Introduction

In 2013, Chinese President Xi Jinping launched the Belt and Road Initiative (B&R), a comprehensive and ambitious global development strategy aimed at enhancing economic cooperation and fostering shared development across countries. The initiative spans multiple regions, including Asia, Europe, and Africa, and involves numerous partner countries committed to building trade networks, improving infrastructure, and facilitating people-to-people exchanges. Over the past decade, significant milestones have been achieved, including the development of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor and the China-Europe Railway Express (also called China-Europe freight trains), both of which have played a crucial role in improving regional connectivity and boosting trade. These initiatives, along with other major infrastructure projects like railways, highways, ports, and energy pipelines, have reshaped global trade routes and strengthened economic ties between China and its partners (Hu, 2024).

However, despite its success, there are concerns that the Chinese public may not fully grasp the complexities and progress of B&R projects (van Noort, 2021). This has spurred the Chinese government to launch a series of domestic publicity initiatives. Among these efforts, a key component is the establishment of an integrated B&R digital platform, jointly guided by China’s National Development and Reform Commission and Xinhua News Agency. This platform provides timely responses to domestic concerns, offering authoritative explanations of the core principles of the B&R and updates on its progress. It includes a variety of news media channels, such as official websites, WeChat, Weibo, and Douyin, to ensure widespread dissemination of information. An important section of the platform is the “China Overseas Projects (Bi-)Weekly Report”, a business newsletter that regularly compiles the achievements of Chinese enterprises involved in B&R projects. Primarily serving domestic audiences, this (bi-)weekly report provides timely, business-oriented updates on the latest progress in economic and commercial cooperation between China and other B&R countries.

Amidst rapid digital transformation, social media has become an essential tool for public communication due to its unique affordances—active participation, speed, and accessibility—that facilitate rapid information dissemination and responsive engagement (Che et al., 2023; Wen et al., 2024). Unlike traditional policy reports that are strictly controlled and formal, social media allows for more adaptable messaging that can address immediate public concerns (Wu and Sun, 2023; Yu et al., 2025). In China’s B&R business newsletters, the effective dissemination of economic achievements through digital channels also serves a strategic function: it helps legitimize state messaging. Because most B&R projects are implemented overseas and rarely encountered by domestic audiences, such communications risk being dismissed as hollow self-praise. To counter this perception and reinforce public confidence in government authority, it is hypothesized here that these newsletters might be subtly calibrated to balance the benefits of rapid digital dissemination with the need to establish a both credible and state-sanctioned narrative.

Although there is an expanding body of literature on governmental communications, business newsletters, and social media use, few studies have explored how these affordances shape the discursive strategies of state-sponsored communications within the context of the B&R. Rather than merely filling an empirical gap, this study is driven by the need to understand whether and how digital transformation is reshaping political communication practices in China, and how these changes reflect broader shifts in domestic governance and economic diplomacy. In order to fully examine the discursive mechanism in B&R business newsletters, this study adopts a triangulated discursive analysis approach. By integrating quantitative descriptive methods with qualitative interpretive analyses, this approach provides a comprehensive framework that captures both the structural patterns and the underlying sociopolitical narratives in the discourse (Egbert and Baker, 2019).

To summarize, this study aims to systematically examine how business newsletters on the Chinese social media platform WeChat facilitate the domestic promotion of B&R’s economic achievements. Through a triangulated methodological approach, it investigates the lexico-grammatical and generic features of these newsletters, the communicative and narrative strategies they employ, and the broader ideological positioning embedded within their discourse.

Literature review

This section situates three research questions in the broader literature on political communication about the B&R and the genre of business newsletter, with a focus on establishing the research scope and significance of this study.

Previous studies of political communication about the B&R

Previous studies on the B&R have extensively explored its practice in international political communication. Researchers have examined how the B&R has been framed in global news media, highlighting the narratives used by various countries to either support or criticize the initiative (Hu, 2024). For example, Xiao et al. (2019) employed critical discourse analysis (CDA) method and corpus techniques to compare how China Daily and The New York Times framed the B&R. They found that while both media outlets emphasized the initiative’s economic contributions, Chinese reports highlighted specific measures, whereas American reports focused on political implications. The analysis also revealed that Chinese media used positive language to praise the initiative, while American media employed negative language reflecting skepticism from the Trump administration between 2017 and 2018, though positive coverage increased over time. Similarly, another study employed a content analysis method to investigate how the B&R is framed in the newspapers from the United States and India (Niu and Relly, 2021). It found that the economic frame was most common, with a generally negative tone reflecting concerns over the B&R’s potential threats amid deteriorating Sino-US relations and rising China-India tensions.

In the context of digital media, most existing research has only concentrated on Twitter as the primary platform for analyzing the B&R-related communication (Abbasi et al., 2021). For instance, one study compiled a large dataset of over 500,000 posts and 714,000 reposts between 2013 and 2021 on Twitter to examine public opinion and dissemination patterns related to the B&R (Man et al., 2022). Another study focused on China’s digital diplomacy on Twitter, analyzing tweet frequency, geographical distribution, and key actors, revealing the proactive role of Chinese broadcasters and the emergence of counter-narratives from Western media and academics (Vila Seoane, 2023).

