On Searching for Political Groups in the Highest Levels of Power in PRC Based on Quantitative Analysis of the Articles of Renmin Ribao (2014-2018) Devoted to the Belt and Road Initiative

Abstract

The paper is focused on the problem of identifying political groups inside the top levels of the PRC leadership, overcoming the main methodological hardships that emerge usually when an attempt at a classification of political actors is made. One possible way to do it would be to use the methods of quantitative analysis to locate a pattern in how the chief Chinese official mass media Renmin Ribao mentions the political actors in their publications and articles, in studying the distribution of such mentions. The articles on the Belt and Road Initiative were selected for this research. The distribution of the mention of personalities in publications on this topic allows us to distinguish two groups. The first is formed around Chinese President Xi Jinping, the second around Li Keqiang, Premier of the State Council of the PRC. The principles of the approach to the analysis of information in media publications used in this study were generally formulated by V.G. Gelbras. The methods of distributing personalities into groups are based on the works of D.V. Deopik related to classification problems. The result of the study was a quantitatively substantiated grouping of political actors and formulation of a method to determine the political affiliation not only of figures from the highest echelons of power in the PRC, but also of those who are at lower levels, that is, those about whom there is little information in the open sources.