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Comparative analysis of Ukrainian crisis in Chinese and Singapore media

Ekaterina Andreevna Shesterikova

Abstract

The Ukrainian crisis is one of the major topics of mass media all over the world. Chinese and Singapore media are not exceptions. These events are differently estimated by journalists all over the world. In our study we analyze reactions of Chinese and Singapore media on the Ukrainian crisis. The research is based on online and printed media analysis of Singapore and China in Mandarin and English languages. We divided the territory of China into five regions, whereas we consider Singapore as one big region. Our research is based on the qualitative research method of the narrative analysis. The results of our study illustrate that journalists from the Mainland China neutrally react on Russian actions in Ukrainian crisis, however, journalists from Hong Kong, Taiwan, and, surprisingly, Tibet negatively estimated Russian actions in Crimea region. It is interesting that Singapore journalists also negatively reacted on the Ukrainian crisis. However, it is need to emphasize that the issue of Ukrainian crisis is not mostly discussed by Singapore journalists. Singapore, Hong Kong and Taiwan are called as Asian Tigers due to their fast-economic development. We expected that countries with similar economic development and historical background have similar media narratives. The results of our work will be useful for journalists, political scientists, linguists and everyone who is interested in Asia.

Key words: media, Ukraine, Crimea, Singapore, China, Asia, narrative analysis, crisis, Donetsk, Luhansk

Introduction

The problem of crisis in Ukraine has received a large amount of attention worldwide since 2013. This issue is actively discussed among journalists, political scientists, people who are interested in international affairs all over the world.

The topic of Ukrainian crisis has become one of the major topics of mass media globally. Media reactions on this topic are very different. Media of democratic states such as the USA or the UK negatively reacted on the Russian actions in the Ukrainian crisis, whereas in other countries there could be found negative and neutral reactions (Bebler, 2016).. So, the Ukrainian events are differently estimated by journalists all over the world.

From our point of view, the Ukrainian crisis can be defined not only as contradictions between different political groups on the territory of Ukraine but also conflict between the Russian Federation and Ukraine based on the Crimean issues. Moreover, this crisis includes Donetsk and Luhansk conflicts.

The economic crisis, the demographic decline and unresolved political problems such as integration into the European Union and NATO or into the EEU Customs Union, disputes over the status of the Russian language led Ukraine, which declared to a sharp political the crisis in 2013-2014, that resulted in a civil war and the collapse of the state (.

Previous studies on the Ukrainian crisis have mostly concentrated on the description of these conflicts. There is a number of researches based on analysis of American, Russian, English media views on the Ukrainian crisis. Also, there are some works based on the political image of the Russian President Vladimir Putin. Studies of the political image are very close to our research, because, for us, it would be interesting to indicate how the Ukrainian crisis influence the political image of Vladimir Putin in Chinese and Singapore media.

In the whole, there are three approaches to the research on Crimean crisis, as part of the Ukrainian crisis. The first approach is pro-Russian. According to this approach, the process of joining Crimea to the Russian Federation is considered as the legal return of territory, which used to be part of Russia (Mearsheimer, 2014). The second approach is pro-Western (Svyatets, 2016; Grigas, 2016). Researchers believe that Russian actions should be regarded as the violation of the all international legal standards. The third approach is Chinese variant on describing Crimean crisis events. However, the position of China on Crimean crisis is still unclear (Niblett, 2017). We should say that China is one of the biggest countries in the world; nowadays it is one of the major players on the international arena. This country has special administrative regions such as Macau and Hong Kong. Moreover, Taiwan is a difficult region; the status of Taiwan is still also unclear. So different regions of China could have different position about Crimea annexation.

However, the problem indicating of Asian media reactions on the Ukrainian issue is not studied in previous research. Furthermore, previous studied did not provide comparative analysis of media narratives of different countries on the Ukrainian crisis.

The present research analyzes media reactions of Chinese and Singapore media on the Ukrainian crisis. The choice of such countries could be explained with the following factors. Firstly, China and Singapore are Asian countries, they have close culture. 73% of Singapore population are Chinese.Secondly, although these countries are very close to each other, Singapore is claimed to be more democratic. According to the Democracy Index which is created by the Economist Intelligence Unit, Singapore is on the 66th place, that means that Singapore is a flawed democracy, whereas China is considered to be an authoritarian state. In this rating China is the 130th state among 167 countries. However, there is another index which indicates the political regime of the country. This rating is called the Polity IV. According to it, Singapore has -2 points, that means that this country is a closed anocracy. People's Republic of China has -5 points, which is also a closed anocracy. So, these indexes contradict each other, and in our research we, firstly, would like to study narratives of Singapore, as a country with different indexes of political regimes. According to the Press Freedom Index, China is the 176th country in the list, whereas Singapore is on the 151st place. Moreover, Singapore is considered as “China light” country. It means that Singapore and China are very close, but Singapore is claimed to be more democratic. That is why, from our point of view, it would be interesting to analyze how media narrative of Singapore and Chinese media differs from each other.

