Win-Loss-Win in the US–China Game: A Cross-cultural Analysis of a TV Anchor Debate Between Trish Regan and Liu Xin

2.1 Media Features in the West and China

Western media mean the mainstream media in the highly industrialized, Euro-American countries. This paper focuses on mass media, which refer to channels, media, utilities, devices, or instruments used in the mass communication process (Wahab et al. 2017). Mass media have already experienced the printed, electronic, and cyber stages with the developmental trajectory of the mainstream media merging with the new or social media. For quite some time, it is the Western media that predominate the international milieu of the mass media. Since the U.S. overtook Britain in the 1870s and began taking the lead in the world economy, it is now “facing an economic rival that is as large, and by some measures, larger than it is,” because “China has already surpassed the United States to become the biggest economy in the world based on purchasing power parity” (Allison et al., 2022, p. 2). Moreover, as of June 2023, among the 5.18 billion global Internet users, or 64.6 % of the world population, 4.8 billion, or 59.9 % of the people in the world, were social media prosumers. Specifically, China has already become the world leading market in terms of the number of Internet users, followed by India and the US (Petrosyan, 2023, para. 2). Thus, we can see the dramatically decreasing gaps between the US and China in terms of both overall economic volume and the media hardware or infrastructure.

However, the Western media are still superior in that, first, they generate the majority of the news content which then flows to non-Western countries. Even if periphery locations may also produce some eye-catching news items, they can hardly bring about substantial changes. Second, in the liberal system with the US and Britain as leaders, “the global media system shows a trend of homogenization, and the ‘autonomy’ of the media is widely regarded as the cornerstone of political democracy and the legitimacy of journalism” (Ji, 2021, p. 2). Finally, the discourse power of international public opinions is mostly dominated by the institutionalized media institutions originating from Western countries and delivering to the world market. Nonetheless, some changes are arousing concerns and raising alarms. Spencer (2022) noticed that as social media continues to grow, China’s 650 million Internet users are enjoying their social platforms and networks, “boasting user bases exceeding half a billion accounts” (para. 1).

Huang and McAdams (2000) noted that China and other non-Western countries have been reported in apparently biased, negative, and crisis-filled styles by some Western reporters who may oversee their professional standards. They are likely to dramatize problems and overplay controversy in non-Western countries to catch readers’ eye with headline-making news. It is found that certain Western media tend to discriminate against developing countries while prioritizing Western supremacism. Western media’s overall focus on wars, conflicts, and catastrophes in developing countries has been psychologically detrimental to the image of these countries. Regardless of its dramatic changes in all social sectors, China has been represented in Western media as the “other” vis-à-vis “us” based on ideological differences and conventional stereotypes (Zhang, 2018).

As time goes by, due to political, economic, and technological factors, the US press has to face the challenges of “embracing the roles of reporting things as they are, educating the audience, and providing information for decision-making at various levels” (Vos & Craft, 2017, p. 2). Consequently, more and more US press began using online search engines for information and relying on social media to promote their work. This means that the conventionally institutionalized Fourth Estate has been affected by the social trends shifting from multilateralism to unilateralism and from globalization back to isolation. This is why Tanaka (2019) sharply claimed that “the US currently has no binding narrative to anchor it in time and place” (para. 9). Thus, it is easy to understand why war journalism got the upper hand in the US, which tends to flare up the conflict by concentrating on crime and violence while taking sides of the elites and facilitating the governments to “achieve a ‘victory’ for the home country” (Ha et al., 2020, p. 1).

As for the Chinese media, for thousands of years, influenced by the Confucian beliefs that “a just cause should be undertaken for the commonwealth” or for “the harmony, unity and shared community for states” (Zengzi, 2006–2023), the Chinese culture has put priority on the common interests of the community over the unrestrained rights of the individual. Meanwhile, it has become the national initiative of present-day China to seek mutual benefits in a shared community via its “One Belt, One Road” initiative rather than striving for one’s national interests at any cost.

[Post online publication correction added 11 April 2025: the citation (Brady, 2015) was removed.]

As a result, peace journalism has become prevalent in China, which emphasizes the representation all sides, “exposing the lies and untruths, with a focus on peace and benefits for the common people” (Ha et al., 2020, p. 1). Thus, it is ironic that the traditional media roles of the Fourth Estate in the West and the governmental mouthpiece in China seem to be exchanging places.

