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This thesis investigates the usage of antagonistic narrative strategies in Chinese state media narratives about the European Union, thus gaining a greater understanding of the usage of narratives by authoritarian states. Articles published during March 2021 and November 2021 by the English-language Chinese state media organisation Global Times are analysed using a novel framework developed by Wagnsson & Barzanje (2021). This framework identifies three strategies used in antagonistic narration but has thus far only been applied to Russian media. Through the framework, the study found that Chinese state media narratively attacked the political systems of the EU and its member states, undermined their relationship with the United States, while also presenting a deepened EU-China relationship as constructive and necessary for the EU’s pursuit of strategic autonomy. The findings suggest that while the antagonistic narrative strategies used by Chinese and Russian media are the same, Chinese state media use different contexts and juxtapose the EU and its member states with different actors to cast them positively or negatively.

Information influence in its most manipulative form can be equated with an attack that threatens democratic values. In order to be able to identify, respond to, and counteract such an attack, it can be argued that it is fundamental to increase the understanding of information influence as a phenomenon. The Chinese President Xi Jinping has formulated an aim to make China democratic by2049. Despite this ambition, actions taken by Xi indicate the opposite direction. This thesis is motivated by the above paradox and attempts to provide insight to the matter by, based on the theoretical framework of strategic narratives, analyzing, by combining textual and narrative analysis, what patterns can be discerned in how democracy is portrayed in Chinese English-language state media. This study uses Global Times as empirical base. From the identified narrative patterns one can distinguish three strategic narratives; 1) The narrative where Western democracy is described as dysfunctional, 2) The narrative where democracy is described as a tool in the pursuit of more power, 3) The narrative whereChina's definition of democracy is described as superior and one Neutral, non-strategic, narrative. The analysis further demonstrates how these strategic narratives can be understood as information influence, produced to create mistrust between actors with the purpose to shape the receiver's perception about democracy. The thesis concludes that Global Times uses certain strategic narratives in combination to exert information influence. The overall strategy, as previous research already identified, is that China shapes its own definition of democracy by discrediting the Western and the generally accepted variant of the concept of democracy, while emphasizing its own. This study has sought not just to contribute with empirical evidence that they are doing this but to also describe how the systematic of the procedure appears – which the identified narrative patterns describe.

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