We believe that if the real Polity IV index of Singapore is -2, narratives describing Russian actions is Crimea would be similar with Chinese. And if Singapore is a flawed democracy, its reactions would be similar with reactions of democratic states such as the U.S. media and others.

As it was mentioned before, in our research we will indicate and compare reactions of Chinese and Singapore media on the Ukrainian crisis. China and Russia have strong relations in economy, international affairs, culture, social and other spheres. These countries are members of Shanghai Cooperation Organization, BRICS, the United Nations Security Council, etc. Singapore and Russia That is why, there is no doubt that Chinese media has payed considerable attention to the Ukrainian crisis in 2014 and nowadays this topic is still popular.

So, it would be interesting to compare the narratives of two countries: the first country is one of the largest in the world which population includes 56 nationalities with majority of Han population, and the second state is small with well-developed Chinese diaspora. It seems curious to study the differences of narratives of such two countries.

Our motivation in this work is to show the similarities or differences of narratives of Chinese and Singapore on the Ukrainian crisis case. It should be mentioned that our research includes not only the Mainland Chinese media, but media of Taiwan and Hong Kong as well. Singapore, Taiwan and Hong Kong are called as Asian Tigers or Dragons. These countries are claimed as new industrialized with very high levels of economic development. Usually the South Korea is also included to this list, so in the future research the South Korean media case could be also included. It will be the implication of our further study.

It should be emphasized that the major function of media is to provide information about the latest events in the world (Van Evera, 1997). Also, now media is considered as one of the most important tools which influence the mass consciousness. We can say that the modern perception of the world is created by mass media. We perceive events through author's invariance of journalists. More precisely, in mass media we do not see events, we just see the journalistic text which performs the function of managing of mass consciousness. That is why it is important to study the media sphere.

Nowadays language tools are one of the main tools of the political influence. Through language tools, we can see how political assessment of event differs from regions (Kalinin, O). We cannot observe the actions of political process's direct participants, but we can read the information about the process in mass media. So that is why we can say that mass media is an intermediary between political actors and the ordinary people.

Our research sets out to examine whether countries with similar culture, economy and social sphere and a different political regime have the same media reactions on Ukrainian crisis or not. The concept of Singapore as a “China light” country will be studied on the base of media analysis. With this aim in mind, we consider the following research question: How do media narratives of Chinese regions and Singapore differ from each other?

Our research is based on qualitative method of the narrative analysis, which lets us to conduct media analysis of Chinese and Singapore media reactions on the Ukrainian crisis. The method of narrative analysis is widely used in history, psychology, political science, philosophy, sociology, etc. Based on the elements of the narrative such as events, main characters and others the content-analysis of text could be created. Also case method could be considered as a kind of narrative analysis which lets researchers to study the phenomenon deeply.

In our study we only concentrate on Chinese and English language media, we do not analyze Malay or Tamil media. Moreover, we only consider online and printed media, we do not study other types of media such as television, movies, radio, etc.

From our point of view, media texts have some features. They are: socio-political and terminological vocabulary, that is journalistic terminology, the widespread use of proper nouns, the presence of publicity clichйs and clichйs, the use of implicit and explicit assessment, vocabulary and phraseology in a figurative sense, use of borrowings from wenyan, stylistic contamination, the use of words formed by abbreviation and affixation.

Talking about the problems of analyzing media in Asian countries, we should mention that, for example, modern Chinese media, especially electronic online resources that are in the category of the most visited and popular in the country, cannot be considered as independent of any official public authorities. Being fully controlled as in terms of editorial and publishing work, organizational devices, information giants cannot Express a point of view different from the point of view of the ruling elite of the PRC.

Our study expects to have the following outcomes. Firstly, our research will contribute to understanding the differences of political and media systems of the People's Republic of China and Singapore. Secondly, it will shed light on the main trends of media reactions of China and Singapore, and their changes during the Ukrainian crisis. Moreover, our work will allow researchers to conduct comparative analysis of different spheres of China and Singapore. Our results may have significant implications for the “China light” concept. Furthermore, our study would be useful for political scientists, oriental scientists, journalists, experts in international relations and everyone who is interesting in media analysis, the problem of the Ukrainian crisis, Asian countries such as China and Singapore.

