on 1 October 1949, the rule of the CPC was legitimized first and foremost in

a nationalist perspective—as Mao famously declared, “the Chinese people, who account for one-

fourth of mankind, have stood up” (Zhao 2004, 119).

During the Maoist era, the nationalist credentials of the CPC were part of a wider

ideological system, centred on a Chinese reinterpretation of Marxism-Leninism. Nationalism was

thus complemented by a second powerful source of legitimacy: the Party’s commitment to a

programme of radical transformation of the Chinese society. With the economic reforms introduced

in the 1980s, however, this programme was dramatically revised and its appeal as an autonomous

source of legitimacy waned. Ideology itself lost much of its importance and became nothing more

than a “post hoc rationalization device” (Shambaugh 2008, 105). Against this background, CPC

legitimacy rested even more on the nationalist card, which was then redefined so as to include

China’s successful economic modernization among the great achievements of the Party. In this

respect, it is no coincidence that the first attempt to reassert CPC legitimacy after the 1989

Tian’anmen crisis was precisely through a nationalist campaign: the “patriotic education

movement” (aiguozhuyi jiaoyu yundong, 爱国主义教育运动). Launched in 1991, the campaign

emphasized the peculiarity of China’s “national conditions” (guoqing, 国情 ) and focused on

continuity between the PRC and China’s glorious, imperial past (ibid., 209-247).

Since then, legitimacy has increasingly rested on the official discourse of the so-called

“century of national humiliation” (bainian guochi, 百年国耻). Humiliated after the Opium War by

a hundred years of foreign domination, China was eventually saved by the CPC and enabled to

fulfil its dream of “national rejuvenation” (minzu fuxing, 民族复兴). The “Road of rejuvenation”

(fuxing zhi lu, 复兴之路) is in fact the title of a permanent exhibition at the National Museum of

China in Beijing, where this official memory is conveyed to the Chinese public. It was no

coincidence that the exhibition was chosen as the location for the first public appearance of the new

CPC central leadership, just a few days after the 2012 Eighteenth National Congress. On that

occasion, Xi Jinping delivered an important speech on the “China dream” (Zhongguo meng, 中国

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梦), in which he declared that “fulfilling China’s national great rejuvenation has been the greatest

dream of the Chinese nation since modern times” and the task of the new central leadership would

be to “resolutely move forward in fulfilling the objective of China’s national rejuvenation” (Zhang

2012).

Yet the CPC does not have a monopoly over nationalistic discourses in China. Since the

mid-1990s there has been a rise in what Peter H. Gries called China’s “new nationalism”:

widespread nationalistic attitudes that are largely autonomous from the government (Gries 2004, 4-

7). A major turning point came with the 1999 bombing of the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade, when

huge demonstrations against the U.S. and NATO took place all over China. Presented in the

Western media as orchestrated by the Chinese government, these protests were in fact largely

spontaneous and a source of concern for the Chinese government itself. In protesting against the

West, demonstrators were at the same demanding that Beijing embraced a more assertive stance

towards Washington—they were, in other words, criticizing their own government (ibid., 13-18).

Such nationalistic outbursts are particularly problematic for the CPC, if one considers the

role that nationalism itself plays nowadays in the Party’s claim to legitimacy. As argued by Gries,

“[i]n China today, popular networks are challenging the state’s hegemony over nationalism,

threatening to rupture the Chinese nation-state. And this is occurring at a time when, given the

bankruptcy of communist ideology, nationalism has become even more central to state

legitimation” (ibid., 134). In order to preserve its own domestic legitimacy, the Chinese government

is thus encouraged to act internationally so as to save China’s face—to protect the Chinese sense of

“collective self-esteem” as defined in relation with others (ibid., 21-28). From this perspective, the

Chinese government has a strong domestic incentive for the pursuit of prestige: prestige is not just a

tool of foreign policy, nor a mere gratification for egocentric leaders—as Morgenthau would have

argued. On the contrary, prestige works as a goal that is pursued through foreign policy in order to

be used in domestic politics. In China’s case, reputation for power at the international level is

searched for in order to consolidate power at the domestic level.

