Chinese representations of EU trade actorness

Despite many studies on Chinese representations of the European Union (EU), limited attention has been given to how this is shaped by the EU’s trade policy. This article considers recent developments in EU trade policy, in the context of China’s rise as an economic power and the EU’s labelling of China as a systemic rival. Using a reversed analytical framework of actorness, this article shows how the EU’s trade policies are represented by the Chinese official media and intellectual elites. Our thematic analysis centres on these two types of Chinese social actors’ discourses about EU trade from January 2013 to July 2021. The findings reveal that their representations of the EU’s trade actorness highlight (i) the EU’s importance with regard to China’s competition with the US, (ii) the EU’s decreasing normative attractiveness for China due to its institutional and ideational incapability, and (iii) China’s positive expectations for EU-China relations in the future with China’s own active efforts. This research also contributes a nuanced approach in analysing the relevance of Chinese social actors’ representations for China’s foreign policy making.