An Analysis and Deconstruction of the Discourse Construction Process of the U.S.and Its Western Allies in the South China Sea Issue
After the end of the Cold War,the United States and its Western allies immersed themselves in the mythological narrative of"the end of history"that they had preconstructed.Under this locked-in"closed"historical presupposition,the U.S.and its western allies are seeking to use their discourse hegemony to reconstruct the global maritime order,including the South China Sea,into a homogenized imagined space to maintain the old-world order dominated by Western hegemonic powers.Their approach primarily involved employing an absolutely static synchronic expression strategy to achieve the homogenization of global maritime spatial order.The discourse ordering process consists of six phases:presupposition,conceptual purification,value embedding,object fragmentation,mirror-image argumentation,and construction of differences.Through the process,the U.S.and its Western allies have constructed their own discourse hegemony,artificially creating a pseudo-difference between China's dashed-line claims in the South China Sea and the provisions of the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea(UNCLOS).Within the framework of the"rules-based international order",which is an absolutely static synchronic discourse hegemony,this pseudo-difference has been framed as so-called"conflicts"or"disputes",ultimately fabricating the"China threat theory".As China's integration into the global system strengthens its agency,China can no longer be constrained by the hegemonic rules dominated by the U.S.and its western allies.Amid the unprecedented changes of this century,the South China Sea issue offers a chance to challenge the static hegemonic discourse of the US and West,ending their homogeneous global ocean order.It also provides an opportunity for China to establish a discourse promoting a dynamic,inclusive,and diverse global ocean spatial order.
South China Sea IssueAbsolute Static SynchronyDiscourse OrderingSpatial Order
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