The Journal of Foreign Policy

The Journal of Foreign Policy

Strategic Competition in Global Diplomacy: A Discursive Analysis of the Speeches of the United States, China, and Russia at the 2025 United Nations General Assembly

Document Type : Research Paper

Author
Reza Gorzin
.
Abstract
In recent decades, the international system has been transitioning from a relatively stable liberal order toward an environment characterized by increasing competition among major powers a competition that extends beyond traditional hard-balancing to normative, semantic, narrative, and discursive dimensions. The speeches of national leaders at the United Nations General Assembly reflect their perceptions of the global order, identity, power, and the role of state agency within the international structure. In this context, diplomacy has become a strategic arena for contesting meaning, narrating power, and redefining legitimacy. The United States, China, and Russia, as key actors in this transitional period, seek to stabilize or redefine their order-shaping roles and strategic positions through discursive diplomacy and symbolic power.

This study employs a qualitative approach using Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis across three levels linguistic, ideological, and functional to examine the official speeches of the United States, China, and Russia at the 2025 UN General Assembly. The findings indicate that the United States emphasizes structural primacy, global leadership, and the persistence of the liberal order through a realist-liberal discourse; China, through a development-oriented and multilateralist discourse and initiatives such as GDI, GGI, and GSI, seeks to reinforce the legitimacy of its order-shaping role; and Russia, using a confrontational and law-based discourse, presents itself as a defender of a multipolar order and a critic of unilateralism. The results suggest that strategic competition in global diplomacy is less about geopolitics alone and more a discursive process aimed at controlling meaning, legitimacy, and international public perception.
Keywords
Diplomacy
Strategic Competition
Political Discourse
United Nations
International Order
Subjects
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