Imagining Tiananmen in 1989: American Media, the Tiananmen Incident, and the Changing Sino-U.S. relationship

Abstract

This thesis is about how human rights issues were mediated by the American media, and as a consequence, influenced U.S-China relations at the end of the Cold War. Focusing my research on the news framing by some American news outlets of the 1989 Tiananmen enabled me to observe and understand their role. "Framing" suggests a strategy of news reporting. In some ways, it facilitates our recognizing the ideological lens through which Americans perceived China affairs. I conceptualize their ideological bent as an imagination of a "special relationship" between America and China. My thesis consists of three sections. The first two sections concern the American media coverage of the protests at Tiananmen and the military crackdown on June 4th. The news coverage consistently characterized the Tiananmen protest as a democratic movement intelligible to the informed public in the U.S. As a consequence, this news framing raised the American public's expectations for the protesters. When disillusioned, they turned hope into anger, which was then expressed in Congress in wake of the Tiananmen massacre. Thus, the final section addresses how the Congressional leaders' arguments corresponded with news framing of the Tiananmen protest. My thesis concludes with a reflection over the moral dilemma of liberalism in U.S. China policy and analyzes its implications for both publics in both countries in the future.