2.2 The Cultural Roots of the US–China Conflicts

Katz and McNulty (1994) defined conflict as a negative situation involving at least two interdependent parties due to “perceived differences” (p. 1). Upon coming to office in 2001, the Bush administration began treating China as a “military competitor with a formidable resource base” (Yuan, 2003, p. 39). Therefore, containment of China has been adopted “as an alternative to engagement” (Layne & Thayer, 2007, p. 72), by making it its manifest destiny to protect American interests “regardless of overriding international concerns, and to maintain world stability even if it has to go against international consensus” (Snow, 2007, p. 42). The very nature of the Bush Doctrine requires that the US “act in ways that others cannot and must not,” which is “not a double standard, but what the world order requires” (Jervis, 2003, p. 376). To follow up, the Trump Administration began treating China as a “long-term strategic competitor” as part of its National Security Strategy issued on December 12, 2017, to “make America great again” and the Biden Administration followed suit by emphasizing the rules-based international order, the US–China conflicts have become multi-dimensional—from trade to “security-related, economic, technological and ideological dimensions” (Perthes, 2020, pp. 5–6). To China, President Trump’s call to “make America great again” runs contrary to China’s call to seek win-win results in its bilateral and multi-lateral relations. Meanwhile, the “rules” as uttered by the US politicians and mainstream media refer to the US-established rules instead of those under the UN Charter. Thus, no matter who is the president of the US, it is the American strategic objective to maintain its supremacy and to be on guard against any threats from both allies and potential rivals in the globalized world (Amin, 2006, p. 10).

Researchers (e.g., Chu, 2011; Geftner, 2008; Jia & Ji, 2018; Shi, 2012) found that it is characteristic of the Western culture to inherit individualism and adventurous spirit from the ancient Greek and Roman civilizations. First, while pursuing equality, freedom, science, and reason based on individualism and pragmatism, Westerners tend to impose their preferences on other nations and cultures with the assumption that language is meant for personal goals. Second, due to the influence of Descartes’ dualism, people in the West try to locate a mechanical causal relationship between two variables. Finally, due to the impacts of Derrida’s postmodernism and Saussure’s structuralism, Western scholars hold the belief that a language is the carrier of meaning, thus laying more emphasis on the form and content of language while neglecting the roles of language users and the context.

In contrast, developed from mainly an agricultural civilization, China since ancient times has nurtured a culture of sharing and good neighborly relationships. This is why China’s four ancient inventions of paper, printing, compass, and powder have been circulated worldwide throughout human history for so long and for free with few people from the Western world appreciatively associating them with intellectual property. To prevent invasions from outsiders, China has completed the construction of the Great Wall from generation to generation. To display its national power, Zheng He’s ocean-going voyages (1405–1433) occurred 7 times with a crew member of over 20,000 for each voyage without colonizing an inch of foreign land.

Today, China is engaged in implementing its dream of economic prosperity, national renewal, and people’s well-being as a grand pursuit. To this end, China has been associating the Chinese Dream with the American Dream by establishing a new type of bilateral relationship of “no conflict and no confrontation” between China and the US (Economy, 2021, p. 1). Nonetheless, to the US side, China has become a regional power in the Indo-Pacific region by prioritizing its economic, security, technological, and political preferences. Determined to confront China as a strategic competitor in a long-term, life-and-death game, the US has been engaged in a series of wars in trade, human rights, intellectual property rights, territorial disputes, and defense of its world supremacy.

In terms of the roots, the traditional culture of China is featuring a combination of Confucianism, Buddhism, and Taoism by seeking balance and unity between heaven and man. Externally, it seeks a peaceful and harmonious relationship between mankind and nature. Internally, it pursues self-improvement through “cultivating one’s own character, regulating the family, ruling the state, and bringing peace to the whole world” (Zengzi, 2006–2023, para. 2). Meanwhile, it is characteristic of the contemporary Chinese culture to adopt Marxism, Leninism, and socialism with Chinese characteristics at the core, maintain the Chinese ways of life as they are and bring Western science and technology into full swing for practical advancements (Jia & Ji, 2018). Clearly, present-day China is practicing Chinese-style modernization, with its “Belt and Road” initiative since 2013. Insightfully, Jacques (2019) remarked that China’s successful transformation results from its earnest learning and creative absorption from both the West and its Asian neighbors by exploring its native sources so dynamically that the West needs to learn from the East” (p. 394).

