The China-Pakistan economic corridor: The Pakistani media attitudes perspective

Abstract The China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) is a flagship project of the Belt and Road Initiative. How Pakistani media coverage shapes the CPEC is related to public attitudes towards the project and may even affect the success or failure of the initiative in Pakistan. This paper examines Pakistani media coverage on the CPEC by constructing and analyzing semantic networks of the news from the top three English media from 2015 to 2018. We detect the sentimental polarity of news coverage on the CPEC, focusing on the words used in the news and determining how the media frames the CPEC in Pakistan. Then, we construct semantic networks of the negative, neutral and positive documents. Network analysis is used to determine the characteristics of the different sentiment networks, which words hold significant positions, and how the negative central concepts are associated with describing the apprehension towards and obstacles related to the CPEC. The results show that most coverage exhibits a positive attitude towards the CPEC. Negative sentiment towards the CPEC is illustrated through more diverse messaging, demonstrating greater cohesiveness than the larger, less-connected positive network. The identified negative central topics are India, security, region, parties, issues, Afghanistan, Kashmir, debt, loans, situation, disputes, cost, opposition and peace, which are framed around apprehension and skepticism regarding the CPEC and the stability of the environment of its construction. In contrast, the most significant words in the positive network are progress, important, support, benefit, prosperity, enhance, improve, and boost, highlighting the potential economic returns and political guarantees. Semantic network analysis of the sentiments expressed in the Pakistani media regarding the CPEC can improve our understanding of Pakistani attitudes towards the CPEC. Our research combines quantitative and qualitative evidence to study media coverage in Pakistan, which can provide insights regarding the communications used to improve confidence in the CPEC and can also improve our understanding of the Belt and Road Initiative.