EU-Europe, US-America and PR-China in perception and politics: Discourses, differences and similarities

Pages: 799-804
Jan-Boje Frauen (School of International Relations, Xiamen University, China)

Even in academia, the long-established ‘East-West’ dichotomy is typically taken for granted in the production of new knowledge on ultimately old and outdated terms. Due to its unprecedented rise out of poverty and to economic, military, and not least cultural power, the People’s Republic of China (PR-China; PRC) has been subjected to the ‘East vs. West’ discourse more than any other political entity during the last two decades. In fact, many publications seem to disregard the fact that there is an ‘East’ other than the PRC these days. The present article employs an analysis of the geo-political triangle EU-Europe, US-America and PR-China in terms of politics and perceptions to display that the alleged ontological stability ascribed to the ‘East-West’ divide is to be seen as an ‘Othering’ mechanism that ‘Western’ political structures employ to strengthen their own unity. In fact, PR-China employs essentially ‘Western’ politics and perceives the political world through ‘Western’ patterns of sense-making as much as the European Union and the United States fundamentally diverge from each other in what each of them defines as ‘Western’ values.