Much of the existing literature on the B&R emphasizes international communication strategies, leaving domestic dissemination through digital platforms relatively understudied (Shen, 2019). However, a more recent substantial body of research has also highlighted how public institutions and political organizations leverage digital media for domestic political marketing and propaganda, particularly in advancing legitimization goals (e.g., Espinoza and Piña-García, 2023; Pennucci, 2023). This is especially important given that domestic audiences are highly sensitive to political bias and potential manipulation. In such an environment, government messaging must be carefully calibrated to preempt skepticism, ensuring that its narratives appear credible and free from overt manipulation (Klinger and Russmann, 2017).

To conclude, while previous research has already demonstrated the effectiveness of social media in domestic political communication, few studies have specifically focused on the B&R within China. Moreover, although previous research has largely recognized the economic frame as the dominant narrative in B&R coverage (e.g., Xiao et al., 2019; Niu and Relly, 2021), there has been little in-depth exploration of the specific content being communicated. Detailed aspects—such as the types of projects, the industries involved, and the nature of economic cooperation—remain underexplored.

Previous studies of business newsletters

Newsletters have historically served as a tool for organizations to communicate with select audiences, evolving from printed bulletins to digital formats like email (Schulz et al., 2019). In the present study, a business newsletter is defined as the type of written work that “can include engaging content, product and feature announcements, promotions, deals, advice, new and exciting published blog posts, and more… so that a company can communicate with its target audience about solutions that its product or service solves, tips for overcoming obstacles, and how to use new products or work with new features” (Eric, 2022).

In the business sector, traditional newsletters have been used to nurture customer relationships and maintain brand loyalty (Brosseau et al., 2007). As digital platforms emerged, business newsletters expanded their reach by being published on social media, engaging broader audiences (Torres et al., 2019). Despite this shift, academic research on business newsletters, particularly in the context of their use on social media, remains limited. Most existing studies focus on traditional email newsletters and their effectiveness in marketing and customer retention (Schulz et al., 2019). The literature often explores topics such as open rates, click-through rates, and the impact of content personalization on customer engagement (Araújo et al., 2023). Based on the premise above, there is a noticeable gap in research concerning the broader implications of business newsletters as a tool for public communication, especially when integrated with social media platforms.

Understanding the form-based structure within a newsletter is also essential, as it influences how efficiently information is conveyed (Silva-Rodríguez, 2021). Research in genre analysis, particularly in business communication, has shown that a well-organized move structure can enhance reader engagement, which is also critical for newsletters distributed via social media. For instance, Shi and Wan (2022) conducted a cross-cultural generic comparison of firm-generated advertisements (FGAs) on Twitter and Sina Weibo, and their findings suggest that a well-structured FGA that clearly delineates its informative, persuasive, and interactive components might be able to enhance reader comprehension and engagement. To evaluate which structure is most effective, it is essential to consider audience engagement metrics—such as likes, shares, and comments—which are particularly important in the context of social media. These metrics are unique to social media research and play a critical role in assessing the success of business newsletters distributed on these platforms (Schulz et al., 2019). However, the specific types of discourse structure for business newsletters on social media and their relationships with audience engagement remain relatively underexplored in the existing literature.

Moreover, this study uniquely focuses on business newsletters that operate within a political context, specifically those disseminated on social media to promote initiatives like the B&R. Traditionally, business newsletters have been used for marketing and internal communication, concentrating on product updates and industry news (Byrne and LeMay, 2006). However, the newsletters analyzed in this research are distinct because they originate from politically affiliated sources and are intended for public distribution. This intersection of business communication and political messaging is not widely explored in the existing literature.

The role of discursive strategies in political communication has been always noted, with many studies highlighting their importance. Those strategies, which use language to achieve specific goals like persuasion or information dissemination, are crucial in shaping public discourse and perceptions within political contexts (e.g., Schroeder et al., 2004; Hansson and Page, 2022). For example, Lin (2021), employing a CDA framework, explored the strategic use of moralization, authorization, and historical allusions within political discourses on Chinese genetically modified foods, highlighting the effectiveness of these rhetorical strategies in legitimizing the stance. This might be also relevant in the context of the B&R, where the newsletters disseminated by politically affiliated accounts likely use these strategies to frame their messages in a way that aligns with broader political objectives to influence public opinion and garner support for the initiative.

On this foundation, while the traditional use of business newsletters has been well-documented, like Hendriks et al. (2012) once exploring genre characteristics of business newsletters from the dimensions of stylistic congruency and persuasiveness, their role and corresponding discourse strategies within political contexts, especially when disseminated through social media, remains underexplored. This gap is especially significant given the potential of these newsletters to shape public opinion and mobilize support for political and economic projects.

