Critical Discourse Analysis of Global Times Editorials on the Camp David “US-Japan-Korea” Summit: Framing the US “New Cold War” Strategy and Recontextualizing NATO in Asia

This study applied critical discourse analysis (CDA) methodology to scrutinize how Global Times editorials interpreted the announcement of "trilateral military cooperation" between the United States, Japan, and South Korea at the Camp David summit. The editorials described the cooperation as a "trilateral military alliance" and framed it in the context of the "New Cold War." This analysis focuses on four key editorials that waged a public relations battle over the Camp David summit. The study aims to answer three main questions. First, it analyzes the ways in which the editorials framed the Camp David "US-Japan-South Korea" summit as part of the US New Cold War strategy in the Indo-Pacific region, and assigned the responsibility for the New Cold War to the US. Second, it describes and interprets how the editorials publicly criticized the United States, Japan, and South Korea through NATO discourse strategies in Asia during the Camp David summit. Third, it examines how the "New Cold War" frame and the Asian NATO discourse strategy are materialized through conceptual metaphors. The analysis shows that the editorials frame the Camp David summit as a "new cold war" and blame the U.S. as the main perpetrator of the new cold war. The editorials publicly name and shame the specific aspect of the "new cold war" as the Asian version of NATO. Conceptual metaphors are used in the August 7th editorial to show the problems with the U.S.-Japan military alliance, on the 17th to separate S. Korea from the U.S., on the 19th to do Japan-South Korea from the U.S., and on the 21st to do ASEAN-the Pacific and island states from the U.S.-Japan-S.Korea.