The Mediated Engagement of Switzerland with BRI: A Transnational Comparative Framing Analysis

2.1 Comparative Framing Analysis in International News

Erving Goffman (1974, p.21), the first to introduce the concept of framing, highlighted the functions of frames to help people use the “schemata of interpretation” to find, understand, and label information and recognize a particular event. Other scholars (Entman, 1993; Reese, 2001) extended the definition, and the framing process became more widely recognized as “select[ing] some aspects of perceived reality and mak[ing] them more salient in the communicating text, in such a way as to promote a particular problem definition, causal interpretation, moral evaluation and/or treatment recommendation for the item described” (Entman, 1993, p.52). By understanding newsrooms inevitably work with frames to simplify, prioritize, and structure the narrative of events (Norris, 1995), researchers identified five dominant generic news frames in analyzing news texts (see Hallahan, 1999; Neuman et al., 1992; Semetko & Valkenburg, 2000; Valkenburg et al., 1999). They cover the attribution of responsibility frame, the human interests frame, the conflict frame, the morality frame and the economic frame.

The globalization of news production and the widespread of the international discursive community further evidence the importance of news frames in the meaning-making of international affairs with global audiences. Especially when certain “generic frames” could be applied across issues, arenas, national barriers and cultural experiences (Benford & Snow, 2000; Guo et al., 2012). However, “news domestication” still plays a vital role in adapting international news to suit domestic audiences in different societies. van Gorp (2010) named it as “culturally embedded-frames” that contribute to the narrative and rhetorical structure of texts and relate them to a condensing symbol as part of a shared culture. By recognizing these cultural notions, we could understand how culturally shared elements function in news coverage. Ideologies, political positions, and the different media systems where the media organizations operate their news practices are the other elements impacting the process of “news domestication” (Clausen, 2004; Dai & Hyun, 2010; Lee et al., 2002; Peng, 2008).

Many researchers have used the framing analysis from a comparative approach to examine narrative strategies in different news outlets situated in different cultural contexts. American news media, to some extent, was compared most frequently with news media from other countries and regions. For example, Good (2008) examined news frames of climate change in the United States, Canada and other international newspapers. Strömbäck and Shehata (2007) investigated American and Swedish elite newspaper’s coverage of Muhammad. Zhang and Hellmueller (2016) compared CNN and AI Jazeera in reporting ISIS threat, and Dai and Hyun (2010) compared news media in the United States, China and South Korea in framing the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea’s nuclear tests. A few studies compared a wide range of European national media in framing the EU-related topics (Cauwenberge et al., 2009; de Vreese et al., 2001). However, fewer studies applied a comparative framing analysis to European and Chinese news media.

Based on the analysis of a decade of scientific articles in comparative framing analysis, Guo et al. (2012) proposed a framing pool of Transnational Comparative Framing Model (TCFM), which includes generic frames, domestic frames, and issue-specific frames. This article thus uses this TCFM framing pool^[1] to measure how the Swiss and Chinese news media have highlighted certain features but overlooked other features in reporting the Swiss engagement with the BRI to the domestic (in the Swiss case) and global (in the Chinese case) audiences. By recognizing news framing as a mechanism through which cultural values and norms are reproduced, reinterpreted, and communicated, this article pays particular attention to cultural frames as part of the domestic frame analysis.

2.2 Framing China and BRI in European News

Studies of media presentation of China in international news began in the 1990s with the same dominance on media outlets from the United States (e.g., Chang, 1993; Li & Cyr, 1998; Peng, 2004). Transnational comparative analysis also followed the same trend: i.e., selecting news outlets mainly from the United States, the United Kingdom, and China (e.g., Luther & Zhou, 2004; Zhang, 2011). Fewer comparative studies included news analysis from non-English speaking European media in the region (e.g., Seib & Powers, 2010; Wilke & Achatzi, 2011; Zhang, 2016). The discussion of Swiss media about China is only documented in Knüsel’s (2012) longitude analysis from a historical perspective between 1900 and 1950 and a recent study about Chinese outbound tourists in Swiss-German print media (Hasenzahl & Cantoni, 2021). There is a noticeable lack of studies on the mutual understanding and media comparison between China and Switzerland (Zhang et al., 2019).

