The latest journal article based on the PANCOPOP project, entitled ‘Strategic narratives between global influence and local appropriation: China’s COVID-19 vaccine diplomacy in Serbia’, was published in European Politics and Society. Co-authored by Ana Stojiljković and Sabina Mihelj, the article seeks to advance knowledge on China’s COVID-19 diplomacy by drawing on the conceptual framework of strategic narratives, which highlights the centrality of communication in international affairs. The authors also expand this framework by pointing to the need to examine how such narratives are appropriated by local political elites and the media in recipient countries. Empirically, the article focuses on Serbia, a country whose political elites and public opinion have grown increasingly sympathetic to China in recent years. It draws on a novel, in-depth narrative analysis of a sample covering three years (2020–2022), focusing on the narrative roles of the key actors. The analysis shows that Serbian media initially amplified Chinese strategic narratives, which featured China as the leading protagonist and emphasized its successful management of the pandemic but soon shifted to endorsing narratives promoted by Serbian leaders, which foregrounded Serbia’s own agency. Apart from contributing to a better understanding of the effectiveness of the impact of China’s global influence, the findings also have wider theoretical and methodological implications for our understanding of the role of media in public diplomacy and foreign policy studies.
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