1 Macintosh HD:Users:mhirst:Documents:2015 writing projects:China's 9\11:DRAFT Framing news reports on the Kunming Railway Station Attack 20141108[2].docx Xinhua News Agency ’s Coverage of the Kunming Railway Station Attack: Reshaping China’s National Identity Guo‐qiang Liu & Martin Hirst Deakin University Abstract This paper explores initial coverage of the March 1, 2014, Kunming railway station attack in which 29 people were killed by masked men and women wielding large knives. The paper compares the Chinese media with coverage from several Western nations from the perspective of framing. In general the incident was quickly designated a terrorist attack by the Chinese news agency, Xinhua and within a few hours it had also been denoted as “China’s 9/11”. However, the study shows that the Western news media did not react in the same way and, while the incident was reported, the framing did not necessarily align with that preferred by the Chinese government. Part of the explanation is found in the ambivalent attitude of Western governments and media towards the Uyghur rebellion in western China. The Chinese government sees this as a threat to national unity, but in the West, the Uyghur rebels have some legitimacy. While the Chinese government attempted to use the incident as a way of leveraging its position and status within the “international community” and Xinhua supported this aim, the Western media appears to have quickly forgotten the incident and not to have supported China’s claims.