The practical value of our research is defining linguistic features of the image political media text (lexical, grammatical, and stylistic). Another value is studying the structure of the image political media text, especially the specification of the author's characteristic types and conclusions.

The results of this study could be helpful for specialists in political science, international relations, Asian studies. Such information may be of use to sinologists, politicians, journalists because it can contribute to their future research.

Methodology

Our research is based on qualitative research method of the narrative analysis. In this part of our research we will provide a description of this method. The method of narrative analysis is based on principles of structural analysis of the text, which were created by Propp V. and Tomashevskiy B.

What is the narrative analysis? It is a qualitative method based on informal interviews, biographical interview, narrative interviews and other qualitative methods of data collection (Van Evera, 1997). In our case we will analyze Chinese and Singapore online media texts. It is interesting that the term "narrative" (its lexical meaning is "story", "narrative") has firmly entered the scientific vocabulary of Western linguists, literary and film critics, sociologists. The narrative analysis refers to methods of studying the text (Riessman, 2008).

For the first time the term “narrative” was used in 1968 in the book of the Bulgarian philosopher Tsvetan Todorov “The Grammar of the Decameron”. In this study, the theorist introduced the concept of narratology as a "science of the story". Such definition can be explained with the fact that in French language narrare means to tell.

The narrative is a linguistic category (text, the rhythmic composition of which is built with the help of alternations of points of view), cognitive essence (global mental representation of history), and a communicative strategy aimed at a definite solution to a problem situation that can become a meta-possibility, portable reader on current life situations. Narrative is a linguocultural phenomenon, reflecting some invariant ways of world perception shared by native linguocultures.

The narrative analysis of collected data is conducted in the following sequence. Firstly, formal analysis of the text should be conducted, paragraphs or parts of the text which are not important should be removed. Secondly, substantial structural descriptions of key events, situations are needed. Thirdly, analytical abstraction is also needed. The results of the structural description are separated from the specifics and specifics of the key situations and based on a comparison of such abstracted judgments a common "formula" is worked out for a particular situation or event, in which the dominant side of it is expressed. The next step is analysis of the acquired information. And the last step is conducting comparative analysis (Van Evera, 1997).

Nowadays the narrative method is used in almost all areas of the theoretical knowledge such as philosophy, sociology, history, political science and other spheres.

Nowadays, the narrative can be recognized as an immanent feature of human thinking and, hence, the main form of understanding and cultural experience, organization research and educational technologies, social interaction.

Narrative is also a specific form of cognition. It is a complete image of the world of history, obtained only as a result of the convergence of all cognitive operations that occur in the process of generation and perception of this world. The global mental representation of the world of history gives rise to a similar representation in the consciousness of the recipient and serves as the source of its interpretations. This is what distinguishes narrative discourse from all other types of discursive practices. Riessman , C. K. Narrative methods for the human sciences. London , England : Sage, 2008, 8 .

The method of the narrative analysis is widely used in media text studies. It can be explained with the fact that mass information contains texts about current events, which are the main parts of the story. The news narrative has main and minor actors, "heroes" and "villains". Ibid.

For the news narrative it is suitable to have consistently developing action which is compositionally constructed. News narrative has a clear structure: it has the beginning of the story, the main part and the end.

A collection of selected messages in the media release is presented as a collage text. Such texts create a single semantic image of the world. It should be emphasized that the image of the world is formed as a result of the fact that each the mass media agency selects and modifies event messages in their own way. According to Yuri Rozhdestvensky, the famous Russian linguist, philosopher and rhetorician, the choice of media messages, the process of commenting on them completing them with additional genres lies on those who manage the media structure. Such management can be administrative, financial or commercial. The selection of messages, commenting and completing them with additional genres form a certain point of view on the world, a metaphorical image of the world, which should become a myth for the audience.

After analyzing the concepts of the most authoritative narratologists today, we define the narrative as the “fuzzy set” of texts of different degrees of narrative grouped around prototypical representatives of history. Van Evera, S. Guide to methods for students of political science. Ithaka: Cornell University Press, 1997, 39. We also indicated the following features of the narrative: (1) a uniquely structured time course of events that (2) introduces an imbalance in the stable model of the world of participants in the events (3) and conveys the subjective experience of living destabilization of life through the use of the “own” or “alien” position of this experience by the narrator.

Narrative journalism is taught at many American universities. There is a special award which is only for students for their exceptional journalistic narratives. It is called as The Christopher J. Georges Award for Excellence in Student Journalism. In this direction, bachelor's and master's degrees are awarded, doctoral dissertations are defended. Ibid. 76.

