Introduction

Europe has always been a continent of migration; however, in 2015 and 2016, the numbers of refugees who entered the European Union from across the Mediterranean Sea or overland through Southeast Europe have reached an unprecedented high. Most immigrants entering Europe from the South are political refugees fleeing war or persecution in their home countries. Most “economic migrants” come from parts of Africa, Asia, and Eastern Europe in search of a better life (Park 2015). According to the International Organization for Migration (IOM) and UNHCR estimates, around one million migrants and refugees arrived in Europe in 2015 until 21 December 2015, three to four times more than those in 2014. The top three nationalities of entrants of the over one million Mediterranean Sea arrivals between January 2015 and March 2016 were Syrian (46.7%), Afghan (20.9%), and Iraqi (9.4%) (IOM 2019; UNHCR 2019). The numbers of migrants and refugees into Europe have presented significant challenges for European leaders, policy-makers, and publics. The attempt to set up a European-wide approach to the refugee issue has failed so far. The agreement to establish “migrant control centers” on European territory, where “economic migrants” are to be separated from “refugees” and the subsequent transfer of the latter to a member state happen on a voluntary basis only (see also Henley 2018). However, the decision to show some solidarity and spread migratory pressure through new reception centers over more countries than just the border states Italy and Greece should be seen as a positive outcome (see also d’Haenens and Joris 2019).

Scholars suggested that the volume of emergency assistance in any humanitarian crisis attracts is determined by three main factors: the intensity of the media coverage; the degree of political interest, particularly related to security concerns that donor governments have in a particular region; and the volume of emergency aid depending on the strength of humanitarian NGOs and international organizations present in a specific country experiencing a humanitarian emergency (Olsen et al. 2003). Among the three factors, the intensity of the media coverage is the most important.

Throughout the events of 2015–2016, European media played a central role in providing information about the new arrivals and in framing these events as a “crisis.” Due to the scale and speed of events in the second half of 2015 and the lack of familiarity with the new arrivals, their histories, and the reasons for their plight, mainstream media serve as trusted resources of information for officials and publics alike to understand what was happening and how to deal with the situation. Studies indicate that the media have failed to humanize migrants and refugees. By and large, the “crisis talk” in the news constructed the knowledge of the issue and shaped policy decisions (Chouliaraki and Stolic 2017; Dines et al. 2018). Consequently, the image of the EU suffering from the refugee crisis has been tagged globally. Much research has been conducted on the role of the European media’s responsibility in shaping the “crisis” in European political and public discourses. Several other works have also touched upon the external perceptions of this EU crisis in Canada (Chaban et al. 2018) and a few other EU partner countries (PPMI, NCRE & NFG Research Group 2015; Chaban and Holland 2019). However, we do not know in-depth about how the refugee issue has been interpreted in China, a country that the EU has a strategic partnership with. Do they share the same discourses as the European media did? To what extent do they view the issue as a crisis which would have a negative impact on the social cohesion of the European community? Do they define the nature of the issue more with a political concern or a civil concern? How do they project the image of the EU suffering from the refugee crisis, but still as their strategic partner? These questions remain unanswered. Yet, answers to them would help understand the image of the EU as a global actor.

This study examines the European refugee issue from the perspective of China, the second-largest economy in the world and a strategic partnership country with the EU. It explores how the Chinese media project the image of the EU with the wave of refugees as well as the take of them by the European officials and publics. What follows explains the reason why it is important to investigate the view from China based on an overview of EU-China relations and a review of media representations of the issue in international and European media.

China’s view of the EU in the strategic partnership

With the integration process, the EU has gradually gained its status as an international actor. The single market, a unitary currency, a common trade policy, and institutions aiming for common foreign and security policies, all these have made the EU one pole in a multipolar world after the disaggregation of the Soviet Union.

