Negotiating soft power: a multimodal analysis of translations of diplomatic allusions in China’s global media discourse

In China’s global media discourse, diplomatic allusions are not simply translated; they are coordinated across text, image, and sound to project national soft power. Yet systematic, translation-centred accounts of how such allusions are reframed and circulated across modes remain scarce. To address this gap, we build a manually curated corpus. We annotate diplomatic allusions in Chinese – English parallel texts and then trace their reuse across international-facing state media, including CCTV/CGTN broadcast segments, Beijing Review video explainers, and related China Daily webpages. Integrating soft power theory, multimodal discourse analysis, and translation framing, we examine how classical allusions are re-authored across languages and modalities. The findings show that multimodal translation operates as a strategic framing resource. Concise verbal renderings work with visuals, voice-over, captions, layout, and editing to stabilise preferred interpretations. Recurrent framings foreground civility, continuity, and shared cultural roots, and cross-platform repetition amplifies uptake. We argue that diplomatic allusion translation is organised into multimodal packages and that analysing their framing mechanisms clarifies how China’s global media pursues soft power through translation and intersemiotic design.