Empirical analysis: the 2014 APEC Summit

We will now move to the empirical material, with the analysis of how China’s role in the

2014 APEC summit was represented by the People’s Daily. Established in 1989, the Asia-Pacific

Economic Cooperation is a forum whose “primary goal is to support sustainable economic growth

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and prosperity” in the region, by advancing “free and open trade and investment”.3 Joined by the

PRC in 1991, APEC currently has 21 members from both sides of the Pacific Ocean. Each year a

summit is organized in one of the member economies, based on the rotation principle. Convened in

the twenty-fifth anniversary of APEC’s establishment, the 2014 summit took place in Beijing on

November 5-11. In order to analyse how China’s role was represented, we chose to focus on the

People’s Daily, the official newspaper par excellence in China. Established in 1948 and

transformed one year later into the official mouthpiece of the CPC Central Committee, the People’s

Daily still remains the most authoritative among the so-called “Party papers” (dangbao, 党报), as it

is sponsored by the Central Propaganda Department under the CPC Central Committee (Stockmann

2013, p. 52).

Between Monday, November 3 and Sunday, November 16, the People’s Daily published

several articles on the summit, a few interviews, and a set of relevant documents. Most of the

articles are detailed reports of the meetings, of leaders’ activities and their impact on Beijing’s

everyday life. More interesting to our aims, however, are those articles that provide an analysis or a

comment about the summit and its results. In what follows, we will focus on two separate categories

of such articles: the “special coverage” (tebie baodao, 特别报道) pages, and the “commentaries”

(pinglun, 评论).

A special coverage is a full page, generally consisting of a longer introductory article,

several small boxes and one short comment or interview. Eight such pages were published in total,

one each day from November 5 to November 12. Each special coverage is focused on a specific

topic, including for instance the goals of the summit and its expected results (November 5), the

importance of connectivity for the future of the region (November 9), and international reactions to

Xi Jinping’s speech at the Economic Leaders’ Summit (November 12). The communicative strategy

that is more frequently used is to collect short comments by foreign observers (including diplomats,

scholars and journalists) on the topic of the day, and to bring them together in support of a specific

argument. More often than not, the focus is on China’s own role: how China is contributing to the

final success of the summit, how China’s rise is creating economic prosperity for the whole region,

and how China’s leaders are articulating a new vision for the future of APEC. Expressed through

the words of external observers, a positive—sometimes enthusiastic—assessment of China’s role is

thus constructed as an objective, indisputable matter of fact.

A clear example of this communicative strategy is the November 5 special coverage. The

introductory article is in fact a list of comments by foreign and Chinese scholars about the expected

3 From APEC’s official website: <http://www.apec.org/About-Us/About-APEC/Mission-Statement.aspx> (accessed on

12 February 2016).

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outcomes of the summit. The importance of China’s role is best expressed in the words of a foreign

scholar, the Director of the Indonesian Council for Economic Cooperation in the Asia-Pacific: “In

this summit, what most arises my expectations is the ‘APEC blueprint for connectivity’. After the

blueprint is approved, all member economies will jointly implement concrete actions: this is going

to be a big project. In this respect, China can play a crucial leading role [guanjianxing de lingdao

zuoyong, 关键性的领导作用] and share with us its big experience” (Liu et al. 2014.1). The idea

that cooperation between China and other members benefits all—and that the leading role in such a

cooperation is played by China—is then elaborated in a short commentary. The argument is that

“the peace and development of the Asia-Pacific are intimately related to China’s own development.

China has continuously integrated into APEC, and has poured its driving force [dongli, 动力] into

it” (Ding 2014). In its boldest formulation, this idea is again attributed to an external observer:

‘The APEC summit that is about to open in Beijing is not only a big achievement for China but also an

eye-catching great event for the world’. This comment by the Secretary General of Thailand’s International

Human Resources Development Foundation gives voice to the high expectations that people have [for the

summit]. (ibid.)