The EU and China established their diplomatic relationship in 1975, and this relationship has developed rapidly since the mid-1990s. In 1995, the European Commission published a milestone long-term policy for China–Europe relations (European Commission 1995). Since then, the bilateral relations developed rapidly in terms of both trade volume and high-level summits. The EU has been China’s largest trading partner since 2004, and China is also the EU’s second-largest trading partner after the USA. The trading volume between the EU and China achieved $682.2 billion in 2018, in comparison to only $3.5 billion in 1978.Footnote 1 EU-China relations have been upgraded to the strategic partnership level in 2003. As far, the EU has published eight comprehensive China policy papers as well as 2002–2006 and 2007–2013 two country strategy papers. The EU is the global actor which has published the most policy papers in relation to China. Meanwhile, China has also published three EU policy papers in 2003, 2014, and 2018 respectively. In 2013, the two sides jointly published a China-EU 2020 Strategic Agenda for Cooperation, reaffirming that as important actors in a multipolar world, China and the EU share responsibility for promoting peace, prosperity, and sustainable development for the benefit of all. Around 15 years ago, David Shambaugh (2005), a leading American IR scholar, argued that the USA, the EU, and China have become a “New Strategic Triangle,” and the bilateral relations between the EU and China can be regarded as a “new axis in world affairs.” However, in the current context where the USA and China are in a sensitive period with the on-going trade disputes, it is of great significance to understand how the EU and China view each other as an international actor, particularly in the situation of crises.

During the past decade, the EU has been suffering from a series of crises, including the financial crisis, Eurozone debt crisis, the refugee crisis, and most recently the Brexit saga. All these had negatively influenced the image of the EU as an international actor (Chaban and Holland 2014, 2019). Research shows that the Eurozone debt crisis has weakened the EU image as an international powerhouse, and the crisis has also given China increased leverage for bargaining vis-à-vis the EU as well as the capacity to give some help to the EU (Lai and Zhang 2013). This was largely different from previous findings. When the European Commission conducted its first analysis on Chinese views of the EU in 2005, the research showed that the economy is the area where the EU is mostly recognized, and the social and cultural areas were where the EU enjoys the greatest respect by Chinese (European Commission 2005). The questionnaire findings from the 2009 and 2010 surveys on Chinese urban citizens and elites also demonstrated that the EU’s global role has largely been commented positively in the areas of international politics, economy, climate change, science, technology, and anti-terrorism (Zhang & Yu 2013). In recent years, the positive EU image has declined. On the one hand, the EU has experienced many crises with stagnant economic growth; on the other hand, China has risen as the world’s second-largest economy. In autumn of 2013, Chinese president Xi Jinping proposed the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and both the European and Chinese sides were planning to synergize the BRI with EU’s Juncker Plan (China and EU 2015). All seemed promising for Europe to come out of its crisis and revitalize its economy at that time. Nevertheless, the refugees arrived and a new “crisis” began for Europe. Although the refugee issue is a global event, for Europe, it is also a social and political crisis. On the one hand, European countries have been receiving the refugees based on humanitarianism; on the other hand, the chaos created by the crisis also made different opinions and attitudes toward it arise from politicians and citizens in European countries.

Media representation of international events influences public opinion (Entman 1991; Norris 1995; Semetko and Valkenburg 2000). How international media interpret the refugee issue in Europe would have an impact on foreign public opinion on the EU as a global actor and also on those refugees seeking help. Zhang (2016) pointed out that in EU-China relations, China had a “reflexive expectation” of the EU. In the most recent EU policy paper toward China, the EU defined China as its “economic competitor” and “systematic rival” and stating that “China can no longer be regarded as a developing country” (European Commission 2019a, b). These have ignited heated discussions in Chinese media and to some extent made the Chinese rethink their relations with the EU. Therefore, how Chinese media define the nature of the European refugee issue and interpret its influence on European society, for instance, whether the issue generated more political concern or civil concern in Europe, whether refugees were welcomed or unwelcomed by the European society, would influence China’s understanding of the refugee issue, the European society’s stance as well as that of European member states’ governments. This would also influence China’s policies and relations toward the EU. However, such research is largely absent. Before we move on to the analysis of the Chinese news media, we will first review how the European news media and other global (social) media have projected the image of the European refugee issue.

