Columbia International Affairs Online: Working Papers

CIAO DATE: 12/2010

La construcción de la nueva imagen china a través de los medios: análisis de la ceremonia de inauguración de los Juegos Olímpicos de Beijing y el desfile del 60 aniversario de la República Popular China

Daniel Lemus Delgado

August 2010

CONfines de Relaciones Internacionales y Ciencia Política

Abstract

This essay analyses the Opening Ceremony of the 2008 Beijing Olympic Games and the National Day Parade commemorating the 60th Anniversary of the People’s Republic of China. These events are part of the communist government’s strategy to build an image of a Great China. This essay uses a constructivist approach; therefore it is assumed that collective identities are important because they shape the material structures of the international order. Thus, these media events strengthen the collective identity of the Chinese people and with it, the possibility that the Chinese state will have an increasingly important role in the international arena.