Summary (the niche of previous studies and the aim of the present one)

China’s B&R business newsletters embody a hybrid form of communication that blends commercial content with political messaging. Traditionally, business newsletters have been employed for marketing and customer engagement, yet in this context, they also function as instruments of state-sponsored propaganda and political marketing. While prior research has predominantly focused on the international framing of the B&R initiative and the conventional use of business newsletters, a significant gap remains in our understanding of how these hybrid texts are employed within China’s domestic social media landscape. This study addresses that gap by examining the detailed content, structural organization, and discursive strategies of B&R-related newsletters on WeChat. Specifically, the following three questions are addressed.

RQ1 What are the content-based topics of business newsletters in the official WeChat account for China’s B&R?

RQ2 What is the form-based move structure that characterizes the discourse? Is there any association between move structure and audience engagement?

RQ3 What are the function-based discursive strategies as reflected in the discourse?

Methodology

This section lays down the methodological approach employed in this research. It introduces the information about analytical framework, corpus data collection and detailed research procedures for data analysis.

Analytical framework

Given the critical nature of the selected topic and corpora, this study adopts the theoretical framework of CDA, which is particularly well-suited for examining how language reflects and reinforces “opaque as well as transparent structural relationships of dominance, discrimination, power, and control” (Baker et al., 2008: 280). Specifically, Fairclough’s classical 3D model of discourse is employed in this study to analyze discursive events on three interconnected levels. At the micro level, textual practices focus on the design and linguistic features of the text; at the meso level, discursive practices examine the performance and linguistic structures of the discourse; and at the macro level, sociopolitical practices contextualize the discourse within broader situational, institutional, and societal frameworks (Fairclough, 2013).

While CDA is highly effective for uncovering power dynamics and ideological underpinnings in discourse, it has been criticized for certain limitations, particularly its lack of a clear, quantifiable analytical pathway (Kong, 2022). Moreover, Maingueneau (2017) also highlighted the growing heterogeneity of discourse, particularly regarding the notion of genre on the Internet, and notes a misalignment between this complexity and the specific concepts and toolkits used in CDA. To address these potential concerns, this study has adopted an interdisciplinary approach as advocated by Unger (2016), which can be construed as a response to the sometimes staid and inflexible disciplinary boundaries of qualitative inquiry within CDA. Specifically, this study employs a corpus-assisted discourse study towards a “synergy” of text mining and critical discourse analysis (Liu, 2022; 2024), triangulating corpus-based text analysis with move analysis and discursive strategy analysis.

Corpus-based text analysis provides the necessary quantitative foundation, allowing for the examination of extensive digital text archives to identify lexical patterns and underlying meanings across a broad corpus (Pollach, 2012). Additionally, genre-based move analysis complements this by focusing on the organizational patterns within the texts, known as “moves”, which correspond to specific communicative purposes (Swales, 2004). Finally, ideology-based discursive strategy analysis examines the intentional use of language to achieve deeper social, organizational, and ideological objectives (Reisigl and Wodak, 2001).

Data collection

The corpus data for this study was manually collected from the official WeChat account of China’s B&R digital platform. Specifically, the corpus comprises 96 (bi-)weekly reports, totaling 1152 business newsletters describing Chinese enterprises’ overseas projects between January 1st, 2021, and December 31st, 2022. This study included all available data from this source over a 2-year period, ensuring comprehensive coverage. The entire corpus consists of 154,316 Chinese tokens. In corpus linguistics, it is generally accepted that a corpus of 100,000 tokens can provide sufficient data for reliable analysis of language patterns and discourse features (e.g., Biber, 1990; McEnery and Wilson, 2001). Therefore, the size of this corpus, with over 150,000 tokens, ensures that it is sufficiently large to capture the relevant linguistic patterns and rhetorical strategies employed in these business newsletters.

Data analysis

To address the three research questions systematically, the analysis was conducted in three stages. In the first stage, KH Coder 3 was employed to quantitatively explore the lexical-grammatical features of the corpus. The analysis focused on content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs), which are primary carriers of meaning and reflect the thematic orientations of the business newsletters. This stage aimed to identify high-frequency words and topics within the texts, providing a foundation for deeper discourse analysis.

The second stage involved an inductive analysis of the move structure within the newsletters. Following the guidance from Moreno and Swales’s (2018) research, the first author manually read every text first to form the coding scheme about reflected move structure in the data, which contains five specific moves: (1) summarizing projects in the form of a title, (2) describing projects in more detail, (3) emphasizing the meaningfulness from the perspective of the targeted countries, (4) emphasizing the meaningfulness from the perspective of Chinese enterprises, and (5) acknowledging the source of the message. The specific characteristics and patterns of these moves will be presented later in Table 4. It is important to note that while a step analysis—examining smaller structural units within each move—could have provided a more detailed understanding of the genre’s internal organization (Swales, 1990), this approach was not fully pursued in this study due to the relatively short length of the newsletters and the frequent occurrence of moves as single sentences, which made it challenging to identify distinct steps within each move. Then, the first author employed and trained one graduate student to independently code the corpora together. To ensure the inter-coder reliability of the move analysis, those mutually disagreed instances were carefully analyzed again to assign a final coding result for further analysis. Moreover, this study built on Amnuai’s (2018) criterion to classify each move covering obligatory (100%), conventional (60% to 99%), and optional (less than 60%) moves based on their respective frequency of occurrence.