European refugee crisis and the news media framing

In the European media representation, the “crisis” framing of the migration or refugee issue is dominant (Georgiou and Zaborowski 2017; Chouliaraki and Stolic 2017; Dines et al. 2018). Sometimes, the terms refugees and migrants are used interchangeably, even though the term “refugees” normally refers to those who have to leave home due to armed conflict or prosecution, while “migrants” are those who intentionally leave their country in search of better living conditions. News framing involves the selection of certain features of a story while ignoring some others, and the making of some aspects of a story more salient than others (Goffman 1974; Entman 1993). The news framing of the refugee issue as a “crisis” provides a powerful narrative to construct the perception and knowledge of the refugee and migration issue for politicians and publics inside and outside Europe.

In an interview with the Guardian newspaper, the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein of Jordan compared the refugee crisis with migration to Europe in the late 1930s (Jones 2015). Ahonen (2018) further examined the media coverage of the Jewish refugees from Nazi Germany to other countries in the 1930s in comparison to the 2015–2016 Syrian refugees to Europe and found similarities in the media and European public discussion. Moreover, Austria’s Federal Chancellor Sebastian Kurz (2017) also repeatedly used the word “crisis” to describe the issue in his article published by Time magazine.

During 2015, the year of the “refugee crisis” in Europe, for example, Greussing and Boomgaarden (2017) found that media frames focused on security threats and economization, while humanitarian frames related to victimization were less frequent. Overall, the authors found a predominant focus on stereotyped descriptions of refugees in both tabloid and quality media. Refugees are portrayed as either “vulnerable” or “dangerous” (Georgiou and Zaborowski 2017). However, the narratives of the coverage changed across Europe during 2015. The sympathetic and empathetic responses of a large proportion of the European press in the summer and especially early autumn of 2015 were gradually replaced by suspicion and, in some cases, hostility towards refugees and migrants. Press coverage that promoted hate speech and hostility towards migrants and refugees was systematic and persistent in a proportion of the press. This was especially the case in some parts of Eastern Europe (i.e., Hungary), throughout “the crisis” and in a significant section of some countries’ right-leaning press in the East and West Europe alike (Georgiou and Zaborowski 2017). For instance, the analysis of how the Scandinavian news-press covered the 2015 Syrian refugee crisis indicates that in the coverage of the migration events, Danish print media more often mention the negative economic consequences of the arrivals, and Swedish the positive moral ones, while Norway appears to occupy a middle ground in the Scandinavian discourse (Hoyden et al. 2018). It is also found that the reception of refugees in Latvia has been described in the media as having a great deal of public resistance (Veinberg 2017). A comprehensive literature review of 78 studies of media discourse related to immigration in European countries by Eberl et al. (2018) concurs with the studies cited above. Migrants were most often framed unfavorably as economic, cultural, or criminal threats.

In fact, the acceptance and rejection of the refugees and migrants into the European society by the public and policy-makers have changed over time, from a “welcome culture” to a “welcome limits” (Liebe et al 2018; Michael 2018). During the “welcome culture” period, news media reported that German citizens were willing to help by accommodating refugees in their homes (Bajekal 2016). But later on, they complained that the newly arrived refugees were not thankful enough and too demanding compared to those who arrived in the previous year (Holmes and Castaneda 2016: 19). The Paris attack in November 2015 also triggered the shift in public sentiment.

Yet, the typical refugee story is more about politics than about humanitarian responsibilities (Siapera et al. 2018: 7). The threat-framing prevails. In British, German, Italian, Spanish, and Swedish media, the negative framing was found referring to the refugees as security or cultural threat (Berry et al. 2016). This is not just the case in the mainstream media: the frames on global social media, such as Twitter, are also found to be either negative or occasionally explicitly racist, associated with far-right politics, humanitarian, or associated with the EU institutional politics. However, political frames are more dominant than humanitarian ones on social media platforms, an outcome which is very similar to that of the mainstream media (Siapera et al 2018: 17).

