John's Prospectus

There is much talk in the American media of China’s status as an emerging global superpower, of China’s rapid economic growth and of its expanding political influence in Asia and throughout the world. Newsweek, The Atlantic Monthly, and National Geographic have all dedicated entire issues in the past couple of years to the subject of China’s rise, and the implications that its growth will entail for America’s position in the world. But the rhetoric employed by the American media when it discusses the rise of China does not lead the reader to a complete and accurate picture of the significance of China’s rise. Rather, the American popular media frames China’s rise as a problem that Americans should fear. The negative language and the constant associations employed by the American media between China’s ascension and America’s decline create a subconscious anxiety in the American public concerning the subject of China and its growth. The American media uses a rhetoric of fear and foreboding when writing about China’s rise, and the American public thus learns to associate China with danger.