An American linguist William Labov studied narratives. The researcher identified six elements of the narrative. The first element is abstract, which is the short overview of the content of the text. We can say that the role of the abstract in the narrative is be an introduction of the text. The second element is called orientation. It includes information about the main characters of the event, the place, where this event takes place, the time of the event and the description of the situation. The third element is called the complicated action, which contains a number of actions, which are connected with the event. The next part of the narrative is called the evaluation. It explains why this narrative is needed. Also, this element indicates the attitude of the narrator to the event. The fifth part of the narrative is resolution. Its role is to be the conclusion of the text. In this part the narrator provides information about the end of the story. The last element of the narrative is called coda. This part is needed to identify the connection of the story with every-day life events. Also, coda can indicate the connection of the story with other actions. Ibid.

Our research is based on the William Labov's approach of the narrative analysis. In our study we analyze media texts and conduct narrative analysis by identifying the six key elements of the narrative.

It is necessary to take into account that semantic, structural units, not the actors themselves are subjected to analysis not by language. All the text values, ideas, collective representations and attitudes rooted in the socio-cultural context of the narrative. That is why, in our research, we should mostly pay attention to the content, not to the language instruments.

So, the main distinguishing features of narrative journalism are: 1) accurate, objective presentation of information; 2) a combination of informational and reporting style with an artistic style that can make the reader to see a deep ideological, moral and aesthetic content behind the real story about the life of a particular person; 3) the promotion on the background of a sociocultural context of a story about a personal life containing real participants, an intriguing situation, emotions and feelings; 4) a clearly expressed point of view of a journalist, representing events and participants in an individual perspective. Zheltukhina, M. R. Politicheskiy i mass-medialnyy diskursy: vozdeystvie -- vospriyatie -- interpretatsiya [Political and mass media discourse: perception - influence - interpretation]. Moscow: Academy, 2003. 118.

To sum up, it can be said that due to the fact that the narrative form is the predominant type of text that is widely used in modern information space to create the view of the world, possession of narrative method is essential for specialists in the field of public relations, management, journalism. That is why, for studying media text we chose the method of the narrative analysis.

Literature review

Our work relates to the research area which focuses on comparison of media reactions of two countries on the Ukrainian countries. Singapore is claimed to be more democratic than China, so we expect that Singapore media reactions would be more democratic than Chinese.

In this part of our work we will provide an analysis of previous works. From our point of view, it seems reasonable to divide some studies into several groups.

To begin with, it is very important to mention a number of works which focuses on the phenomena of political image. A study by Li, Voloboyeva & Gorbachev (2016) analyzes a political image of the Russian President Vladimir Putin in Chinese media. Authors claim that since 2014 in China there has been significant interest to the political activity of Vladimir Putin. This interest is explained by Russian internal and external policy. Authors connect the increase in the interest to Vladimir Putin with some events such as 2014 Winter Olympics, the Crimean issue, sanctions against Russia, etc.

Authors provide the results of survey conducted by Chinese company Tencent, which shows that 92% of Chinese respondents support the Russian President Vladimir Putin. There is no doubt, that this percentage is very high, however, authors did not provide details about respondents: their age, marital status, nationality, level of education, job, etc. Li, Voloboyeva&Gorbachev. Imidzh V. Putina v diskursivnom prostranstve kitaiskih SMI kak factor realizatsii sovremennyh politico-economicheskyh proektov [Image of V. Putin in the discourse of Chinese media as factor of realization of collective politico-economic projects]. Political science, 2014., 74. The number of respondents were not provided as well.

In the research authors also studied Internet comments of Chinese users about Vladimir Putin. They claim that Chinese users like personality of Vladimir Putin. They call the Russian President as a responsible person, who is ready to protect the national sovereignty and territorial integrity. Also, Chinese people claim that Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin use the same methods of management, have similar policies and solve the same problems. Ibid, p.89.Moreover, Chinese users highly estimate appearance of the Russian President, his gestures and body language.

From our point of view, study by Li, Voloboyeva & Gorbachev (2016) is useful for us, however authors do not provide concrete quotations of comments, they provide general information without details.

Another group of studies focuses on the political image of China in Russian media. A case in point is study by Men (2016). Author analyzed publications of two Russian newspapers: “Izvestia” and “Kommersant”. However, from our point of view, it would be interesting to add that“independent media” in the research in order to show how political image of Xi Jinping differs in “pro-Kremlin” and “independent” media. According to the research, about 20% of news content are about China. The “Kommersant” is mostly concentrated on the providing information about concepts “One Belt, One Road”, “Maritime Silk Road”, Chinese dream, etc., whereas the “Izvestia” generally describes about the Chinese government's fight against corruption. In addition, several photographs of Xi Jinping were published in “Kommersant”, while “Izvestiya” posted only joint photographs of Xi Jinping and President Vladimir Putin.

