The Representation and Reception of China’s Strategic Narratives in Europe: Public Opinion and Media Coverage of Chinese Investment in the United Kingdom

In this paper we examine how China’s strategic narratives relating to international investment are represented in two major British newspapers and how they are perceived by the British public. We create and analyse a new dataset of newspaper articles on China’s Belt and Road Initiative and conduct a survey of the British public’s attitudes to China and foreign affairs more generally, including a survey experiment that examines responses to Chinese investment in UK infrastructure. Using this mixed-method analysis allows us to identify where China’s official narrative on its international investment projects is resonating and where it faces resistance, as well as to examine the extent to which public attitudes to Chinese investment in strategic infrastructure such as telecommunications networks are affected by a range of factors, including images of other countries and specific concerns over national security and economic trade-offs.