All these findings raise the question of whether the change from a welcoming culture to an unwelcome one is also present in the coverage of the European refugee crisis in a third country, particularly China, EU’s strategic partner and the second-largest trading partner. Such research is missing. Hence, we wonder:

  • RQ1: How do Chinese media cover the European Refugee Issue? Do Chinese media frame the refugee issue as a crisis and a threat, which would affect the EU image as a global actor?

  • RQ2: How do the Chinese media interpret the European political or civil society responses to the European refugee situation?

  • RQ3: What factors lead to the different political and civil responses to the European refugee issue in Chinese media?

Based on the exploration of the answers to the research questions, this study will further discuss the extent to which the refugee crisis affects the image of the EU as a global actor and as a strategic partner to China.

Methods

This study is based on a content analysis of Chinese newspapers coverage of the European refugee issue from 2015 until 2017. Our pilot study shows that Chinese media mainly use “refugee (Chinese: nanmin难民)” rather than “migrant (Chinese: yimin移民)” to describe people fleeing to Europe from the Middle East, even though the news stories on European refugees may sometimes discuss immigration issues. Therefore, we used the Chinese keywords “refugee (难民)” and “Europe (Ouzhou欧洲)” in search of news articles on European refugee issue in the database of four selected Chinese newspapers.

The four newspapers are the most read newspapers in covering international news in China, while catering for a business and political elite audience. Established in 1948, the People’s Daily is an official newspaper of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China, published worldwide with a circulation of 3 million. The newspaper provides direct information on the policies and viewpoints of the Communist Party. Ever since its founding, the People’s Daily has been under the direct control of the Party’s top leadership. The Global Times is a daily Chinese tabloid newspaper under the auspices of the People’s Daily newspaper, focusing on international issues from the Chinese government’s perspective. Its Chinese version was founded in 1993 and has a daily circulation of 1,500,000. This study examined its Chinese version only. Both the People’s Daily and the Global Times belong to official newspapers.

The 21st Century Business Herald is a Chinese financial and economic daily newspaper affiliated to the Southern Newspaper Media Group. First published in 2001, it is currently the largest and most influential mainstream financial media in mainland China with a daily circulation of 762,000. CaixinNet provides news on a daily basis and is said to be China’s most liberal news provider. The 21st Century Business Herald and CaixinNet belong to commercial newspapers.

A total of 536 news articles were collected from the four selected newspapers; 110 news articles from the People’s Daily, 255 from the Global Times, 21 from the 21st Century Business Herald, and 150 from Caixin Net.

The unit of analysis is each news article. Coding was conducted for the following variables:

  • Theme: twenty-three different themes were identified (number 24 was labeled “other” and mainly included articles about culture or art). The themes ranged from immigration figures, (human) rights to journey-related matters (search and rescue, mafia/traffic, mortality figures, aid supplies, humanitarian issues, rejection rate, etc.), the immigration issue itself (civil and political responses, racism), and arrival and settlement (reception, post-arrival integration, economic threat, threat to national security, cultural threat, health risks for the country of destination, crimes against/by refugees, success stories, European integration etc.).

  • Location: as the most important location where the event happens, or the place of the situation described, most mentioned in the article.Footnote 2

  • Refugee origin: the most important country of origin referred to.

  • Religion is measured using two variables: Christian religion (mentioned/not mentioned) and Muslim religion (mentioned/not mentioned).

  • Gender is coded as the gender of the first individual refugee mentioned in the article.

  • Age is measured using four categories ranging from “1 = child” (estimated less than 12), “2 = teenager” (estimated 13–19), “3 = adult” (estimated 20–64), “4 = older person” (estimated 65 +), plus “5 non-identifiable.”

  • Civil response and political response: Civil society response refers to responses from civil society actors and is coded using a 3-point scale ranging from 1 “unwelcome,” 2 “neutral” to 3 “welcome.” The same measurement is used for political response, which refers to any political response, including policy debates.

