RIGHTEOUS SELF, PROVOCATIVE OTHERS: CHINA-ALIGNED X USERS AND THE DIGITAL CONSTRUCTION OF STATE IDENTITY IN THE SOUTH CHINA SEA DISPUTES
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.35631/IJHPL.935001Keywords:
China-Aligned Users, Digital Nationalism, Legitimation, South China Sea Disputes, State Identity; XAbstract
The South China Sea (SCS) disputes are among the world’s most complex sovereignty contests. While substantial research has investigated the discourse of political elites and mass media, ordinary users’ discursive representations of the states involved in the disputes remain underexplored. This study centres on networked publics aligned with China’s stance to examine how they discursively construct and negotiate the role identities of China, co-claimant countries and extra-regional states, and how these identity constructions are mobilised to legitimise China’s claims and actions in the SCS disputes. The study integrates discourse-centred online ethnography, Social Media Critical Discourse Studies (SM-CDS) and the Discourse-Historical Approach (DHA) to analyse 312 posts tagged with #SouthChinaSea on X between September 2023 and July 2024. The findings show that these users construct a morally polarised identity constellation in which China is represented as a righteous, victimised and defensive Self, while co-claimant countries and extra-regional states, particularly the Philippines and the United States, are represented as provocative, dependent, interventionist or destabilising Others. It contributes to research on digital political communication by showing how state identity, geopolitical legitimacy and digitally mediated nationalist discourse are co-constructed in online public debates over maritime disputes.
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