Framing Economic Security: Political Communication and the Construction of Threats in Global Economic Competition A Three-Voice Framing Analysis of the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor

Abstract

This research paper examines the competing narratives of the West, China and Pakistan surrounding the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). Recently, economic security has emerged as an arena of competitive communication, where states do not simply respond to threats but actively create them through framing. While most of the current research concerning the 'debt-trap' and 'China threat' narratives focuses on the Western security viewpoint and on China's reaction, it frequently fails to take into account the way the countries affected by these narratives understand and present them, which are central to these projects. Drawing on a qualitative approach, this article addresses this gap by offering a three-perspective framing analysis of discursive competition over the China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). By synthesizing the insights from securitization theory with the framing tradition in political communication, it specifies five elements of each frame: definition of threat, object to be protected, and attribution of blame, proposed solutions, and moral evaluation. The framework is used in three different areas of discussion, and the analysis reveals that the West, China and Pakistan each present a different view of the situation and develops their own interpretation of CPEC and its importance, as a result of their respective strategic priorities and motivations. This article contributes to the study of economic security and analyzes the conceptual framing of threats through communication, advancing the framing discourse to an underexplored non-Western context, and extending a well-defined framework for comparative frame analysis.

Keywords: Political Communication, Economic security, Belt and Road Initiative, Strategic narratives, China–Pakistan Economic Corridor, Framing, Securitization.

https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.22772070