Six coders were recruited for the coding task and three training sessions were organized by the researchers to ensure consistency in the coding process. Each coder was responsible for coding 6 months of the data. Inter-coder reliability was run on 20% of the total sample, which is 108 articles. The Holsti inter-coder reliability scores for theme, location, refugee location, religion, civil response, and political response were 0.95, 0.81, 0.87, 0.94, 0.97, and 0.98 respectively.

Results

How Chinese media cover European refugee issue between 2015 and 2017

Figure 1 shows the number of news stories published in the 3 years duration. A big surge appears in September 2015. This is the time when the 3-year-old Syrian refugee boy Alan Kurdi’s body was discovered after he drowned on 2 September 2015 in the Mediterranean while traveling with his family trying to reach Europe. Photographs of his body quickly spread around the world, prompting international responses. Accordingly, Chinese media have given the highest coverage of European refugee crisis in that month. A second peak was seen in the first quarter of 2016, which is linked with the New Year’s Eve sexual assaults in Germany.

Fig. 1
figure 1

Number of news items on European refugee issue published in the four Chinese newspapers 2015–2017 (n = 536)

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During the 2016 New Year’s Eve celebrations, hundreds of sexual assaults and rapes were reported in several German cities, mostly in Cologne city center. It is stated that “the overwhelming majority” of suspects were asylum seekers and illegal immigrants who had recently arrived from North Africa and the Middle East. These attacks led to a hardening of attitudes against mass immigration and fueled debate about the sustainability of Germany’s asylum policy and social differences between European and Islamic countries. The German government also proposed changing the law to make it easier to deport immigrants convicted of crimes. In the following 2 months, several massive protests were held in Germany; more European countries tightened the control of their borders and policies on refugees. As a critical turning point in the European refugee crisis, a large number of news reports on these topics appeared in the Chinese newspapers at that time.

Regarding the themes, as shown in Fig. 2, political response/policy is the most covered theme in Chinese newspapers. It dominates 102 news articles, almost one-fifth of the total sample, far more than any other topics. The second most covered topic is European integration, followed by topics on receiving and rejecting refugees, and civil society responses. It is not surprising that European integration is more important than the receiving and rejecting refugees in Chinese media coverage. For China, the political debates of the issue at the EU level and the member states level are an indicator of EU solidarity, which would affect the power of the EU as an international actor. This also explains why the civil society response is of less interest to Chinese media than the political response/policy. On the other hand, topics that framing the refugee issue as a crisis and threats receive far less coverage than political themes. For example, the theme of crime by refugees ranks the sixth, accounting only 5% among all; followed by threats to national security (4%) which is the most mentioned threat theme among all other threat themes that received even less coverage. So the first research question is answered as it is clear that Chinese media frame the European refugee issue more as a political concern rather as a crisis and a threat. Our findings are consistent with the data in the previous study on EU’s external perceptions in 10 strategic partners that the refugee issue affected the effectiveness of the EU as a global actor in terms of politics and security as well as social development (PPMI, NCRE & NFG Research Group 2015).

Fig. 2
figure 2

Themes related to the European refugees issue covered by Chinese media, 2015–2017

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In terms of location, unsurprisingly, Germany is the most mentioned country. It accounts for 35.8%, much more than other countries identified (Fig. 3). Ever since Merkel made the statement “we will make it” (Wir schaffen das!), Germany has been playing a crucial role in responding to the refugee crisis. It is the most sought-after final destination of refugee migration, having received the most asylum applications under Merkel’s open policy (Eurostat 2019). Apart from Germany, Turkey, France, Greece, and Italy are mentioned more often than other countries.

Fig. 3
figure 3

Location percentage of the event

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About the country of refugee origin, most stories (76%) do not mention where the refugees were coming from. However, for those that do, Syria is the most mentioned, accounting for 20%. Afghanistan is the second with 3%, and Iraq is the third with 1%. These three countries identified are in line with the top three refugee-producing countries according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR 2019).