A research which was written by Li (2009) describes the image of Vladimir Putin among Chinese citizens. This work helps us to compare citizens' attitude to the Russian President before the Ukrainian crisis and after. This article can help us to estimate the image of the Russian President before the crisis. Factors which lead to such image are close connections with China, his personality and his family. The great disadvantage of the work is that author does not provide proves of his statements, we believe that statistics and or the narrative analysis are needed. Moreover, some statements could be very controversial. Author includes many stereotypes about the Russian President and they could be very ridiculous: Putin is like ordinary Siberian citizen, loves fishing, hunting, etc.

Also, from our point of view, the text is not scientific, it perfectly suits the political journal without scientific orientation. But for us it is important to state that the political image of the Russian President Vladimir Putin is positive among Chinese people.

A study by Yan (2012) provides a short description about mass media in China. According to the study, since 1950 till 2010 the number of newspaper agencies has increased in eleven times. Nowadays there are more than 400 different newspaper agencies in China and this figure is increasing every year. There are more than 10 000 media that work online.

The author also describes other kinds of mass media such as television, radio, etc., but they are not very relevant to our research that is why we will not analyze them.

The study by Oleg Kalinin (2015) analyzes the political image of Russia in Chinese media during the Ukrainian crisis. The author uses the method of content analysis of Chinese news, articles in mass media about Russia. The method of content analysis is suitable for research connected with documents, working with texts, etc. That is why, this method also could be useful for our study.

According to this research, Russia is described in neutral tonality in Chinese media and it means that in the whole, the Russian Federation has a positive image in China. The author also emphasizes that Chinese news about Russia and the Ukrainian crisis have a purely informative character and, in the whole, reflect neutral position. Kalinin, O. “Politichesky imidzh Rossii v smi KNR: k voprosy o tonalnosty texta v svyazi s sobytiyami na Ukraine” [Political image of Russia in principal media: due to the question of the text vocabulary in texts about Ukraine]. Political linguistics, no. 1. (2015), 28.However, the author does not compare regional media messages; the author just analyzes the most popular Chinese mass media.

Another group of studies analyzes the structure of Chinese media messages, the features of Chinese media and models of media development. The study by Chinese researcher Jia Lezhong (2014) indicates the group of the Chinese mass media. According to the author, there are three main groups of media. The first group of mass media is connected with the government, they support the official ideology, and their aim is to implement government objectives. The second group of the Chinese media is oriented on the development of market relations. The third group is “the new media”, which are oriented on interests of ordinary people and express their opinions. The results of this research can be useful for our paper because we will analyze the all group of media. However, the author does not provide information about media reactions on the Ukrainian crisis 2014 issue.

Some scholars study the Chinese position on the Crimean issue. A case in point is the article by Chinese researcher Sheng Ding (2014), in which the author indicates Chinese attitude to the Ukrainian crisis in the whole and to Crimean issue as well. However, these studies do not analyze Chinese media, especially regional media.

An article by Monastyreva studies the Russian language media in China. This work provides historical information about media development in China, especially the development of Russian language media in China. According to the author, the first Russian language media in China was created after 1949. Nowadays Russian media in China plays significant role in transforming of information.

According to the research, it is suggested that China should have an influential newspaper in Russian, such as the all-Chinese newspaper in English, for example, China Daily. The plans, voiced by Chinese officials, include the implementation of the project of the broadcast of Russian-language programs of Heilongjiang in Moscow and St. Petersburg, as well as the expansion Russian-language broadcasting main broadcasting China's organ - the International Radio of China. Thus, it should be recognized that in the media space as a special sphere of the relationship between the two countries and peoples today, China is playing the role of a leading, most enterprising participant. Monastyreva, O. Russkoyazychye SMI Kitaya [Russian language media in China]. Moscow State University, 2014. 26.The Russian media faces the challenge of finding adequate forms of response to the Chinese information call. However, the author did not mention information about the comparison of media reactions: the reactions of the Russian language media and reactions of Chinese language media.

Another group of studies focus on the political analysis of Singapore and China. It is widely believed that Singapore is a “light China”, which is claimed to be more democratic. Singapore and China are very close countries.

There is group of studies which concentrated on the description of the Ukrainian crisis. For example, a research by Ramicone & Rocca (2014) illustrates the situation in Ukraine. Authors consider the influence of NATO and the USA, in the whole, in this crisis. According to the research, the role of NATO and the USA is very low, they are not responsible for “intervention of Crimea”. Authors claimed that for the Russian government the first goal was Crimea, then Russia will join eastern parts of Ukraine. According to the research Crimean and Donetsk and Luhansk cases are very similar (the biggest part of population speak Russian and they are pro-Russian). From our point of view, this study helps us to understand the Ukrainian crisis well, the relations between Russia, Ukraine, the USA and European countries.

