China’s Strategic Narratives in Global Governance

Abstract

Discussions of global governance increasingly turn on a question that is not captured by the idea of simply “having a voice”: who is able to define the terms in which international problems are understood? This article approaches that question through strategic narrative. It argues that China’s concern with discursive power is connected both to changes in its material position and to dissatisfaction with a governance discourse historically shaped by Western experience. Three reasons make this issue consequential for China: safeguarding expanding interests, seeking changes in an international order in which developing countries remain under-represented, and contributing to the provision of public goods. The article then examines strategic narrative as a mechanism rather than as a collection of slogans. Narratives locate China within particular identities, make complex international issues intelligible through selected frames, and attach political meaning to time, space, and norms. The final section turns from mechanism to practice. It considers how experience formed in China may become useful beyond the Chinese context, how domestic standards may acquire wider legitimacy through negotiation, and how broad visions may generate limited but workable areas of agreement. The central claim is that discursive power is produced through an interaction among narrative, institutional practice, and audience recognition; none of the three is sufficient on its own.