Critical discourse analysis of Chinese national image in <i>The Bangkok Post</i> (2013–2023): A comparison with Japan and the US

Chinese national image construction in non-Western media remains underexplored amid the Eurocentric bias in existing scholarship. To address this gap, this study aims to unpack the discursive mechanisms through which The Bangkok Post (2013–2023) constructs the national images of China, Japan and the United States, and to provide actionable insights for China’s international communication in Southeast Asia. We built three corpora and extracted all L1/R1 verb collocations with the help of AntConc to identify salient discursive patterns. Key findings reveal divergent framing strategies: China is predominantly constructed as a confrontational actor – a portrayal that is only minimally offset by its cooperative actions; the US emerges as a hypocritical hegemon characterized by predominantly negative and contradictory depictions; Japan is cast as a beneficial, non-threatening partner – most descriptions are positive or neutral, and negative ones are limited to non-political areas. Theoretically, this study extends CDA’s application in cross-national image research by integrating corpus methods to miti­gate subjectivity. Practically, it offers evidence-based guidance for China to refine its narrative strategy in ASEAN. This research enriches understanding of national image construction in multipolar contexts, highlighting non-Western media’s role as geopolitical intermediaries.