A research by Morelli (2017) provides a full description of the Ukrainian crisis. Author starts from providing information about factors which led to crisis in Ukraine. One of the main reasons was the dissatisfaction of Yanukovych, who was the President of Ukraine. In 2014 there were presidential elections in Ukraine, in which Poroshenko won. From the beginning of his rule, in Ukraine the opposition began to concentrate in Kiev. We can say that this opposition was strong enough to confront the government.

From our point of view, this study has several advantages. To begin with, it should be mentioned that authors claim that because of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia, Western countries took sanctions against Russia. However, Ukraine also lost a lot: before the beginning of the conflict, Russia was the main importer of Ukrainian products. That is why, during the development of conflict Ukraine lost about 80% of its annual export. There is no doubt, that the decrease of export negatively influences on the economic development of the country. Another advantage is that authors discuss the energy issues as one of the most important issues which led to crisis between Russia and Ukraine. In the text, it was said that Russia used energy to manipulate the Ukraine and therefore authors express their hope that for Ukraine it would be better to import gas from Azerbaijan, Central Asian countries or European countries.

According to the research the joining of Crimea to Russia was negatively for the peninsula. Firstly, after the joining the there was a decrease in number of tourists in Crimea. Also, prices on food and the most important products have significantly increased.

In the study it was written that Ukraine is claimed to be priority of EU's countries collaboration. Ibid.That is why the EU supports Ukraine in conflict with Russia. Ukraine and the EU countries signed the Association Agreement, according to which countries have the right of free-trade. The agreement between Ukraine and EU could improve the Ukrainian economy, however, from our point of view, this document firstly is oriented on the improving political relation between countries. Moreover, the EU countries may have their own motives, which could be far from the development of Ukrainian economy.

The research by John J. Mearsheimer is called “Why the Ukraine Crisis Is the West's Fault”. Looking at the title, it becomes obvious that this study focuses on relations between Ukraine and Western countries and indicates the role of Western countries on the development of the Ukrainian crisis. According to the research Western countries are claimed to be responsible not only for Ukrainian crisis, but for Georgian as well. The EU countries do their best to integrate Ukraine to their economy. Author believe that although the European countries blame Russia in the development of Ukrainian crisis, the USA and these European countries should be blamed in the creation of this crisis. Such countries use provocative methods to develop the crisis and worsen relations between Russia and Ukraine. From our opinion, this point of view is very interesting and unusual.

An article by Marta Dyczok analyzes the image of Ukraine in Western media. This topic is very similar to ours, that is why in our research we will concentrate on this article as well. Author also used the method of the narrative analysis. This fact helps us to prove that such method perfectly suits the study. Author collected news from the USA, Italy, Australia, Canada, Ukraine and surprisingly Hong Kong. In our research we claim that Hong Kong is not Western part of the world, of course it is more democratic than China, but it is at least geographically situated in Asia, the biggest part of population are Chinese, nowadays we do not associate Hong Kong with European countries, so we believe that Hong Kong media are not Western, but Eastern. In our research we will compare media narratives of different Chinese regions and Singapore, and may be after conducting the research we would have to agree with the author that media narratives would be the similar to narratives of Western countries' media.

According to the author, the main topics on the Ukrainian crisis are Euromaidan actions, the change of political regime, Crimea annexation, events in Eastern Ukraine. We would deeper study the Ukrainian crisis and identify more cases such as relations between Russia and Ukraine, also we would like to include the EU, the USA and NATO actions associated with the Ukrainian crisis.

A study be Egorova (2014) indicates the image of Russia in English language media on the base of the Ukrainian crisis. The author conducted content analysis of media articles about the first part of the Ukrainian crisis (that was before 2014). The material was a sample of the Internet publications on the website of the popular English-language newspaper “The New York Times” from the time period from November, 2013 to May, 2014 mentioning the words “Ukraine” and “Russia”. This study is very similar to our research, that is why for us this work is very crucial.

The total number of publications on this topic in “The New York Times” website for this period amounted to 655 texts. The Sport column was the most popular in February during the Winter Olympic Games in Sochi (12 publications). The maximum number of publications under headings, including those found on one publication (with the exception of the “Travelling” column), was expected to be recorded in March. The highest publication activity (respectively, 415 and 149) was recorded under the headings “Peace” (140 publications in March) and “Opinion” (57 publications in March). Egorova, E. Obraz Rossii v Americanskih electronnnyh SMI [Image of Russia in American online media]. Saint Petersburg, Nauchnoye mnenie, no. 3 (2014): 48.

