The End of the 'Liberal Theory of History'? Dissecting the US Congress' Discourse on China's Currency Policy

Over the last 10years, economic issues related to currency policy have become the major ongoing dispute between China and the United States. Specifically, the US Congress has demanded a tougher policy to avert the negative consequences of unfair Chinese policiesin the form of a manipulated currencyfor the US economy. Building on an analytical framework of discourse theory (DT)and proposing a method for applying DT in empirical researchan investigation into congressional debates on the Chinese currency shows that the question is not a purely economic one, but rather that it reflects a dislocation of US identity as the vanguard of liberal-democratic capitalism. This dislocation involves changes to how liberal identity in the US Congress is articulated in relation to the role attributed to illiberal China, which in turn affects the formulation of US China policy in Congress.