To further investigate the effectiveness of different rhetorical moves, this study also summarizes different linear patterns of move ordering and conducts an engagement analysis from the perspective of the audience’s reception. Specifically, the authors calculated the quantitative metrics of engagement index based on Sun et al., (2022) study. The information about the number of reads, likes, and retweets per report was retrieved in the process of data collection. By dividing those numbers by corresponding project descriptions within every report, the authors obtained the number of reads, likes, and retweets per project description and summed them up to get the final engagement index. A one-way ANOVA test was lastly conducted to explore the relationship between move patterns and audience engagement, providing insights into the effectiveness of different rhetorical strategies.

The final stage focused on the argumentation process within the discourse, examining how language and cognitive networks of meaning interact to convey underlying intentions. By employing an “unmotivated looking” approach (Kjær and Palsbro, 2008), discursive strategies could naturally emerge, allowing for a deeper interpretation of the underlying organizational and political objectives within the newsletters.

Results and discussion

This section presents the text analysis results of high-frequency words and topic modeling. Then, the authors expound on the genre moves of the business newsletters in the corpus. The discursive strategies that emerged during the research process are further elucidated in the end. It should be noted that in this section, the authors have attached an English translation for all Chinese-based content for the enhanced readability for international academia.

Corpus-based text analysis

This study has visualized the most frequently-used 150 words in Fig. 1. Among them, 项目(project), 中国(China), 公司(enterprise), 工程(engineering), 承建(contracted to build), 国际(international), 合同(contract), 集团(group), 中标(win the bidding), 建设(build/construct), 有限(limited), 签约(sign a contract), 位于(located), 施工(under construction), 完工(finished/completed) ranked the top 15, as shown in Table 1. The results indicated that enterprise project construction is the most prominent topic in the data. The texts about this can be classified into three aspects in terms of the stage of projects: contracted to build, under construction, and fully completed. The high frequency of terms related to the stages of construction projects suggests a strong focus on the progression and completion of infrastructure initiatives within the B&R. This prominence aligns with China’s emphasis on tangible, measurable outcomes in its international cooperation efforts, reinforcing a narrative of progress and success in global partnerships. From a CDA-based perspective, this emphasis on project stages reflects underlying power relations, where China’s role as a global leader in infrastructure development is constructed and highlighted through these discourses.

Fig. 1: High-frequency terms in Chinese-led international projects.
figure 1

This word cloud displays the 150 most frequently used words from the dataset and the size of each word is directly proportional to its frequency in texts.

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Table 1 Top 15 high-frequency words.
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The topic modeling technique, specifically utilizing the latent Dirichlet allocation (LDA) model within the KH coder, was employed to explore the interactive aggregation relationships of qualitative variables (i.e., lexical expressions), thereby identifying more specific topics related to the broader theme of enterprise project construction in discourse. According to its “find optimal N of topics” operation in the software, the authors obtained six as the chosen number for our analysis. To more directly display the potential connections between various topics, the topical co-occurrence network technique was also relied on to mirror major topical connections in the discourse. Specifically, Table 2 reports the results of topic modeling and Fig. 2 shows the visualization of the topical co-occurrence network.

Table 2 Results of topic modeling.
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Fig. 2: Visualization of the topical co-occurrence network.
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This 2D scatter plot illustrates the semantic relationships between words from the corpus and they have been grouped into six distinct thematic clusters (Cluster 01-06), indicated by color.

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Topic 1 further validates the central finding of high-frequency word analysis: enterprise project construction is the most prominent topic in texts. At the same time, Topics 2–6 represent various facets or dimensions of this core topic, each highlighting different aspects of enterprise project construction within the B&R, as summarized in Table 3. These findings are particularly significant in highlighting how China’s international presence is diversified across different sectors and regions, as evidenced by Topic 2 focusing on hydropower projects in the Philippines and Topic 6 emphasizing port and infrastructure development in the Indo-Pacific region, thereby reinforcing its strategic global influence.

Table 3 Illustrations of five specific topics.
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Linking all results to RQ1, the findings reveal that the content of B&R business newsletters is primarily structured around detailed descriptions of infrastructure and development projects across diverse industries and regions. This structured portrayal is not arbitrary but rather reflects a strategic alignment with the economic and developmental priorities of the host countries. For example, the focus on railway construction across Southeast Asia and Sub-Saharan Africa, including in countries such as Malaysia, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Laos (Topic 5), illustrates China’s role in facilitating essential transportation infrastructure in these emerging markets. This serves not only to enhance regional connectivity but also to support the economic integration of these areas into broader global trade networks. Similarly, the emphasis on infrastructure development in Indonesia and Peru (Topic 6) underscores China’s engagement in critical port and facility projects in the Indo-Pacific and Latin American regions, addressing vital local needs for economic modernization.

