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Big Historical Data Analysis of the China Threat Discourse among American Elites

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Abstract

Despite the growing prevalence of the China threat discourse, its extensive historical complexity is seldom fully explored in existing academic literature. The article unitizes the enormous data of Google Ngram Viewer to track the evolution of the China threat discourse among American elites over the last seven decades. This article argues that understanding the China threat discourse requires a dynamic perspective that considers historical context and demonstrates that American elites’ perception of China has shifted from ideological and military hostility to concerns over China’s rising economic power and challenges that China’s political system might pose. The article suggests that the drivers underlying the China threat discourse are historically contingent and evolve alongside changes in China’s national strength and the perception of China’s politics, highlighting the significance of both material and ideational drivers in shaping the China threat discourse.

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Data Availability

The data of ngrams’ frequencies used in this article are derived from R package ‘ngramr’ at https://cran.rproject.org/web/packages/ngramr/ngramr.pdf.

The data of China’s gross domestic product are openly available online in the World Bank Dataset, at https://data.worldbank.org/.

The data of China’s military expenditure are obtained from China Statistical Yearbook 2020 and the White Paper China’s National Defense in the New Era.

The data of China’s population growth are available at the online resource: Jianzhang, Liang. “Misleading Birth Data Should Not Be Disseminated.” Caixin, September 18, 2020. https://opinion.caixin.com/2020-09-18/101606735.html.

Notes

  1. This R package was recently updated. https://cran.r-project.org/web/packages/ngramr/ngramr.pdf

  2. I obtained official Chinese data on military expenditures from 1950 to 2019 from China Statistical Yearbook 2020 and the white paper China’s National Defense in the New Era.

  3. I gathered the data on China’s annual population growth from this online resources: Jianzhang, Liang. “Misleading Birth Data Should Not Be Disseminated.” Caixin, September 18, 2020. https://opinion.caixin.com/2020-09-18/101606735.html

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  1. Carleton University, 1125 Colonel By Dr, Ottawa, ON, K1S5B6, Canada

    Biqi Yan

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Yan, B. Big Historical Data Analysis of the China Threat Discourse among American Elites. J OF CHIN POLIT SCI (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11366-023-09856-0

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