The main result of the research shows that all publications on The New York Times, mentioning the words Ukraine and Russia for November 2013, despite the seemingly different thematic focus and diversity in three different headings, can be attributed to one topic, author called it as “the struggle of the European Union and Russia for including Ukraine into its zone of influence.”

From our point of view, this topic is a little bit outdated because it performs the situation in Ukraine in 2013-the beginning of 2014. That is why, a new study is needed to perform the new results in media reactions.

The study suggests that the global political media discourse continues the active process of the old anti-Soviet stereotypes through the formation of new ideas related to Russia as the successor of the USSR imperial ambitions. On the one hand, Russia is presented as a dangerous, instinctively aggressive adversary, on the other, obsolete, painful attachment to the “Soviet imperial past” and therefore doomed to the Kremlin's policy seems to be obvious.

The issue of comparative analysis of regional Chinese and Singapore media on the Ukrainian crisis has been understudied in previous research. This fact makes our paper relevant and actual in modern sphere of comparative politics. It is interesting that in nearly all of research on this topic it was used the method of content analysis (Zhuyu, 2015; Sheng, 2014). This method is very close for our research, because we will analyze the content of Chinese language media on the issue of the Ukrainian crisis 2014.

There is a group of research concentrated on Singapore studies. A case in point is a research by Plekhanov (2014), the author analyzed the political model of Singapore and its connection with democracy and authoritarian regime. According to the research, Singapore as the previous British colony, has some elements similar with British pollical system. Singapore is a parliamentary republic. The President of the State has representative functions. Although Singapore follows the model of British parliamentary democracy, the island's political system is in fact as being one-party “democracy.” According to the research, Singapore is claimed to be more democratic than China because of its historical background.

According to Plekhanov (2014) the state uses the court and the media in its favor. In Singapore there were cases when opposition candidates were forced by the court to pay compensation for “slanderous” statements about the ruling party, which led to their complete ruin and the inability to participate in elections. The main disadvantage of the work is that the author does not provide statistics to prove his results.

A study by Gomez (2005) investigates the main trends in Singapore media. The author claims that media in Singapore is strictly controlled by the government. Singapore journalists have the culture of self-censorship, which means that journalists try not to cover some controversial topics. Gomez, J. Self-Censorship: Singapore's Shame. Think Centre, 2005.It is connected with the fact that Singapore laws are rather strict and in order to avoid problems journalists prefer not to cover some topics.

The ownership of media agencies in Singapore is controlled by authorities. In can be said that there is a monopoly of press in Singapore, because the major media companies are called the Singapore Press Holding and MediaCorp's. Ibid.It worth to mention that broadcast companies in Singapore fully or partly belong to state. Although since 2001 the monopoly has weakened, but still these two companies own the major media agencies in Singapore.

Singapore used to the part of British colony and only in 1959 Singapore got the self-government and became the part of Malaysia. In 1965 Singapore became the independent state. Hong Kong also was British colony, so we can suggest that due to the similar historical background media narratives of Hong Kong and Singapore.

The study by Gomez (2005) is well structured, although it was published fourteen years ago and could be outdated. So, the new research is needed to analyze Singapore media structure, its features, etc.

To sum up, we can say that previous research understudied the comparison of Chinese and Singapore media narratives, that is why, our work seems to be unique. In our research we will study reactions of Chinese and Singapore media on the Ukrainian events.

The aim of our research is to describe the Chinese and English language media narratives on the Ukrainian crisis. Our study has three major objectives. The first one is to provide information about the differences of narratives in Singapore and different Chinese regions. The second objective is to compare media reactions on the Ukrainian issue. The third objective of our research is to indicate what factors influence media reactions of different regions.

After studying previous works based on the media systems of China, Singapore, the image of Russia after the Crimean crisis, the analysis of the Ukrainian crisis we have the following suggestions that we will have the following expected outcomes:

Taiwan, Hong Kong and Singapore media narratives would be similar. It is connected with the similar political systems, economic development and historical background. (based on Jia,2014 study)

The Mainland Chinese media narratives would contain the positive evaluation about the joining Crimea to Russia (due to Sheng, 2014 study)

Hong Kong media narratives would be similar with American (according to Egorova, 2014 study)

English and Chinese language narratives of Singapore media would be similar (based on Gomez, 2005 research)

Singapore media narratives would be less politicized than Chinese (according to Gomez,2005)

Our research could be useful for understanding the Chinese and Singapore position on the Ukrainian crisis, the structure of Chinese and Singapore media and comparison of regional media in China.

