Imaginaries of enmity across the Taiwan Strait: The ‘cartoon war’ between Taipei Times and Global Times

Abstract

This article reconsiders the Taiwan Strait conflict by encouraging a deeper exploration of the construction of sociopolitical imaginaries of enmity through editorial political cartoons. It does so, moreover, by emphasizing the need to attend to the triadic China–Taiwan–US relations, rather than just focusing on cross-Strait developments. Through this study, we focus on editorial political cartoons as visual schematic elements that aid in describing and explaining overarching discursive practices. We show how the political cartoons of China’s Global Times and Taiwan’s Taipei Times analysed in this article reflect the evolving dynamics and contemporary tensions in China–Taiwan–US relations. Furthermore, these cartoons underscore the importance of visual media in co-constructing conceptions of ‘friends’ and ‘foes’ that ultimately influence those very dynamics and, at least partially, aid in explaining those tensions. We reveal the existence of several parallels between the political imaginaries represented by the cartoons of both outlets, especially concerning the construction of an ‘external enemy’: the United States in Global Times and China in Taipei Times. However, notable differences also emerge, including the contrasting representation of the US role, as well as the predominant portrayal of ‘internal enemies’ and a higher degree of dehumanization in the Taiwanese outlet.