While special coverage pages published during the first days of the summit were mainly

concerned with international expectations, those published in the following days had a different

focus: China’s successful development, and its role as a model for other countries. This is

particularly clear if we move to the November 7 special coverage, whose introductory article deals

with the success of Xi Jinping’s latest book at the APEC summit. Published in September 2014, Xi

Jinping on the Governance of China is a selection of 79 speeches that Xi gave between November

2012 and March 2014. Over 3,000 copies of the book—translated into several languages—had been

prepared at the conference venue, but they went immediately sold out as foreign guests rushed to

the shelters in order to grab their copy. For the People’s Daily, the reasons for such a wide interest

are clear:

China’s success has shocked the world and [therefore] the interest of the world in China is continuously

rising. The international community assiduously investigates on the deepest reasons ‘why China can do it’

[Zhongguo weishenme neng, 中国为什么能] and hopes to understand the secrets behind ‘China’s miracle’

[Zhongguo qiji, 中国奇迹] and the ‘China model’ [Zhongguo moshi, 中国模式]. In which direction are the

Chinese leaders driving the country? Which influence is a developing China going to exert on the world? People

hope to find an answer to these questions in ‘Xi Jinping on the governance of China’. (Liu et al. 2014b)

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The idea that China is admired for its success is once again conveyed through the words of

an external observer. As reportedly declared by the President of the Mexico-China Chamber of

Commerce,

before coming [to the summit] I bought a Spanish translation of “Xi Jinping on the Governance of

China.” (…) Xi Jinping is a resolute and sensitive leader with political vision. His wisdom, self-confidence and

industriousness reveal the leadership style of a rising great power [jueqi daguo, 崛起大国]. I’m looking forward

to listening to President Xi’s speech at the APEC summit. (ibid.)

By the end of the week, an additional ingredient had been added to this discourse: China’s

decisive role for the positive outcome of the summit. The November 12 special coverage presents

China—and its paramount leader Xi Jinping—as the driving force behind the summit. As usual, this

idea is conveyed through the words of qualified external observers. According to the Deputy

Director of Moscow University’s School of Asian and African Studies, for instance, “Xi Jinping’s

speech makes it clear that China attaches great importance to the development of APEC, and it also

reflects China’s growing self-confidence and its great-power style [daguo fengfan, 大国风范]” (Xie

2014). China’s leading role is also emphasized in a separate box, reporting short comments by

Malaysian Prime Minister Najib Razak: “China has showed to the world its leadership capability

[lingdao nengli, 领导能力], and has facilitated the achievement of several important tasks, such as

promoting regional economic integration and supporting the development of economic innovation”

(Yu 2014).

China’s leading role is articulated in a more sophisticated way in the six commentaries

published by the People’s Daily over the two weeks. To begin with, this is the case with a

November 10 commentary authored by Zhong Sheng (钟声). Literally translated as “the bell’s

sound”, this pseudonym is pronounced in Chinese in the same way as Zhong sheng, 中声: “the

voice of China”. It is frequently used by the People’s Daily when commenting on international

issues, and is generally considered as entailing a certain degree of authoritativeness, as a channel for

opinions indirectly emanating from the Centre. The commentary elaborates on the slogan of an

“Asia-Pacific dream” (Ya-Tai mengxiang, 亚太梦想) that had been put forward by Xi Jinping the

day before, during his speech at a meeting with the business sector. This new slogan—which

recalled the “China dream” mentioned above—was presented by Xi as the Chinese vision for the

future of the region. Like in the speech, the “Asia-Pacific dream” is framed in the commentary as

the common dream of an “Asia-Pacific big family” (Ya-Tai da jiating, 亚太大家庭):

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The Asia-Pacific dream is a common dream of progress for the prosperity of the Asia-Pacific: with an

Asia-Pacific partnership of mutual trust, tolerance, cooperation and mutual benefit as its foundation, and with the

spirit of the Asia-Pacific big family and the awareness of a community of destiny [mingyun gongtongti, 命运共

同体] as its central belief, harmony in the family will lead to prosperity in all undertakings [jia he wanshi xing,

家和万事兴]. (Zhong Sheng 2014)

The metaphor of the family is particularly important if we want to understand how China’s

role in the summit is presented to the Chinese public. To a Western reader, reference to the family

might sound as implying a set of informal and egalitarian relations among the countries of the Asia-

Pacific region. For a Chinese reader, however, this might not necessarily be the case. What the

metaphor recalls is the “ideal family” of the Chinese tradition: the ancient dream of several

generations living under the same roof (Baker 1979, 1-2). This normative model is not based on

informality and equality, but rather on a highly formalized distinction of roles. The traditional

family is for instance the social setting where three of the five Confucian relationships are located:

father and son, elder brother and younger brother, husband and wife—all of them hierarchical

relationships (Cheng 2000, 56-57). As argued by Fei Xiaotong, the Chinese traditional family is in

fact organized along vertical lines—and not along horizontal ones (Fei 1992, 85). Based on criteria

such as generation, age and sex, each member of the family knows precisely which is his or her

place and how to appropriately interact with other members (Hsu 1971, 56-65; Baker 1979, 15-16).