As a result, Chinese interactions tend to be forbearing, flexible, and leisurely in order to establish and maintain harmony through morality. Regarding the US–China conflicts, no matter whether it is a specific trade war or the possible war between an established power and a rising one, negotiations on equal footing and collaboration for mutual benefits may be the only and ultimate alternatives. Just as Mahbubani (2021) remarked, so long as the decision-makers prioritize the genuine happiness of their respective peoples as the top agenda, even “opposing forces between the US and China may also coexist peacefully” (p. 19).

3.1 The Cultural Game Theory

A game is an activity of making choices to achieve equilibrium for maximum benefit (Chu, 2011). A game theory refers to “a study on the rational behaviors of rational participants and their realization of participation equilibrium when the behaviors of multiple participants interact with each other in the case of risk uncertainty” (Wang, 2005, p. 101). In other words, a game theory concerns two or more than two parties aiming at their respective maximum gains based on full awareness of the rivals in the contexts of competition, cooperation, and conflicts. It is Von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern who are two American mathematicians that increased the number of the game participants from two to more than two, extended game as a formal discipline and, ultimately applied a systematic game theory into the field of economics. With further contributions by John Forbes Nash, Jr., John Harsanyi, Reinhard Seltern and James Morris, etc., the game theory became increasingly popular in politics, economics, management, military affairs and cultural studies.

According to Wang (2005), a cultural game means the “symbiosis between communication and collision, dialogue and confrontation that emerges in cultural exchanges” (p. 101). Gong and Zhao (2015) applied the cultural game theory in cultural security between China and the Western world. Based on their research findings, the two scholars have identified three features in the games between China and Western countries: first, the game participants are personified sovereign states; second, the games may start before the players completely understand each other in terms of their characteristics, strategy space or expected benefits; and, finally, the participating countries usually have no intention to cooperate and just make decisions based on their interests. The game characteristics will facilitate the clarification of the participants, types or nature, and possible results of the games.

3.2 WGTICC

Tian’s (2021) WGTICC deals with making choices of communication strategies between the range of the “best and the softest” through “carrying boats and capsizing boats” and “the most violent and the strongest.” The choices are made in correspondence with the positive zero-sum, zero-sum, and negative zero-sum game intentions in the case of cooperative or non-cooperative, static or dynamic, or conventional or unconventional situations. The applicability of the theory lies in the fact that water image metaphors “convey a significant Chinese philosophical proposition and political doctrine, which functions as the primary source of understanding modern Chinese ideas” (Chen & Holt, 2002, p. 155).

To demonstrate the dual functions of the theory of adopting the best possible communication strategies and achieving optimal game results, a diagram has been constructed as can be seen in Figure 1. Along the vertical line, the nodes from “the best and the softest” through “carrying boats and capsizing boats” to “the most violent and the strongest” communication strategies are marked from the bottom (0) to the top (1). First, the most desirable and most undesirable are two relative and dynamic concepts rather than absolute and static concepts. Second, between the most desirable and the most undesirable or the range between 0 and 1, there are countless choices of communication strategies, and the final decision on a certain point along this continuum is determined by the rival player’s flexible intentions. Finally, the midpoint on the vertical axis is a point of reference, with the choices above it likely to move toward the “most undesirable” while those below towards the “most desirable”. This means that this mid-point itself does not participate in the representation of the hypothetical relationship between the two axes.

Figure 1:

WGTICC (after Tian, 2021, p. 679).

At the same time, this theory uses the game as an analogy, indicating that, in general, the three options of the positive zero sum (win-win, WW), zero-sum (win-lose, WL) and negative zero sum (lose-lose, LL) are in correspondence with the most favorable to the most unfavorable outcomes along the horizontal line. Usually, each player is expected to achieve either a win-win or a win-lose outcome. However, on some occasions, a player may purposely choose the zero-sum or even negative zero-sum outcome. Thus, the decision to adopt which communication strategy within the range must be flexible and creative.