As for religion, the majority of stories (82.3%) do not mention refugees’ religion. Among those that do mention religion, Muslims (12.5%) are more mentioned than Christians (5.2%). It is not surprising as the composition of the refugee population is mostly originating from the Middle East and Northern Africa. In terms of gender, ten times more males (13.2%) are mentioned than females (1.5%) as of the first person mentioned in the news item. A similar gender difference was found for the second person (5.6% vs 0.9%) and the third person coded (2.2% vs 0.7%). These findings are similar to those in the European media coverage where female refugees’ and migrants’ voices were hardly ever heard. In some countries, refugees were never given the opportunity to speak (e.g., Hungary), while in other cases (e.g., Germany), they were only occasionally given this opportunity (Georgiou and Zaborowski 2017).

Civil responses and political responses

To answer research questions 2 and 3, the results showed that civil responses amounted to 1.80, a bit higher than political responses, which was 1.65. None of them reached a neutral score of 2 in a 1 to 3 scale, where 1 is “unwelcoming,” and 3 is “welcoming.” The results indicate that the coverage in the Chinese news media of the overall response toward refugees from either political or civil society in Europe pointed in the direction of somewhat unwelcoming. Civil society was more welcoming than the political response/policy.

As there are two types of newspapers in the sample — official and commercial, T-test results show a significant difference in political responses between the two types, t(176.18) = 3.66, p < 0.000. Official newspapers (M = 1.74, SD = 0.54) are portraying a more welcoming response from the politicians and policy-makers than the commercial counterparts (M = 1.49, SD = 0.54). No difference was found between the two types of newspapers when it comes to the coverage of civil responses.

To explore what factors lead to the political and civil responses, the year turns out to be an important factor. A significant difference in political responses across the 3 years was shown in a one-way ANOVA test (F (2533) = 36.94, p = 0.000). A Tukey post hoc test revealed that political responses were significantly more welcoming in 2015 (M = 1.84) compared to that in 2016 (M = 1.69, p < 0.05) and in 2017 (M = 1.30, p < 0.001). A similar pattern was found in the civil responses. One-way ANOVA test results also show a significant difference in civil responses over the years, (F (2533) = 8.18, p = 0.000). A Tukey’s post hoc test revealed that civil responses were significantly more welcoming in 2015 (M = 1.92) compared to that in 2016 (M = 1.76, p < 0.05) and in 2017 (M = 1.73, p < 0.05).

Moreover, news story locality, religion, and threat themes were also found to affect the political and civil responses. Specifically, regarding the news story locality, we selected the top five countries where the news story took place, i.e., Germany, Turkey, France, Greece, and Italy, and compared their political and civil responses. One-way ANOVA test results showed that the five countries significantly differ in their civil responses (F(4315) = 4.85, p = 0.001) and political responses (F(4315) = 2.45, p = 0.046). A Tukey’s post hoc test revealed that in civil responses, Turkey (M = 1.98) is significantly more welcoming than Germany (M = 1.68, p = 0.009). As to political responses, Greece (M = 1.82) is significantly more welcoming than France (M = 1.45, p = 0.05).

For religion, T-tests showed that Muslims (M = 1.8, SD = 0.51) are significantly less welcome than non-Muslims in civil responses (M = 1.52, SD = 0.58), t(60.24) = 3.40, p < 0.01. No significant difference was found in political responses. Furthermore, referring to the Christian religion or not does not make any difference in either civil or political responses.

As to the ways in which the different threat themes, i.e., economic, security, culture, and health threat, affect political and civil responses, T-tests indicated that reference to the economic and security threats leads to a lower civil as well as political welcoming response. Specifically for civil responses, news mentioning economic threat shows less civil welcome (M = 1.54, SD = 0.54) than news not mentioning economic threat (M = 1.81, SD = 0.52), t(88.08) = 3.52, p < 0.01; likewise, mentioning the security threat leads to the portrayal of a lower civil welcome (M = 1.53, SD = 0.57) than not mentioning the theme (M = 1.88, SD = 0.46), t(190.61) = 5.65, p < 0.001. For political responses, news mentioning economic threat shows a lower political welcome (M = 1.54, SD = 0.54) than not mentioning the theme (M = 1.69, SD = 0.55), t(318) = 1.97, p < 0.05; mentioning security threat leads to the coverage of a lower political welcome (M = 1.57, SD = 0.60) than not covering the theme (M = 1.72, SD = 0.52), t(202.85) = 2.71, p < 0.05 (see Table 1).