Such a region-specific focus suggests that the B&R initiative is not merely an expansive investment strategy but a carefully curated framework that aligns with host nations’ industrial and infrastructural demands. The frequent use of terms denoting project stages—contracting, construction, and completion—reflects a results-oriented communication strategy that positions China as a reliable driver of progress and economic modernization, reinforcing its image as a facilitator of global economic growth rather than merely an investor (Petry, 2023). From a discourse analytical perspective, the emphasis on these sectoral and regional dimensions highlights how language is strategically employed to frame China’s overseas projects as integral components of local development rather than unilateral expansions of Chinese economic influence. By repeatedly associating B&R projects with host countries’ infrastructure priorities, the discourse fosters a perception of mutual benefit and mitigates narratives of dependency or economic asymmetry. This selective framing of economic achievements is part of a broader legitimization strategy, aligning with previous research on China’s strategic media representations of global initiatives (e.g., Xiao et al., 2019; Chu et al., 2025).

Genre-based move analysis

Table 4 displays the structural moves identified in the business newsletters published on the official WeChat account of China’s B&R. In this dataset, Moves 1, 2, and 5 are categorized as obligatory moves due to their consistent presence across all newsletters. Move 3 is identified as a conventional move, occurring in 62% of the newsletters, while Move 4 is categorized as an optional move, present in 47% of the newsletters.

Table 4 Structural moves identified in business newsletters.
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Table 5 presents the ordering patterns of the different move structures identified in the texts. The minimum structure observed in the newsletters comprises Move 1 + Move 2 + Move 5. The first two moves, summarizing projects in the form of a title and describing projects in more detail, are the core discursive elements that consistently serve the narrative function of providing essential information about the projects. These moves effectively communicate the basic narrative elements of WHEN, WHO, and WHAT, as illustrated in Fig. 3. Move 5, on the other hand, is employed to cite authoritative sources, thereby enhancing the reliability and credibility of the information presented.

Table 5 Linear move patterns found in the data.
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Fig. 3: An extract of the minimum structure.
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This example illustrates how a simple sentence is parsed into its core informational components of When, Who, and What.

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In contrast, Moves 3 and 4 are considered optional and function primarily as persuasive devices. These moves are designed to underscore the significance of the projects from the perspectives of the targeted countries (Move 3) and Chinese enterprises (Move 4). By including these moves, the newsletters attempt to elaborate on the WHY and HOW elements, providing a richer narrative structure, as exemplified in Fig. 4.

Fig. 4: An extract of the maximum structure.
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This example shows the parsing of a more complex text to include the supplementary informational categories of Why and How.

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Table 5 also presents the average engagement indexes for four different move structure patterns, alongside the results of a one-way ANOVA test on the engagement index. The analysis reveals statistically significant differences in engagement index between the different move structures (F = 15.799, p < 0.001). This finding suggests that business newsletters with simpler ordering structures, which exclude the additional persuasive Moves 3 and 4, may be more engaging for the audience.

The results of the move analysis provide critical insights into RQ2, which focuses on the form-based move structure that characterizes the discourse and its association with audience engagement. The identification of obligatory, conventional, and optional moves, along with the analysis of their ordering patterns, reveals that the newsletters prioritize the narrative function of disseminating project information (Moves 1, 2, and 5). These findings suggest that the form-based structure of these newsletters is largely geared towards establishing credibility as well as providing short, clear, and factual updates, which aligns with the audience’s preference for straightforward information delivery.

Moreover, the analysis of audience engagement metrics indicates that simpler move structures—those that focus solely on the obligatory narrative moves—are more effective in engaging readers. It implies that, in the context of B&R communication, the primary audience may be more interested in factual updates rather than persuasive narratives, which aligns with previous research on audience preferences in digital communication (e.g., Bullock et al., 2021; Uth et al., 2025).

One possible interpretation is that texts focusing solely on the obligatory narrative moves—which are often more concise—are better received by audiences because they minimize the inclusion of additional persuasive elements (Moves 3 and 4) that could trigger defensive mechanisms, as suggested by the persuasive intent heuristic (Metzger and Flanagin, 2013). This is particularly relevant for content disseminated by politically affiliated sources, as audiences are often more sensitive and skeptical towards information from these accounts (Sunstein, 2007). However, this explanation might not capture the full picture. It is also plausible that the overall length and complexity of a post deter readers—longer texts may impose a higher cognitive load and reduce readability, making them less appealing regardless of any persuasive intent (DeStefano and LeFevre, 2007).

To sum up, this study argues that, given that political newsletters by governmental organizations are inherently propagandistic, the combined effects of concise move structures and reduced textual complexity serve a dual function: they minimize audience resistance and legitimize the B&R projects. By focusing solely on verifiable economic achievements and presenting them as straightforward factual updates without political embellishment, these strategies preempt criticisms of political bias and underscore the initiative’s results-oriented nature. In other words, whether driven by a desire to avoid defensive responses or to enhance readability, the simplified structure ultimately reinforces the legitimacy of the B&R agenda by emphasizing business success as neutral economic progress rather than a politically charged narrative.