For a Chinese reader, therefore, comparing the Asia-Pacific to a family conveys an idea of the

region as a highly structured social context: countries in the Asia-Pacific are not functionally equal,

but have differentiated rights and duties based on their mutual position.

Against this background, the authority to lead the regional family is firmly in the hands of

China:

China’s power, China’s confidence, China’s determination are the force supporting the Asia-Pacific

dream. Nowadays, the mutual connection and dependence between the Chinese economy and the Asia-Pacific

and world economy are continuously deepening, the opportunities and benefits that China’s development is

creating for the Asia-Pacific and the world are enormous, the business opportunities that it is creating are

enduring and unlimited. China will strive to make its own development even more beneficial to the Asia-Pacific

and the world, and to share the results of its reform and development. Beijing: the place where the dream begins

and where the expectations converge. (Zhong Sheng 2014)

One family, one dream, differentiated roles: China is entitled to lead because of its greater

economic capabilities, which Beijing is willing to use in a benevolent way, in order to advance the

economic development of the whole region. In this narrative, China’s regional leadership is thus

constructed as entailing both material and moral resources—economic strength, and benevolence

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towards other family members. This mix of material assets and morality is further articulated in a

November 14 commentary, authored by People’s Daily “editorial commentators” (ben bao

pinglunyuan, 本报评论员):

A great era requires a great arrangement, but a great arrangement requires great wisdom. The train of

China’s development is already on a new track and welcomes on board all the other economies [of the region].

No matter whether by providing even more public goods [gonggong chanpin, 公共产品] to the Asia-Pacific and

the globe, or by building connectivity through the ‘One belt and one road’ [initiative]; no matter whether by

establishing the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, or by funding the Silk Road Fund: China has the

capability [nengli, 能力] and the willingness [yuanyi, 愿意] to help in the great undertaking of regional

cooperation, and to open together a new future for the Asia-Pacific economy. China’s wisdom, China’s strength,

China’s energy, China’s value will definitely shine for an ‘age of the Pacific Ocean’ [Taipingyang shidai, 太平

洋时代]. (Ben bao pinglunyuan 2014a)

China’s leadership in the region is here demonstrated by a set of economic and financial

initiatives launched by the Chinese government: the twin projects of the Silk Road Economic Belt

and the Twenty-first Century Maritime Silk Road, which are aimed at connecting China to the rest

of the Eurasian continent through a web of new infrastructures, to be funded by newly established

institutions (the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and the Silk Road Fund). These and similar

initiatives are presented as driven not just by China’s overwhelming economic resources, but also

by its moral commitment to the region: a sense of “responsibility” (zeren, 责任), as argued by Xi

Jinping in his speech in front of the business community. Quoting President Xi, this point was

further elaborated on a November 15 commentary:

Just as President Xi said, we have the responsibility [women you zeren, 我们有责任] in front of the

peoples of this region to shape and realize the Asia-Pacific dream. Looking to the future, China will spare no

effort in continuing to work industriously for regional growth, all the economies of the Asia-Pacific will

cooperate unanimously, promote the process of regional economic integration with open and inclusive attitude,

strengthen cooperation, spread the wings and start to fly: we will certainly write a new vision for the

development of the Asia-Pacific and realize the Asia-Pacific dream. (Ben bao pinglunyuan 2014b)

Conclusions. The two faces of prestige

A closer look at this rhetoric of responsibility helps to answer the question raised in the

Introduction: How was China’s role in the 2014 APEC summit represented by the People’s Daily?

As shown in the excerpt quoted above, the concept of responsibility implies once again a clear—

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and somehow brutal—distinction of roles between China and the other members of the “Asia-

Pacific family”. China is the undisputed legitimate leader, who “shapes” (chuangzao, 创造) the

common dream of the region and “works industriously” to “make it real” (shixian, 实现). The other

members of the family are followers, who are urged to “cooperate unanimously” “with open and

inclusive attitude” for the fulfilment of China’s regional design.