Specifically, WGTICC contains 6 assumptions, the third of which reads:

(3) If the rival player shows a clear zero-sum intention, and the host player makes decisions likely to move towards the best and the softest communication strategy, then the game is likely to end with a winning host and a losing rival (Tian, 2021, p. 679).

In the above figure, WW stands for win-win, LL lose-lose, WL win-lose and LW lose-win. Since the present study discusses the complicated games with unexpected outcomes between China and the US, all kinds of game intentions and corresponding communication strategies are possible, which are, fortunately, within the overall structure of the theory.

3.3 The Cultural Analysis Model

Culture is defined as “a description of a particular way of life,” which convey the meanings and values in art, learning, institutions and ordinary behaviors (Williams, 1961, p. 43). Culture is also defined as “the total way of life and all the objects created to meet the needs of the way of life,” which comprises the “material level of processed nature or products of human labor, institutional level of scientific assumptions, political organizations, and social systems, and the conceptual level of value systems, thinking patterns, and national character” (Pang, 1986, p. 84). Combining the two scholars’ definitions of culture, we operationalize our understanding of culture as a total way of life, with all the cultural elements categorized at the material, institutional, and conceptual levels (see Figure 2).

Figure 2:

A cultural analysis model (after Williams, 1961; Pang, 1986).

It was in 1934 that Ruth Benedict, an anthropologist, first proposed the concept of cultural pattern, which she defined as “a whole of thought and behavior with internal consistency and interrelated parts” (p. 48). Since all cultures have their unique characteristics, there are quite several cultural patterns. As for which cultural pattern to apply, it depends on the specific nature of the cross-cultural game and the dynamic situation the gaming participants find themselves in. The cultural analysis model described above can help explore the cultural roots for the adopted gaming intentions and communication strategies at the material, institutional, and conceptual levels. As Huntington (1996) noted, in the global politics today, “alignments defined by ideology and superpower relations” are gradually replaced by those “defined by culture and civilization” (p. 125). Thus, the three theories have been integrated into the theoretical frameworks that guide this study.

5.1 Gaming Intentions and Communication Strategies

To identify the involved game intentions and communication strategies and analyze them as illustrations of the relevant assumptions in WGTICC, we categorize the TV anchor debate between Trish Regan and Liu Xin into the following three rounds.

5.2 Illustrations of the Assumption in WGTICC

Upon close examinations of the three rounds of gaming intentions and communication strategies concerning the assumptions in WGTICC, we found that the selected case has illustrated and expanded the third assumption of the said theory. This assumption reads: “If the rival player shows a clear zero-sum intention, and the host player makes decisions likely to move towards the best and the softest communication strategy, then the game is likely to end with a winning host and losing rival” (Tian, 2021, p. 679). Our arrival at this conclusion results from the following reasoning process.

During the process of the debate, Regan was, in form, the host and she did play the dominant role as a question master during the whole process of the 15 min debate. In reality, it was Liu’s extraordinary performances in terms of both her external character and internal content that shifted her role as a guest into a genuine host because Regan compromised in the process of the debate, gradually changed her attitude towards Liu and China, and eventually followed Liu’s train of thought in the hope of achieving a mutually prosperous US–China trade relation. This means that the assumption of a winning host and losing rival has been illustrated. Considering Regan’s compromise halfway and positive change of attitude towards the end of the debate, especially her apparent expectations of mutual prosperity for both countries, we’d like to expand the assumption from a win-loss to a win-loss-win result, thus expanding the adopted theory of its third assumption. It is worth mentioning here that Trish Regan should be commended for inviting Liu Xin and “welcoming different views on this show” (CGTN, 2019a, para. 2). Otherwise, there would be no such unprecedented, epoch-making, and far-reaching intercultural phenomenon.

5.3 Cultural Roots for the Adopted Gaming Intentions and Communication Strategies

We explored the cultural roots of the gaming intentions and the communication strategies in the adopted case at the material, institutional, and conceptual levels.

