Framing EU–China Trade Relations: A Content Analysis of UK Newspaper Coverage (2001–2021)

The debate over China’s economic influence on the European Union has grown prominent on both political and media agendas. However, little is known about how the UK media have framed EU–China trade relations in the past two decades. This case study employs a manual quantitative content analysis to investigate trends over time in the presence of frames and tone in UK newspaper coverage of EU–China trade relations (2001–2021) and to further explore differences between newspaper types in their portrayal of this topic (N = 600). Popular newspapers paid much less attention to EU–China trade relations than financial and quality newspapers but featured the most negative tone. Significant frame variation was detected over time and across newspapers, with the risk frame being the most visible. We also identified a significant negative correlation between tone and various frames. The findings not only contribute to existing economic news research by expanding on the theories of framing, negativity bias, and economic newsworthiness in the context of international trade relations but also carry implications for policy-makers and journalists.