{"id":2052,"date":"2014-03-17T10:00:16","date_gmt":"2014-03-17T09:00:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.politicseastasia.com\/staging\/3558\/?p=2052"},"modified":"2015-08-22T18:07:51","modified_gmt":"2015-08-22T16:07:51","slug":"the-sichuan-earthquake-and-the-heavenly-mandate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.politicseastasia.com\/staging\/3558\/research\/vispolcom\/the-sichuan-earthquake-and-the-heavenly-mandate\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sichuan Earthquake and the Heavenly Mandate"},"content":{"rendered":"<h2>Legitimizing Chinese rule through disaster discourse<\/h2>\n<p>In the aftermath of the 2008 Sichuan earthquake, the Chinese authorities launched a major public relations campaign to relay positive images of their relief effort and strengthen their political legitimacy. The effect has been a proliferation of symbols and political statements related to the disaster, not only in the official media, but also in cultural products such as movies or mass-media events. The earthquake has become part of the discourse of suffering, struggle, solidarity, and ultimately victory.<\/p>\n<p>A\u00a0disaster like the Sichuan earthquake provides an\u00a0opportunity for the Chinese Communist Party to retain and even enhance its\u00a0legitimacy, particularly in light of the meaning that natural disasters traditionally have in Chinese politics. To the Chinese leadership, it is thus crucial\u00a0to not only manage natural disasters to\u00a0re-insure that its performance-based legitimacy does not wane, but more importantly,\u00a0it is also essential to manage the meanings that events like earthquakes and\u00a0government responses to such disasters have in popular discourse.<\/p>\n<p>This article, co-authored with <a href=\"http:\/\/www.lucthehague.nl\/about\/organisation-staff\/luc-faculty\/hwang.html\" target=\"_blank\">Jay Hwang<\/a>, examines the ways in which various cultural products present the Sichuan earthquake and asks what meanings national crises have in the Chinese discourse on political legitimacy. How are the meanings of the natural disaster tied to the Chinese discourse on legitimacy, and to what extent do\u00a0cultural representations of this event\u00a0relay the government\u2019s official disaster\u00a0discourse? To answer this question, the\u00a0article analyses two cases: Chinese film, here in the form of Feng Xiaogang\u2019s blockbuster <a href=\"http:\/\/www.imdb.com\/title\/tt1393746\/?ref_=fn_al_tt_2\" target=\"_blank\">Aftershock<\/a>, and performance-based discourses during the Beijing Olympics, the PRC\u2019s 60-Year Anniversary, and the Shanghai Expo.<\/p>\n<p>By conducting a discourse analysis, we show how the earthquake has become part of a recurring discursive formation that is used by state and non-state actors alike to legitimate China\u2019s developmental model. Within this discourse, the leadership of the Party, the mastery of free markets, and a revamped version of the Confucian idea of benevolent rule are marshaled as the decisive factors for winning any \u2018battle\u2019.<\/p>\n<h3>How to reference this article<\/h3>\n<p>Schneider, Florian &amp; Hwang, Yih-Jye (2014), &#8216;The Sichuan Earthquake and the Heavenly Mandate: Legitimizing Chinese Rule through Disaster Discourse&#8217;. <em>Journal of Contemporary China<\/em>, 23(88), 636-656.<\/p>\n<p>[button text=&#8221;Article via Taylor Francis\u00a0Online&#8221; link=&#8221;http:\/\/www.tandfonline.com\/doi\/abs\/10.1080\/10670564.2013.861145?queryID=%24%7BresultBean.queryID%7D#.VdiW_PmqpBd&#8221;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>This article, co-authored with Jay Hwang, examines the ways in which various cultural products present the Sichuan earthquake and asks what meanings national crises have in the Chinese discourse on political legitimacy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2053,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"image","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[53,55,56,54,49],"tags":[167,180,43,169,64,166,58,170,168,181,165,57],"class_list":["post-2052","post","type-post","status-publish","format-image","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-beijing-olympics","category-prc-anniversary","category-publications","category-shanghai-expo","category-vispolcom","tag-aftershock","tag-beijing-olympics","tag-china","tag-disaster","tag-discourse","tag-heavenly-mandate","tag-political-communication","tag-prc-anniversary","tag-road-to-revival","tag-shanghai-expo","tag-sichuan-earthquake","tag-visuality","post_format-post-format-image"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.4 - 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