‘Becoming’ a global leader: China’s evolving official media discourse in Xi’s New Era

This paper investigates the discourses on the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) from China Global Television Network’s YouTube channel. As China’s key diplomatic initiative, the BRI discourses provide us rich resources to understand how China wants the international community to see it, and how it intends to lead the world. The paper finds that China has developed a much clearer vision and more consistent discourse on the world order and its role in it. However, our data produces no evidence to support the claim that China wants to take over the existing global order. Rather, China seeks legitimacy to share global leadership.