Ideology-based discursive strategy analysis

This section illustrates the discursive strategies of centralization, intersubjectification, and rationalization, using specific extracts to better explain broader ideological considerations of legitimization behind the discourse.

Centralization

The centralization strategy directs attention to specific subjects within a discourse, enhancing their salience while downplaying others. This focus enables the construction of a narrative that positions the highlighted subjects as critical to the success of a broader initiative. In the case of B&R business newsletters, this strategy places Chinese enterprises, technological contributions, and national capabilities at the forefront, thereby emphasizing their significance in global development projects. The centralization mechanism can be understood through the concept of “profiling”, where, as Croft and Cruse (2004: 47) explain, “one can select one object or another to focus one’s attention on.” By profiling Chinese enterprises and their achievements, the discourse positions China as a central actor in driving global development, framing its role as indispensable to the success of international projects.

This centralization is exemplified in the two extracts below. In Extract 1, the emphasis on “Chinese technology” and “Chinese standards” links China’s advancements directly to the success of the DaSheng Railway project in Guinea, framing China’s contributions as vital to the modernization of the infrastructure. Similarly, Extract 2 highlights China Road and Bridge Corporation’s success in Rwanda, with the phrase “the sixth foreign exchange project” underscoring China’s growing influence in emerging markets. These examples reinforce the narrative that China is not just participating in global development but is central to advancing infrastructure in various regions, positioning the country as a key enabler of global economic progress.

Extract 1: 达圣铁路为几内亚首条现代化铁路, 正线长125公里, 中铁十四局承建的第三标段相关工程共36.3公里, 施工建设全部采用中国技术、中国标准。 (国资委网站) ——2021.2.22-2.28

The Da Sheng Railway is Guinea’s first modern railway, with a main line length of 125 kilometers. The third section of the project undertaken by China Railway 14th Bureau has a total length of 36.3 kilometers, and all construction adopts Chinese technology and standards. (State owned Assets Supervision and Administration Commission website)

Extract 2: 近日, 中国路桥中标世行三期尼亚格塔雷6.71公里市政道路升级工程项目, 这是中国路桥2021年在卢旺达市场收获的第6个现汇项目。 (中国路桥) ——2021.12.27-2022.1.9

Recently, China Road and Bridge Corporation won the bid for the World Bank’s Phase III Niagatare 6.71-kilometer municipal road upgrade project, which is the sixth foreign exchange project that China Road and Bridge Corporation has won in the Rwandan market in 2021. (China Road and Bridge Corporation)

Intersubjectification

In discourse, intersubjectification refers to the process of incorporating the perspectives or claims of other actors to enhance the credibility of the information, thus constructing a shared, intersubjective ground between the speaker and the audience (Traugott, 2010). This strategy is employed here to create a sense of external validation, where the views of other actors serve not only to substantiate the message but also to present it as more neutral or universally accepted, rather than merely a subjective assertion. In contrast to objectification, which implies a detachment from subjectivity, intersubjectification emphasizes the shared nature of knowledge, inviting alignment with external perspectives or authorities to foster credibility and reduce the risk of the information being perceived as self-serving. This approach can be understood as part of a broader “dialogistic expansiveness”, where discourse is expanded to include multiple perspectives, aligning the speaker’s stance with those of external actors to build a coalition of support and enhance the persuasive force of the message (White, 2020).

This strategy is evident in the following examples. In Extract 3, Guinea’s President Conte’s praise for the construction efficiency of the Dasheng Railway and his vision for further development along the railway’s path are used to validate the success of the project. By incorporating the perspective of a national leader, the discourse shifts from China’s self-presentation to an external validation of its accomplishments, enhancing the perceived neutrality and credibility of the message. Similarly, in Extract 4, the Jamaican Prime Minister, Andrew Horness, is quoted as endorsing a housing project undertaken by China Harbor. His statement emphasizes the social significance of the project, which is framed as a response to pressing local needs such as housing shortages. This external validation aligns the Chinese project with positive socio-economic outcomes, strengthening the legitimacy of China’s involvement in such initiatives. Both examples illustrate how the incorporation of third-party perspectives fosters intersubjectivity, creating a shared understanding of the project’s success and its broader significance.

Extract 3: 几内亚总统孔戴在达比隆港举行的通车仪式上发表致辞, 赞扬达圣铁路的建设效率, 并期待达圣铁路进一步推动沿线矿产项目的开发。 (新华网) ——2021.06.15-2021.06.20

Guinea’s President Conte delivered a speech at the opening ceremony held in Port Dabilon, praising the efficiency of the construction of the Dasheng Railway and looking forward to further promoting the development of mineral projects along the railway. (Xinhua News Agency)

Extract 4: 近日, 牙买加总理安德鲁·霍尔尼斯出席了中国港湾承建的低收入保障住房项目交房仪式, 将钥匙交给了60位新业主。霍尔尼斯总理表示, 该项目建设意义重大, 将有效缓解低收入居民的住房压力问题, 满足日益增长的住房需求, 增进民生福祉。 (中国港湾公众号) ——2022.8.29-9.4