Since the Belt and Road Initiative entered the European public discourse, media analyses from different European countries toward China have been increasingly documented (e.g., Dagtas, 2019). García-Herrero and Xu (2019) applied a big data analysis to assess the global attitudes toward BRI, pointing out that EU member states are more optimistic about BRI than non-EU countries, which are direct recipients of BRI investment. However, according to Zhang’s (2019) qualitative analysis, most of the positive storytelling in Europe is generated by Russia and South-eastern European countries, whereas suspicions remained high in Western European countries. Compared to most of the EU member states in the South and non-EU countries from the Eastern bloc that hopes to lure Chinese investment at home, the case of Switzerland stands out with uniqueness and significance. The model of Sino-Swiss cooperation is much more comprehensive concerning bilateral trade, business innovation, technology cooperation, and financial collaboration. Therefore, a detailed look at Sino-Swiss cooperation through the lens of both Swiss and Chinese mainstream media becomes necessary to test the existing shared knowledge, mutual understanding/misunderstanding, and strategic focus among multiple stakeholders.

A transnationally comparative framing analysis of Neue Zürcher Zeitung and China Daily in their coverage of Switzerland’s engagement with BRI in 2017 and 2019 is motivated to find out:

4.1 Dominance of Economic and (Geo)political Focus—Based on Frequency

The overall media coverage of Switzerland’s engagement with BRI on NZZ and China Daily significantly increased from 2017 to 2019, in terms of the number of registered articles and the number of tokens of the reported actors on both newspapers (see Table 1). Economic actors, among which financial actors in particular (e.g., bank, finance, AIIB), received the highest attention on NZZ in 2017, followed by political actors (e.g., Xi Jinping, president, delegation) and other economic actors (e.g., market). Political actors topped China Daily in 2017 (e.g., president, Xi, Central Europe, government), followed by economic actors (e.g., infrastructure) with financial actors (e.g., bank, investment) as the main subgroup as well. A clear drop in the importance of financial actors is registered on NZZ in 2019 as a wider variety of economic actors became the lead (e.g., projects, companies, business, investment). However, political actors kept the same importance and extended the range to involve other regional or international actors (e.g., government, the EU, Maurer, Europe, America/US). Like NZZ, China Daily also gave priority to economic actors in 2019 (e.g., trade, economy, etc.). What needs to be highlighted here is that the political actors on China Daily are mostly from China and Switzerland with only a few actors from other places like the Central-Eastern European countries.

As NZZ and China Daily share the same dominant actor groups when reporting about Swiss engagement with BRI, it is not a surprise that the identified issue-specific frames from the two newspapers followed the same themes (see Table 2 & 3). Based on the TCFM framing pool proposed by Guo et al. (2012), the author introduced the geopolitical frame as a new type of generic frame into the analysis as most of the political actors identified from the contextual corpuses connected to international relations instead of domestic politics. And, considering economic actors in the contextual corpus closely connected to the domestic economy in related countries, the author also added the economy-driven frame to the domestic frames.

To summarize, nine out of eleven issue-specific frames on NZZ and nine out of ten issue-specific frames on China Daily referred to economic consequence and development as the most dominant generic frame. Eight out of eleven issue-specific frames on NZZ and five out of ten issue-specific frames on China Daily are identified with political-position-driven elements or geopolitical implications (see table 2. & 3). Frequency-wise speaking, the two newspapers shared the same categories of reported actors and thematic focus.

4.2 The Dominance of Economic and (Geo)political Focus—Through Argumentation

4.3 Bilateral Focus vs. Transnational Focus

From the discussion above, it was stated that China Daily gave more space for Chinese and Swiss stakeholders in both years while NZZ involved more international actors (see 4.1). China Daily also gave more geopolitical importance to Switzerland due to its bilateral focus, while NZZ frequently referred to the United States when discussing China (see 4.2). In China Daily’s contextual corpus, the United States also appeared, but mainly as a contrast to the EU in terms of their relations with China or as a background when it referred to the trade conflict. “The US regards China as a strategic competitor, which is all about maintaining its hegemonic position”, while with “competition and cooperation coexist in China-EU relations, the latter was more prominent.” (Shi, 2019). China Daily didn’t discursively connect the United States directly with BRI in the recorded corpora, just as what NZZ observed, “In chinesischen Reden und Erklärungen findet sich aber für fast jedes Land der Welt ein Platz. Einzig die Vereinigten Staaten tauchen nirgends auf” (in Chinese speeches and explanations, however, there is a place for almost every country in the world. Only the United States does not appear anywhere) (Zoll, 2019).

