. 2020 Sep 16;26(1):89–113. doi: 10.1007/s11366-020-09697-1

Table 4.

Topos used to justify China’s globalist stance

Topoi	Claim	Examples (Chinese corpus) translated by the author	Examples (English corpus)
Reality	China is an active proponent for globalism and plays an important role in containing the worldwide pandemic.	China immediately reported the epidemic situation to WHO, shared the new coronavirus gene sequence with other countries, and cooperated with [the] international community. This was a fact and obvious to all, and was generally praised by the international community (People’s Daily, 27 April 2020).	Ndiaye said the fact that China has shared information with the World Health Organization since the early days of the outbreak has also helped the organization and other governments to better respond to the COVID-19 pandemic (China Daily, 7 May 2020)
Usefulness	International cooperation or multilateralism is useful for overcoming the pandemic.	It is urgent to increase cooperation on multilateral latitudes and fight the pandemic together with multilateral efforts. Only by building a community with a shared future for mankind can we maintain common health and well-being and a better development prospect (People’s Daily, 24 April 2020).	Countries must enhance their consciousness of a community with a shared future for mankind … closer international cooperation, coordinated policies concerted actions, and mobilization of resources and forces globally will enable us to defeat this virus, a common enemy to all of humanity (China Daily, 20 April 2020)
Opportunity	China offers window of opportunity in global COVID-19 fight.	At present, China’s economy is gradually returning to the right track, and it is believed that China’s economic development after the epidemic will be healthier. China’s goal of building a well-off society in an all-round way will not only bring development opportunities to the economies of all countries, but also make a major contribution to the innovation of global governance models (People’s Daily, 13 March 2020).	The international community should seize the opportunity to control the epidemic while China can provide useful and proven experience in fighting it (Beijing Review, 5 March 2020)

Topoi

Claim

Examples (Chinese corpus) translated by the author

Examples (English corpus)

Reality

China is an active proponent for globalism and plays an important role in containing the worldwide pandemic.

China immediately reported the epidemic situation to WHO, shared the new coronavirus gene sequence with other countries, and cooperated with [the] international community. This was a fact and obvious to all, and was generally praised by the international community

(People’s Daily, 27 April 2020).

Ndiaye said the fact that China has shared information with the World Health Organization since the early days of the outbreak has also helped the organization and other governments to better respond to the COVID-19 pandemic (China Daily, 7 May 2020)

Usefulness

International cooperation or multilateralism is useful for overcoming the pandemic.

It is urgent to increase cooperation on multilateral latitudes and fight the pandemic together with multilateral efforts. Only by building a community with a shared future for mankind can we maintain common health and well-being and a better development prospect (People’s Daily, 24 April 2020).

Countries must enhance their consciousness of a community with a shared future for mankind … closer international cooperation, coordinated policies concerted actions, and mobilization of resources and forces globally will enable us to defeat this virus, a common enemy to all of humanity (China Daily, 20 April 2020)

Opportunity

China offers window of opportunity in global COVID-19 fight.

At present, China’s economy is gradually returning to the right track, and it is believed that China’s economic development after the epidemic will be healthier. China’s goal of building a well-off society in an all-round way will not only bring development opportunities to the economies of all countries, but also make a major contribution to the innovation of global governance models

(People’s Daily, 13 March 2020).

The international community should seize the opportunity to control the epidemic while China can provide useful and proven experience in fighting it (Beijing Review, 5 March 2020)