Recently, the Prime Minister of Jamaica Andrew Horness attended the delivery ceremony of the low-income housing project contracted by China Harbor, and handed the key to 60 new owners. Prime Minister Hollis stated that the construction of this project is of great significance, as it will effectively alleviate the housing pressure on low-income residents, meet the growing housing demand, and enhance people’s well-being. (China Harbor official account)

Rationalization

Rationalization, as described by van Leeuwen and Wodak (1999), is a mechanism that legitimizes practices by referencing their goals, uses, and effects. This strategy emphasizes the construction of a complete activity sequence that possesses cognitive validity, connecting means to ends in a coherent narrative. Rationalization often involves the principle of teleological action, where actions are justified by their intended outcomes—essentially focusing on “whether it works or not” (van Leeuwen, 2007: 101). In this way, the rationality behind practices is grounded in their effectiveness and the successful realization of goals. Van Leeuwen (2007) also outlines three types of instrumentality in rationalization: goal-orientation, means-orientation, and effect-orientation, each of which serves to justify actions from different angles.

The first type, goal-orientation, is fundamental as it constructs purposes in discourse to explain not only why social practices exist but also why they take particular forms. For a goal to legitimize an action, it must include an element of moralization, transforming functional purposes into what Habermas (1976: 22) describes as a “strategic-utilitarian morality”—a justification that frames the action as not only effective but also morally and socially beneficial. This rationalization allows functional goals to be seen as both necessary and beneficial, fostering legitimacy. In Extract 5, the goal of appointing DAA International as the airport operator is presented as essential to the success of the Red Sea Project. The appointment is framed as a strategic decision to provide critical services such as airport operations, aviation services, and commercial activities, all necessary to develop a world-class tourism destination. This goal is not just operational but aligns with a broader vision of enhancing infrastructure, creating jobs, and boosting the local economy. By emphasizing the strategic purpose of this appointment, the discourse presents it as a morally desirable action that contributes to local prosperity, framing the project as a socially responsible and ethically justified development.

Extract 5: 由沙特公共投资基金 (PIF) 全资拥有的红海发展公司 (TRSDC) 已任命DAA International为红海项目 (Red Sea) 机场运营商, 提供机场和航站楼运营、航空服务、设施管理和商业活动, 以及公司和金融服务。红海项目由王储穆罕默德于2017年7月启动, 第一期将于2022年开放, 目前项目建设进展顺利。开发商曾在去年宣布, 已授予约500份合同, 价值120亿里亚尔 (31.9亿美元), 2020年底达到150亿里亚尔。2030年项目全部完成后, 将包括50家酒店, 提供8,000间酒店客房和1300个住宅物业。 (一带一路高参) ——2021.1.4-1.10

The Red Sea Development Company (TRSDC), wholly owned by the Saudi Public Investment Fund (PIF), has appointed DAA International as the airport operator for the Red Sea Project (Red Sea) to provide airport and terminal operations, aviation services, facilities management and commercial activities, as well as corporate and financial services. The Red Sea project was launched by Crown Prince Mohammed in July 2017, with the first phase set to open in 2022, and construction of the project is progressing well. The developer had announced last year that it had awarded about 500 contracts worth 12 billion riyals ($3.19 billion), reaching 15 billion riyals by the end of 2020. When fully completed in 2030, the project will include 50 hotels offering 8,000 hotel rooms and 1,300 residential properties. (Senior staff officer of the B&R)

Additionally, means-orientation constructs the purpose as embedded within the action itself, presenting the action as a necessary means to the end. In Extract 5, this is demonstrated through the detailed description of the ongoing actions, such as the awarding of contracts and significant financial investments. These operational steps are framed as essential to achieving the project’s ultimate goal of creating a major tourist and economic hub. The inclusion of specific details about the scale of investments, including the 500 contracts awarded and their value, legitimizes the project by showing that the actions being taken are substantial and critical for the project’s success. The emphasis on the operational steps aligns the concrete actions with the larger goal, presenting them as integral to the realization of the Red Sea Project’s objectives.

Finally, effect-orientation focuses on the outcomes of actions, highlighting the expected results and framing them as the natural culmination of the ongoing process. In Extract 5, the expected outcomes of the project are emphasized, particularly the completion of 50 hotels, 8000 hotel rooms, and 1300 residential properties by 2030. These tangible results are presented as the ultimate proof of the project’s success, showing that the actions taken thus far will lead to meaningful, positive outcomes. By focusing on the projected effects, the discourse rationalizes the entire effort as purposeful, demonstrating that the ongoing work will directly contribute to local and global development. This future-oriented rationalization solidifies the legitimacy of the project by illustrating that the final results will fulfill the initial goals, reinforcing the project’s value and necessity.