The Swiss media instead discussed a lot about the United States, as “in Washington sitzen die grössten Kritiker der BRI” (the biggest critics of the BRI are in Washington) (Kamp, 2019a). The American government not only criticized on Italy’s signing MOU on BRI with China (Kamp, 2019a), it also intervened in local infrastructure projects in Southeast Asian countries like Myanmar (Kamp, 2019b). According to the Swiss perspective, “Kein Wunder, reagiert die herausgeforderte Supermacht USA äusserst empfindlich auf das chinesische Grossprojekt” (there is no wonder that the challenged superpower USA is reacting extremely sensitively to the major Chinese project) (Zoll, 2019). Just as “die Amerikaner im vorigen Jahrhundert Handelsrouten schützten” (the Americans protected trade routes in the last century), now the rising world power China would “ihren Einfluss ausdehnen und sichern” (expand and secure its influence) through BRI (Rasch, 2019).

A lot of conflict frames are used here by NZZ in comparing the United States and China. For example, when discussing about China’s growing influence in the Middle East through BRI, NZZ quoted a Chinese professor’s voice by saying that “Peking sei im Gegensatz zu Grossbritannien und Amerika nie in die dortigen Konflikte involviert gewesen und habe keine Position beziehen müssen” (Unlike Great Britain and America, Beijing has never been involved in the conflicts there and has not had to take a position) (Müller, 2019). More importantly, when referring to Switzerland’s signing MOU with China in BRI cooperation, conflict frames also appeared on NZZ as the country is striving for an FTA with the United States at the same time. “Maurer und Stoffel gehen nicht davon aus, dass Washington durch das Abkommen verärgert ist” (Maurer and Stoffel—State Secretary for International Finance— don’t think Washington is upset by the deal), according to NZZ, that “Vielmehr biete das Engagement der Schweiz die Möglichkeit, liberale Werte in das Projekt einzubringen” (Switzerland’s commitment offers the opportunity to introduce “liberal values” ​​into the project) (Müller, 2019). The Swiss media strategically grouped Switzerland into the liberal countries where America is the leading power, by carefully accessing the possible American critics on Switzerland’s engagement with the BRI. Therefore, being the bridge and pioneer, Switzerland would represent “liberal values” in dealing with China (see more discussion in 4.4).

Europe also appeared as a key regional actor in both newspapers. China Daily paid particular attention to Central-Eastern European countries. For example, Switzerland’s role of working as an observer in the cooperation framework of China and the 16 CEEC countries was highly appreciated by China Daily (Fu, 2017b). On the one hand, China Daily reaffirmed that BRI is by no means an approach for China to compete for spheres of influence. Rather, it “facilitates balanced development in Europe” and is “beneficial for the integration of Europe” (Shi, 2019). On the other hand, with Switzerland, Italy, and the Central and Eastern European nations signing up BRI MOU, China Daily anticipated “the fear mongering” of “Trojan Horse dividing Europe” (Tan, 2019).

NZZ responded to the same fear and went further when discussing the EU Strategy on Connecting Europe and Asia presented by the EU Commission and the European External Action Service in 2018. “Auch wenn das in Brüssel kaum jemand offen zugeben will: Der Plan ist auch eine direkte Antwort auf Pekings Belt-and-Road-Initiative” (Even if hardly anyone in Brussels wants to openly admit it: the plan is also a direct response to Beijing’s Belt and Road Initiative) (Kamp, 2019b). In the same article, NZZ traced the Trans-European Transport Network, launched early in 1996 to expand the transport infrastructure in Eastern and Southeastern Europe and reflected on the EU’s past effort under the Western Balkans Investment Plan. Although the EU investment has been more profound than the Chinese investment and bank loans in the region, according to NZZ, “in der öffentlichen Wahrnehmung gewinnt China die Argumentation” (in public perception, China wins the argument). Nevertheless, the fact that “Europa ist in einer denkbar schlechten Verfassung und zurzeit kein verlässlicher Partner für China” (Europe is in the worst possible shape and currently not a reliable partner for China), became one pragmatic reason why Switzerland as a neutral country situated at the heart of Europe should get actively involved in the BRI (Wagner, 2019).

China Daily documented a clear bilateral focus when discussing Swiss engagement with BRI, giving Switzerland great discursive importance even when it referred to other European countries. NZZ instead gave a lot of importance to the United States and the EU. Therefore, Switzerland either remained part of Europe with respect to the general European framework in dealing with China or stayed as a member of the liberal societies where America’s leading position is profoundly visible. What’s more, NZZ recorded a lot more generic conflict frames than China Daily, emphasizing the diffrences, challenges, and ongoing competition between China and the United States, and between China and the EU. With China Daily trying to distinguish Switzerland from its European neighbors and to distinguish Europe from its American ally, NZZ did the opposite—it positioned Switzerland in the matrix closely connecting to Brussels and Washington, whereas China became, discursively, the contrasting power.