At the material level, we found that Fox Business Network and CGTN are not only two media outlets but also two representatives of the US and Chinese mainstream media. While sharing the similarity of being mainstream mass media outlets, they are substantially different in some significant aspects. According to Vigna and Kaplan (2007), it was Rupert Murdock who introduced the 24-h Fox Business News in the US in October 1996. With its headquarters in Delaware, Fox Corporation is a company focusing on news, sports, and entertainment, whose reports and management cover cable network programming, TV, and other corporate eliminations. With a leaner management structure, Fox Corporation keeps growing with financial support from the most recognized and influential US media brands and the establishment of customer relationships based on trust with tech-savvy Fox brands. As of 2021, FOX News and FOX Business are offering their services to “approximately 75 million U.S. households, with the FOX Network available to nearly all U.S. households” (Fox Corporation, 2021, p. 3).

However, mass media in the West have long been brought into the track of marketization and industrialization. Being media and business entities simultaneously, Western media are subject to certain economic consortia. With their private property rights, full economic freedom of choice, and production and consumption information of the market, they have one thing, i.e. the audience, to take to heart. In other words, the life of the Western media is in the hands of the audience. As a result, “meeting the needs of the audience has become the principle of maximizing the interests of the media and the basis and guarantee for them to obtain readers, markets, and profits” (Guo, 2011, p. 19). Trish Regan held a very strong and predominant position in the beginning part of the debate, and her illocutionary acts have been nurtured in the atmosphere of her job place, baked by the US superpower and Western hegemony (Liu & Diao, 2020, p. 151).

As for CGTN, it is a component of CCTV’s foreign-language news services. To expand and strengthen its international broadcasting services for external publicity, CCTV-9 was established in 2000, which was meant to broadcast on a 24-h cycle to target international audiences. To build its own CNN, China expanded the mission of CCTV-9 from “a window to understand China” to “windows to understand both China and the world” with multilingual broadcasting services in Mandarin, English, French, Spanish, Arabic and Russian. Since 2016, CCTV-News services were further expanded with a new name CGTN. The dual objectives of CGTN are “to re-brand its media products to the overseas markets and to keep up with the contemporary trends in global media convergence” (Zhang, 2018, p. 61).

As part of CCTV, CGTN is overseen by the central government which provides mostly ideological guidelines and thought directives. CGTN is supervised by the State Administration of Radio, Film, and Television (SARFT). However, it is characteristic of CGTN to recruit world-known reporters from foreign broadcasting giants in addition to new generations of journalists who have received further training abroad focused on media professionalism. CGTN like its other components of CCTV used to be funded by the government, but it began to raise funding from advertising revenues as well. By following successful Western models like CNN and BBC and by relying on using the latest technology such as Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Weibo, and apps for hand-held devices, CGTN began offering services in English in as many as 20 world capitals to about “120 nations with a population of 120 million people” (Maina, 2018, p. 33). In brief, CGTN can hardly become a genuine global news channel with its present control. Given its rapid expansion, CGTN as part of “the contra-flow is still short of the power to reverse the dominant flow in global cultural industries” (Lu, 2013, p. 53). While Trish Regan is no longer working for Fox Business News, Liu Xin is still the host of “The Point with Liu Xin” with CGTN, as of August 22, 2023.

At the institutional level, the US media have been undergoing a dramatic transition. Traditionally, as the Fourth Estate enjoys the Constitutionally-authorized full freedom, the US press has been upholding the ideals of nonpartisan, objective, accurate, and fair journalism ethics while playing the watchdog functions of monitoring and scrutinizing political leaders and businesses and keeping the ordinary citizens informed in a detached manner. During conflicts between countries, journalists are expected to play important roles of “contributing to the retention or creation of peace and stability in conflict-affected and threatened areas” (Puddephatt, 2006, p. 4). However, the conventionally institutionalized Fourth Estate has been affected by the social trends shifting from multilateralism to unilateralism and from globalization back to isolation. Coupled with the above, the institution of the US media has also been catalyzed by reinforcing a national identity based on heavy sensationalism and prioritizing the US interests rooted in the largely profit-driven media industry (McChesney, 2003).