Table 1 Independent T-tests for threat themes on civil and political responses
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The mentioning of cultural threat only affects civil responses, which leads to less civil welcome (M = 1.42, SD = 0.56) than not mentioning the theme (M = 1.88, SD = 0.46), t(126.52) = 6.65, p < 0.001; but it does not affect political responses. Mentioning a health risk makes no difference in either the civil or political responses (see Table 1). The predicting threat themes for civil and political responses showed a different pattern, indicating different concerns from the political and civil society.

Conclusion and discussion

This study looks into how the four Chinese newspapers cover the European refugee issue from 2015 to 2017. It finds that the change of media attention over time in the Chinese newspapers provides a clear projection of how the European refugee crisis has evolved in the 3-year time period. Among the 24 themes on refugee news, political response/policy is the most mentioned and dominant topic, occupying 19%. The various themes related to crisis and threats to national security, community, culture, and economy received far less coverage and are represented as less important in the news. This tells that Chinese media interpret the European refugee issue more from a political perspective than a societal or economic perspective. This finding is not unique as previous research also found that politics often plays an important role in humanitarian aid, disaster assistance, and refugee issues (Drury et al. 2005). Yet political responses from EU member states vary due to their own circumstances and national interests. When the EU assigned the allocated quota, some member states even refused outright to accept any refugees. Boukala and Dimitrakopoulou (2018) argue that the European Union is an incomplete supranational institution that is based on the imaginary homogeneity of “Us, Europeans.” The refugee crisis actually reveals the institutional incompleteness and inefficiency of the EU, resurrecting memories of a divided Europe. In another aspect, China has been expecting the EU to be a key global actor as one pole in a multipolar world since the end of the Cold War and has drawn great attention to the progress of the EU integration (Zhang 2016). The different attitudes and policies from member states toward the refugee crisis challenged the EU solidarity and a common migration policy. Hence, it may not be surprising to see that Chinese media attach much attention to the topic of European integration in the coverage of the refugee crisis, which ranks as the second most important theme, taking account of 12% in our study. Even though the refugee issue raised controversial debates at the political/policy level in the European institutions and the governments of member states, the EU as a Union of integrity is still a prominent theme in Chinese news. In this way, an image of an integrated EU would strengthen its power as a global actor in international community. Otherwise, if the refugee issue caused an image of a divided Europe, it would have a negative impact on the EU’s global role. Constructing an image of the EU as a global actor even during the refugee crisis would fit into China’s national interest to see the EU as one pole in the multipolar world system. Therefore, the findings from this study are consistent with a previous study on Chinese perception of the EU as a global actor (Zhang and Yu 2013; Chaban and Holland 2019).

In the European refugee issue, besides the salient political responses, the response from civil society actors cannot be ignored, as the issue is directly related to migration and social economy in the EU. The study finds that both political and civil responses from Europe to the refugees were reported unwelcoming, though when comparing their welcome levels, it is revealing to find that in Chinese newspapers, the European civil society is perceived more welcoming to refugees than political responses. It also indicates that the political and civil responses were most welcoming in 2015 but significantly declined in 2016 and 2017. A critical change happened at the beginning of 2016, as reflected in the amount of news coverage. The media attention has reached a second peak in the first quarter of 2016 when most coverage in the Chinese newspapers is about New Year’s Eve sexual assaults, thefts, and chaos in Cologne and other cities in Germany and Europe. The assaults triggered a backlash against German Chancellor Angela Merkel’s open-door refugee policy and heightened public concerns about accepting and integrating refugees. It accelerated the anxiety that had been bubbling about the refugee influx, leading to angry protests and a surge in support for the anti-Islam, anti-immigrant movements in the following months. In response, a series of policies have been proposed on tightening the application criteria of asylum seekers, family reunification, and border controls, and have speeded up deportations not only in Germany but also in other European countries. All these have become headlines in the Chinese newspapers.