On the one hand, this rhetoric of responsibility is a reply—in front of the Chinese domestic

public—to external accusations that China is not behaving as a “responsible power”. A huge debate

on this issue was triggered in 2005 by then U.S. Deputy Secretary of State Robert Zoellick, when he

argued that “it is time to take our policy beyond opening doors to China’s membership into the

international system: We [the United States] need to urge China to become a responsible

stakeholder in that system” (Zoellick 2005, italics in the original). In Zoellick’s view, responsibility

meant proactively supporting the U.S.-led international order, an idea of responsibility that (not

surprisingly) was not well received in Beijing. Chinese policy-makers and scholars started to

question the concept of responsibility itself—responsible for what? And responsible to whom?

(Shambaugh 2013). The rhetoric of responsibility articulated during the 2014 APEC summit was

thus an attempt at turning the tables. Responsibility was then reframed as active contribution to the

regional design—with China being presented as a responsible power inasmuch as it contributes the

fulfilment of the “Asia-Pacific dream”. From this perspective, the rhetoric of responsibility worked

as a reactive strategy to save China’s face in front of its domestic public.

On the other hand, however, the rhetoric of responsibility also worked as a proactive

strategy that validated China’s claim to regional leadership. In the “Asia-Pacific family”, China’s

asserted responsibility towards the region was presented as recognized by all other family members.

Because of such a recognition, Beijing’s self-representation as a leader was transformed—in front

of the Chinese public—into an objective reality. The narrative of the “Asia-Pacific dream” was just

one part of this wider strategy. The “Asia-Pacific dream” itself was in fact a projection of China’s

own dream of economic prosperity on the other countries of the region: China was thus implicitly

presented as the country that had gone further in the realization of the “common” dream, and

therefore as a “model” (moshi, 模式) for other countries in the Asia-Pacific, and a moral leader for

the whole region.

On the whole, China’s role in the APEC summit was thus represented as that of a recognized

leader, who is able to lead the region by virtue of its material and moral resources. In other words,

the focus was very much on China’s reputation for regional leadership. Such a representation

resonated with the domestic process whereby political legitimacy is built in China. As argued above,

the legitimacy of the CPC is increasingly based on its nationalist credentials, in accordance with the

13

official narrative of a CPC-led “national rejuvenation” after a “century of humiliation”. Presenting

the country as a re-established leader in the region positively contributes to such a narrative.

Humiliated by foreign domination until the middle of the Twentieth century, China has finally

regained its righteous place in the region. As declared in the exhibition on the “Road of

rejuvenation”, “[t]oday, the Chinese nation is already standing rock-firm in the East of the world

[Zhonghua minzu yijing weiran-yili yu shijie dongfang, 中华民族已经巍然屹立于世界东方] and

the bright prospects of the great rejuvenation are in front of us. The dreams of China’s sons and

daughters will surely be fulfilled”.4

The way China’s role in the 2014 APEC summit was framed by the People’s Daily supports

the idea that international prestige can be mobilized domestically. Governments rely on their

“reputation for power” not only internationally, as a tool to manipulate the calculations of other

countries: they also leverage on prestige domestically, as a source of legitimacy in front of their

own citizens. These two faces of prestige create a peculiar interplay between the international level

and the domestic one. While prestige as a goal is always pursued at the international level, prestige

as a tool can be exploited both at the international level and at the domestic one. Further research is

needed, if we want to better understand the intricacies of such an interplay and find an answer to

several related questions. How do the domestic uses of prestige influence the foreign policy of a

country? What is the role that the media play in the process of constructing and disseminating

prestige domestically? And how does all of this vary depending on the nature of the political regime?

In order to answer these questions, research on the domestic uses of prestige should necessarily

integrate a set of diverse theoretical approaches: IR theory, Comparative Politics, Media Studies.

Placed at the intersection between the international and the domestic sphere, the issue of prestige

might in fact be a fruitful field for research across disciplinary barriers in the social sciences. In this

respect, contemporary China—with its growing international projection and peculiar domestic

political process—will continue to provide a stimulating case for analysis.

4 From the presentation of the exhibition on the museum’s website: <http://en.chnmuseum.cn/english/tabid/520/Default.

aspx?ExhibitionLanguageID=83> (accessed on 16 February 2016).

14

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