Our research problem is connected with the wrong image of China not only among political scientists, but also among journalists and ordinary people. They consider China as one big region. However, China is multinational state with 56 nationalities. Chinese regions differ from their economic development, ethnic composition, cultural heritage, etc. It seems impossible to conduct a deep research without considering the difference between Chinese regions. Singapore media is also understudied, that is why our work scientific novelty.

Ukrainian crisis in Chinese regional media

The People's Republic of China is located in the East Asia. This country is the third largest country in the world. It has borders with the Russian Federation, Kazakhstan, Myanmar, Tajikistan, Nepal, the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, Mongolia, Pakistan, Vietnam, Laos, India, Kyrgyzstan, Afghanistan and Bhutan. It should be mentioned, that border with Russia is one of the biggest in China, except for border with Mongolia. So, there is no doubt that Russia is one of the key partners for China, that is why we expected that Chinese position on the Ukrainian crisis would be similar with Russia.

In this part of our study it seems reasonable to identify regions of the People's Republic of China. As it was claimed before, China is the third largest country in the world, that is why, it is not surprising that the territory of China could be divided into some regions.

There are different approaches to the division of the territory of China into regions. The first approach is the division of territory of China into northern and southern parts. Kalinin, O. “Politichesky imidzh Rossii v smi KNR: k voprosy o tonalnosty texta v svyazi s sobytiyami na Ukraine” [Political image of Russia in principal media: due to the question of the text vocabulary in texts about Ukraine]. Political linguistics, no. 1. (2015), 29.Such approach is mostly historical, ethnological. We can say that people who live on the northern and southern parts speak different dialects, they could have different appearances, different cultural heritage. Also, these two regions differ geographically: they have different climate and different sources. From our point of view, such approach is not perfect, because, as it was emphasized before, the territory of China is very large, so the selection of two large regions could not help us to identify the main trends and differences of narratives.

The second approach is the division of the territory of China into West and East. Due to geographical issues such as climate, relief and sources these two regions have different levels of development. The eastern part of China is more developed now: the biggest cities, factories and plants are located in the East. However, such division does not suit our study because we do not concentrate on differences of the economic development of regions. Moreover, we believe that such division could be imperfect because on the territory of China there are different minorities, and their news frames could be different.

Traditionally the territory of the People's Republic of China is separated into six large regions: Northwest China, Southwest China, East China, Northeast China, North China and South Central China. However, according to media narratives on Crimean crisis, which were analyzed earlier we realized that East Chinese, South Central Chinese, Northwest Chinese, Northeast Chinese media neutrally reacted on the Crimean crisis. Taiwan and Hong Kong negatively estimated Russian actions in Crimea. The Northern Chinese media mostly neutrally estimated the process of joining Crimea to the Russian Federation, but negative reactions were also found. The Southwest media neutrally reacted as well, but in Tibet media reactions are negative. That is why, it seems reasonable to study the following regions:

According to media reactions we divided the territory of China into five big regions. The first group is the largest. It contains the biggest part of China.

In our previous study we analyzed Taiwan and Hong Kong separately, because of the following factors. Firstly, regions are more democratic than the Mainland China, that is why we expected that the media reactions would be different. Secondly, we consider Taiwanese case as very similar to the Crimean, that is why, it is needed to study this region separately.

In the next parts of our research we will identify the major media agencies of the following Chinese regions, the main frames connected with the Ukrainian crisis. As is was mentioned before in our study we analyze English and Chinese language media.

Mainland Chinese media

In our research we call the Mainland China all regions except for the Tibet Autonomous Region, Taiwan, Hong Kong and North China. So, we include all other provinces and municipalities to this region. Because of the large territory it would be difficult to analyze all the media agencies of the region, so we selected 15 major newspapers.

These newspapers are presented in the following list:

This region includes two municipalities: Shanghai and Chongqing, several autonomous such as Xinjiang region, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, the Inner Mongolia and Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region. Moreover, it includes a lot of provinces such as Guangdong, Hainan, Jiangsu, etc.

The results of our analysis show that these regions neutrally react on the majority of the events in the framework of the Ukrainian crisis.

There are some media articles concentrated on the description of the Chinese concept “New Silk Road Economic Belt”. Di er jie “Yi dai yi lu” guoji hezuo gaofeng luntan chengguo qingdan [Results of the 2nd "Belt and Road" International Cooperation Summit Forum]. 28.04.2019. Jingji Wang. http://paper.ce.cn/jjrb/html/2019-04/28/content_389994.htm (accessed May, 14^th). In such articles Ukraine is mentioned as one of the most strategic parts of the way to Rotterdam, one of the largest ports in Europe.