Apart from the change of attitudes in different years, three factors were found to have influenced the attitudes in the news. First is treating the refugees as a threat. The representation of refugees as a security threat and an economic threat to European society contributes to the unwelcoming attitude from both political and civil responses. Portrayal of the refugees as a cultural threat to Europe only made the civil societies’ attitude more negative, while no such influence was found in political responses. Media attention on health threat brought by refugees that was found has no impact on both political and civil attitudes. Second, Muslim religion seems to influence the attitudes. Media reporting on the Muslim religion significantly leads to the less welcoming attitude from the civil society than no mentioning of Muslim religions. But media reference to Christian religion does not have any influences on both political and civil attitudes. Third are the popularity and policy of the receiving location. Germany is the most sought-after final destination of refugee migration, having received the most asylum applications under Merkel’s open policy (Eurostat 2019). But German welcoming attitudes in both political and civil responses have significantly changed since 2016. Therefore, Turkey, where a large number of refugees chose to stay before they can move to the EU territory, was reported with more welcoming attitudes than Germany, particularly in civil responses.

While the western media portrayed the whole European refugee issue as a “crisis” (Chouliaraki and Stolic 2017; Dines et al. 2018), Chinese news media tend to use “issue” (wenti问题). In Europe, the real crisis is not the influx of a record number of new immigrants, but the spreading radicalization against Muslims and refugees. In China, it also triggered discussion on immigrants on social media (Gan 2020). In fact, as the number of countries bordered by China’s territory is very large and any armed conflicts in neighboring countries may cause an inevitable refugee influx, China is an important recipient of international refugees from history until now. According to the UNHCR Global Trends Report 2015, China received a total of 301,052 refugees, as of the first half of 2014, ranking the tenth in the world (UNHCR 2015). The vast majority of refugees are from Vietnam. From the end of 2016 to the beginning of 2017, there were a large number of Myanmar refugees flooded into China due to the conflict in North Myanmar. The entry of refugees has caused a certain impact on the local society. However, due to effective emergency measures such as the temporary resettlement and free distribution of relief materials by the local Chinese government, the impact of refugees is still within the controllable range. The UN Refugee Agency highly appraised that the Chinese government has effectively protected and integrated the refugees into the local society, saying that China’s resettlement work is “one of the most successful examples of placement and integration into society”, and won the title of “the humanitarian model”(Huang and Li 2017). With this background, China is playing its own active and important role in assuming the responsibilities of major powers in regional and global security affairs during the European refugee issue. Under these backgrounds, it is not surprising to see the welcoming civil responses as perceived in Chinese media.

Whether it is from a historical experience or from the wave of European refugee issue, we can all see that war is the most important push factor for refugees. In the past three decades, the border areas of China have not been troubled by refugee problems, a benefit from a stable surrounding environment. Therefore, China has made efforts to take an important role in regional and international affairs to create and maintain a peaceful environment for development. One of the efforts which also involves European countries is the aforementioned China’s Belt and Road Initiative and the concept of a community with a shared future for mankind (Lin 2018). China seeks to collaborate with the international community to tackle multiple developments and governance challenges through multilateral cooperation based on equality and mutual benefit. In this context, a stronger EU as a global actor capable of dealing with its own refugee crisis in both political integration and social cohesion would be China’s partner in global governance. Therefore, in representation of the European refugee issue, we can see that Chinese media project an image of the EU suffering from the refugee crisis, but still a strong global actor.

The study has several limitations. As the data are based on content analysis only, the measurement of political and civil responses in the study is coded, based on the level of welcoming tone of the news articles. Future research can combine survey results with content analysis in order to gauge the potential impact of the media coverage on people’s opinions and attitudes. The current study only investigated a selection of newspapers in China. To compare the differences and similarities in the coverage of international news such as the European refugee issue and investigate underlying factors, efforts should also be paid to collect samples from more countries. Factors like different journalism culture, political system, foreign policies, local immigrant context, and partisanship might be pertinent to the variation in news coverage as well as political and civil responses.