China in European Narratives: Policy, Identity, and Image by Li Zhang

A new title in the Routledge series Communicating China, Li Zhang's China in European Narratives examines the images of China in connection with its Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) in the European media and think tank reports in the period from 2013 to 2020. Three short introductory chapters present the topic, the relevant background information, and the theoretical framework. This is followed by two main parts, one providing an empirical analysis of the narratives of China and the BRI in the European transnational media and European Union (EU) think tanks, and the other providing an empirical analysis of the narratives of China and the BRI in three clusters of European countries.

The field of communication studies as practiced by this book seems to be caught up in the unenviable liminal space between journalism and academic research. While journalism informs the public about current events, the information presented in this book was already water under the bridge at the time of its publication. Europe's relationship to China has changed fundamentally in the past four years compared to the period from 2013 to 2020, which this book studies. Russia's invasion of Ukraine has driven a wedge in the political relations between Europe and China. The rapid advance of Chinese technology in electric mobility and renewable energy has driven a wedge in the economic relations between Europe and China. The Biden Administration's alliance-building efforts have prompted Europe to see China as a strategic adversary. Brussels has been abuzz with the rhetoric of "de-risking" the EU's relations with China (purportedly a benign form of "de-coupling" from China), Rome has exited the BRI, and one after another, Central and Eastern European countries have left the 16+1 format, which seems defunct at this point. In this new environment, which is bound to change again once the Trump Administration is sworn in, why do we want to spend time reading about the European attitudes to China in the years before the pandemic?

If a book in communication studies such as this one cannot compete with journalism for timely analysis of current affairs, we might reasonably expect its strength to lie in academic research. But in this respect, it proves to be too close to journalism to make a substantial contribution to scholarship. The first three chapters, intended to provide a general theoretical framework for the study, consist mostly of general surveys—a survey of the development of China–EU relations, a survey of theoretical considerations about images and stereotypes in international relations, a survey of the history of European representations of China, a survey of the concepts of "strategic narrative" and "rhetoric of motives," and a survey of think tanks and their role in international relations, to name a few. In my opinion, surveys may be of value to undergraduate students, but they do not belong in an academic monograph. For an in-depth account of the theoretical and methodological issues addressed in this book, one is better off turning to relevant titles in literary and historical studies.

In reading this book, one could not help but be reminded, again and again, of Max Weber's sober assessment of the value of scholarship. Scholarship, as he points out in his iconic 1917 essay "Wissenschaft als Beruf" ("Science as a Vocation"), produces mere provisional knowledge that "asks to be 'surpassed' and outdated" (p. 138). What a scholar has accomplished is predestined to be "antiquated in ten, twenty, fifty years"¹ (p. 138). Weber expected a shelf life of "ten, twenty, fifty years" for a scholarly book (p. 138). He would have to revise his expectations today.