Accordingly, Trish Regan supported then President Trump’s trade war against China by calling the American people to act on China on her show in a simple-minded way instead of a critical manner. As time passed by, President Trump stepped down, and President Biden is now the host of the Oval Office in the US. While the US–China trade war has been going on endlessly, the pandemic of COVID-19 broke out in January 2020. The Fox Business Network “parted ways with Trish Regan when she ignited controversy by dismissing the coronavirus pandemic as a conspiracy” to make President Trump step down (Darcy, 2020, para. 1).

Similarly, China’s mainstream and social media have been institutionally reshaping themselves in the past decades. According to Ha et al. (2020), the US media was conventionally hailed as a responsible watchdog of libertarianism, but journalism in China has been usually likened to a “state machine” or “mouthpiece” by following the footprints of the former Soviet communist practice. As a result, many people in the West tend to think that China’s media have been under complete control and got its funding totally from the government. Consequently, they have been the only “sources to obtain information about the outside world” (p. 5). Dramatic changes, however, have been witnessed in the Chinese media as a whole in the past decades.

Since its economic reform and opening up to the outside world policy in 1979, China’s mainstream media have been divided into the Party press and the market-oriented press. The market-oriented press is increasingly commercialized by taking the market and consumers into consideration to attract clients and advertising for its survival and performance. As a result, there has been a new form of professionalism meant to observe such main principles as (1) exercising oversight over the work and conduct of public officials, (2) informing the public of important events, and (3) reflecting public debates on important issues by professionally trained journalists many of whom had been trained even in the West. Since 2014, it has been China’s national mission to develop and construct positive images on myriads of platforms such as online news sites, mobile news apps, Weibo, and WeChat for media convergence. In addition, social media also provide new online platforms where people and organizations produce various news and information to a huge number of audiences (Ha et al., 2020, p. 5). Such changes and developments in the institution of China’s media have made it possible for CGTN program presenter Liu Xin to outshine Trish Regan and attract millions of viewers to follow the debate.

Conceptually, according to Williamson et al. (2011), it is the Republican business elites that injected a new identity to the conservative activists during the 2008 presidential campaign. Such conservative media as the Fox News began mobilizing conservatives for reinforced identity and revitalized conservatism by “pulling the national Republican Party toward the far right” (p. 25). Although conservatism is marked with division instead of unity around the world including the US, anti-Communism has been a uniting force in the conservative movement, and President Trump voiced his support “to a dedicated core of generally right-wing supporters like an ‘authoritarian’” (Ball et al., 2020, para. 5). Thus, it is easy to understand why journalists like Trish Regan in the US and other Western countries are likely to feel frozen in time and turn to “attack” as the only action in times of a crisis, instead of “standing on firm ground and forming a cogent, unified response” (Tanaka, 2019, para. 9).

As for China, with the prevailing Confucian beliefs that a just cause should be pursued for the commonwealth of all and the whole world ought to be one harmonious community, priority has been placed on the common good of the society over the unrestrained rights of the individual. Meanwhile, it has become the national initiative of present-day China to seek a shared community of the common destiny of mankind via its “Belt and Road” initiative rather than striving for one’s own national interests at any cost.

[Post online publication correction added 11 April 2025: the sentence “To this end, President Xi Jinping set it a task for the state media to “portray China as a civilized country featuring a rich history, ethnic unity, and cultural diversity, and as an Eastern power with a good government, a developed economy … and beautiful scenery” (Brady, 2015, p. 55).” was removed.]

Domestically, the Chinese media landscape has evolved by leaps and bounds thanks to the advances in satellite and cable TV, digitized Internet, and social media. To strengthen its international discourse power, China has been taking full advantage of the popular video-sharing platforms like YouTube in the US. Meanwhile, China has made substantial investments to globalize its state-run media such as the creation of CGTN in 2016, whose aims are to serve the global audiences with accurate and timely news coverage and to “enhance mutual trust between China and other countries through cultural exchanges” (CGTN, 2020).

It is clear that, to enhance its international discourse power by disseminating its intended messages to the targeted audiences, CGTN as a representative of China’s mainstream media outlets, has imbedded its mission within the national initiative. Its objectives of disseminating “accurate and timely news” for cultural exchange and intercultural communication are also in line with the task goal of the nation’s top leadership. Thus, it is easy to understand Liu Xin’s careful preparation, impressive performance, and modest self-appraisal throughout the debate with her US counterpart.