4.4 The Presence of Ideology-Driven & Political-Position-Driven Frames and the Lack of Cultural Frames

Both newspapers utilized the concept and keyword of Western to represent both the abstract and broad beliefs in ideology as well as the concrete policies and political stances (Guo et al., 2012). Therefore, such narrative is identified as both ideology-driven and political-position-driven domestic frames, which falls into the generic morality frame (see Tables 2 and 3). By elaborating the problem of transparency, NZZ commented the “construktive Unschärfe” (constructive fuzziness) as a characteristic of Chinese politics. It raises the example that there is still no official map of BRI: “Was Belt and Road genau umfasst, hat Peking nie definiert” (Beijing has never defined exactly what Belt and Road encompass) (Zoll, 2019).

Similar to what Peng (2004) found out that American news media’s coverage of China was “often motivated by ideology rather than newsworthiness”, the Swiss news media in this study also recorded an emotional overtone of its coverage about BRI highly critical of “selective aspects” of China in terms of the Western emotive and ideological quality (Dorogi, 2001). Ideology and political position are central components of people’s belief systems and social-cultural values that are not easily changed over time. Therefore, we should not expect swift change concerning political and ideological news frames in the short term (Peng, 2004). But what we could expect is a broadened frame variety with more cultural frames that may link to some mutual understanding between societies involved in the same international affairs. In the case of Swiss engagement of BRI, only one shared cultural frame is registered in the contextual corpuses. When China Daily discusses the Swiss perspective about BRI, it discussed that such a massive project would “take a generation to come true and yield its full benefits”, quoting what Maurer said, “(the BRI) really drives us to aim high and plan big, with a long-term vision at least 20 or 30 years ahead” (Luo & Chen, 2017). Such “long-term” cultural-embedded vision is echoed by NZZ, when it discussed how “Zwar denkt und handelt der chinesische Staatsapparat nach langjährigen Plänen” (the Chinese state apparatus thinks and acts according to long-term plans). While in the Chinese context, “us” may include both Swiss politicians and Swiss public, the Swiss media focused again only on political actors and discussed the matter in a totally different context. NZZ talked about the fact that the Chinese politicians have learned to adapt to the government change in some recipient countries of BRI due to local elections. Ideology-driven and political-position frame got further enforced, as “dass Wahlen auch zu Machtwechseln führen, mag aus westlicher Sicht eine Binsenwahrheit sein” (from a Western perspective it may be a truism that elections also lead to changes in power) while to Beijing, it takes more time and more rounds of negotiations to stick to the BRI plans as some Asian countries (like Malaysia) may put BRI projects temporarily on hold due to the change of their leaderships (Zoll, 2019).

Besides the critical argument on “some Western politicians” from China Daily (see 4.2), the contextual corpus of this study didn’t register other ideology-driven frames or comments responding to the different political value systems from China Daily. With much fewer conflict frames registered on China Daily, the Chinese media didn’t discredit what NZZ raised as problems questioning the feasibility and rationale of BRI. Therefore, an entire reasoning mechanism is missing here to represent an alternative Chinese explanation towards what NZZ presented as ideology and political values. “Alternative” here means not only simply telling from a general & positive Chinese perspective but also creating a detailed response that responds to what Swiss media selected and prioritized to the public. If China Daily considers the Swiss stakeholders as part of its targeted international readership, it must broaden its frame diversity—in terms of generic frames and especially domestic frames—and restructure its argumentation schemes, so that a presumptive and nonmonotonic reasoning pattern can be followed to reach communication goals (Walton, 1996).

Although the people-to-people exchange is one crucial element of BRI construction, this study did not find any human-interest frames or individual stories in both newspapers. China Daily briefly mentioned that education, tourism, and sports are part of the cooperation areas the two countries should strengthen (Fu, 2017b), without giving any further details. NZZ did not even mention these cultural cooperation areas at all. The common values in people’s well-being, environment protection, cultural respect and exchange, and the multilateralism approach both China and Switzerland strongly support were not found in the contextual corpus on both newspapers in this study. Without offering enough cultural notions to connect the individual experience to the meaning-making of BRI in the two societies, both newspapers failed to go beyond the economic bargain and political ideology constraints. There is an urgent need to introduce more cultural frames, or better to say, transcultural frames, in international news reporting and transnational comparative framing analysis. BRI-related topics can be one testing field for further investigation, as it is still a concept in development with multiple national players involved, and it is in high demand of multilevel human interactions. And only by looking at such “human interactions” with more emphasis on co-existence and inter-dependence and by seeing culture as not the barrier but the catalyst for good human relationship (Jiang et al., 2021), a more solid common ground for transcultural conversation can be established despite social-cultural differences between China, Switzerland, and other countries involved in BRI.