Preface

The international image of“Made in China”formed in the process of Chinese manufacturing enterprises' international contact. It is the comprehensive impression formed by foreign consumers，cooperative partners，government and enterprise toward various departments of Chinese government，enterprises，intermediaries，and so on. A series of crisis events happened in the Chinese industries，like toothpastes，toys，tires，milk powder after middle of 2000s made“Made in China”a substitution of“dangerous products”in western media. International media's licentious exaggeration of the bad qualities of“Made in China”and the increasing doubts from foreign companies and consumers had a negative impact on the reputation of Chinese products. The crisis was further upgraded into crisis of image and trust of“Made in China”，and the topic of food was switched into the topic of politics. The institutions and people that were related to“Made in China”were also stigmatized as negative images，namely，Chinese products are dangerous，Chinese government is incompetent，and the enterprises which ignore consumers' health are mercenary. After crisis，Chinese government and enterprises reflect on themselves and they started to re-establish their core competition. The image of“Made in China”，goes through the process of“Low price—pedlary—inferiority—transition”，is changing with the development of global economics. The change of international image of“Made in China”reflects the Western countries' cognition and construction toward Chinese products，enterprises，government and media.

This book reviews the historic and current situation of“Made in China”and divides it into five phrases，which are from 1979 to 1991，from 1992 to 2001，from 2002 to 2006，year 2007，and from to 2016.The relevant media discourse was collected and the corresponding corpus was established to find out and analyze the diachronic changes of international image and the discourse themes of“Made in China”in American and British mainstream medias，and the reason behind them. The characteristics of Chinese and American discourse from vocabulary，quotation and rhetoric，base on which it investigates the close relationship among politics，economics，culture，ideology and so on. The international image of“Made in China”in discourse from government，media，public and enterprises，the channel through which international dialogue to be constructed，and discourse environment which will promote national economic cooperation are explored in order to further improve the national discourse and rhetoric and re-establish the international image of“Made in China”. On the macro level，the book first studies the news discourse focus，namely the discourse themes，based on the database of The New York Times，The Washington Post， The Times and The Guardian. It finds out the news distribution of news coverage of the four medias in different phrases in similarity，and also analyzes the difference of statement，quantity of coverage and reasons from the four medias. An investigation of discourse speakers，topics，mediums，forms，contents，responding speed and effect are carried out from the macro perspective. On the micro level，the book analyzes discourse strategies based on the theories of Benoit's image repair and Coombs，Burke，Ware and Linkugel's Crisis response strategies. The book tries to explore the discourse strategies and skills implicated in various discourse action，and the power and ideology（e.g. culture，politics，economics and law）hided through the critical analysis of crisis discourse. The discourse problems in international image of“Made in China”has been pointed out，and the path and method of reconstructing“Made in China”'s image has been proposed.

As is revealed from the macro and micro analysis，the establishment of the international image of“Made in China”is shown by the conflicting discourse between China and America. This process witnesses“fight”against bias，through which the complicated discourse features have been disclosed in defending one's position，principle，belief on each side. In addition，it involves doubts，criticism，responses，arguments，and debates in the process of discourse conflict; meanwhile，it also goes through withstanding，approaching，agreement，reciprocity of benefit，and share of value. It is found that Chinese discourse in her image crisis changed from the silence，collision，refusal，and avoidance to positive confrontation，pursuit of equal dialogue，and active ease of crisis. The ability of mastering discourse power and priority，the emphasis of communication ways，the manipulation of communication medium，the careful choice of discourse rhetoric and strategies will ensure to the ease of crisis，problem solving，priority on certain significant topics，so as to defend our national image. The study of international image discourse of“Made in China”provides us not only the new research mode on both macro and micro level，which includes the presentation of speakers，the dominance of medium，the arrange of topics，and the manipulation of strategies，but also the discourse and linguistic methodologies and examples for Chinese contemporary discourse studies.