In conclusion, these strategies collectively address RQ3 by demonstrating their values in the broader process of legitimization, which is essential for sustaining and expanding the domestic perception of China’s influence on the global stage. Legitimization is particularly critical in the context of the B&R initiative due to the socio-economic and cultural issues at play. Given the global nature of the B&R and its potential to reshape international trade, infrastructure, and diplomatic relations, legitimization becomes a tool for managing perceptions of China’s growing influence, both domestically and abroad. The project must be framed not only as a politically strategic initiative but also as one that is economically and culturally beneficial to the countries involved, ensuring that China’s expanding global role is seen as legitimate, necessary, and ethically justified. This process of legitimization is not simply about defending China’s actions, but constructing a narrative that embeds China’s global role as not only beneficial but also ethically justified.

Conclusion

Summary of key findings

This study has successfully answered three research questions regarding the content, structure, and strategies used in the official WeChat account’s business newsletters for China’s B&R.

RQ1 investigated the content-based topics within these newsletters. The findings indicated that while the central focus is on enterprise project construction, this topic is expressed through a variety of perspectives. The newsletters cover a broad spectrum of sectors and regions, with infrastructure and development projects being at the core. However, this focus branches out into specific areas such as hydropower in the Philippines and infrastructure expansion in the Indo-Pacific region. This diversified presentation not only emphasizes China’s multifaceted engagement in global development but also strategically bolsters its influence by showcasing leadership across different industries and geographic locations.

RQ2 explored the form-based move structure of the newsletters and its relationship with audience engagement. The analysis identified a consistent structural pattern, where critical moves like project summaries, detailed descriptions, and authoritative sourcing are consistently used. Newsletters that adhered to a simpler, more straightforward structure—focusing on these essential narrative components—demonstrated higher levels of audience engagement. This suggests that the audience values concise and factual content over more complex or persuasive narratives, which aligns with findings in digital communication studies.

RQ3 focused on the function-based discursive strategies used in the discourse. The study identified three key strategies: centralization, intersubjectification, and rationalization. Centralization involved consistently foregrounding China’s contributions, intersubjectification introduced external validations to enhance perceived impersonality, and rationalization provided a complete activity sequence with cognitive validity. These strategies collectively work to legitimize China’s actions by embedding them within a domestic narrative that presents China as an indispensable and trustworthy global partner in the context of B&R.

Implications

Theoretically, this study challenges the traditional view that political discourse inherently diverges from the principles of professionalism due to its ideological and partisan nature. The findings demonstrate that political communication, when framed with the features of Professional Feature Writing (Garrison, 2023)—such as clarity, brevity, and non-subjective reporting—can be effectively restructured to resonate with broader audiences in a seemingly neutral and credible manner. This reporting style emphasizes informative yet engaging storytelling that prioritizes accuracy, accessibility, and audience-oriented framing, making complex or potentially contentious topics more digestible. In this context, adopting such a framework allows political messages to be presented in a way that minimizes perceived bias and emphasizes factual reporting, thereby enhancing the credibility and trustworthiness of the discourse. Put differently, this strategy enables political narratives to appear as “only business and no politics”.

Practically, while this study is rooted in the context of domestic political communication within China, the strategies identified have broader relevance, especially in the realm of international communication. The methods used in the B&R newsletters could serve as a model for other nations or organizations that aim to convey politically sensitive information in a professional and seemingly apolitical manner. This approach is particularly useful in global communication contexts where building trust and credibility across diverse audiences from different cultures is critical.

Furthermore, the principles identified in this study have applications beyond business communication, extending to fields such as green communication and health communication. For instance, political leaders who wish to highlight their achievements in environmental protection or public health can adopt a similar strategy by focusing on specific projects and using detailed, factual information to build trust and legitimacy. By framing these achievements within a professional context, leaders can effectively communicate their successes without eliciting the skepticism often associated with overtly political messaging.

However, it is essential to approach the above findings and applications with a critical lens. While the professionalization of political discourse can enhance its effectiveness, the success of such strategies depends on factors like cultural context, public trust in political institutions, and the specific characteristics of the target audience. In other words, not all political discourse is suitable for professionalization. For instance, during times of national crisis or social upheaval, a highly professional tone might be perceived as detached or insincere, failing to resonate with the emotional and urgent needs of the public. An example of this can be seen in the aftermath of natural disasters, where audiences often respond more positively to communication that is interactive, empathetic and emotionally resonant.

Limitations and recommendations for future research

However, this study also must be understood with a few limitations. Because the authors narrowed the corpus-based text analysis to a 2-year range of business newsletters in the self-built corpora, further study can collect the data on a larger scale to ensure broader representation or even provide a diachronic analysis of the same topic. Moreover, this study failed to fully explore the underlying motivations behind audience engagement with B&R business newsletters. While our analysis suggests that a simpler move structure is associated with higher engagement, it remains unclear whether this is due to the avoidance of persuasive elements or other factors such as text length and overall readability. Future experiments are needed to further clarify these causal mechanisms. Last, this study focused specifically on the B&R newsletters, which raises the question of why these newsletters maintain such a rigid and simple structure despite the flexibility that social media platforms typically offer for organizational diversity and the use of multimodal resources. Future research could explore a wider variety of texts, including different genres or communication contexts, to gain more insights to determine if the digital professionalization of political discourse observed here can be seen as a more common phenomenon.