ABSTRACT
Chapter 3 concluded that the Chinese public diplomacy narratives of the BRI are constantly evolving and ambiguously defined. It is apparent that, initially, the Chinese Government did not explain the BRI well, which, to some extent, offers space for Australian media to develop their own narratives. Chapters 4 and 5 discovered that the narratives of the BRI in Australian mainstream media and their shift around 2017, from generally supportive to mostly critical. These two chapters also found that the mainstream media narratives of the BRI in Australia were more about the Chinese Government and the CPC rather than the BRI itself. Drawing on previous chapters, my analysis, and interviews, this chapter attempts to investigate the reasons for the narrative shift of the BRI in Australian mainstream media to answer sub-RQ 3.
