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AbstractThis article centres around one singular yet substantively important empirical puzzle: why did the United States fail to delegitimate the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank? I argue that a crucial factor missing from existing analyses is China's rhetorical coercion. To substantiate this argument, I first reconstruct from the perspective of framing the US‐China rhetorical contestation over the AIIB at the early stage. This results in the identification of seven competing frames pertaining to the purpose and procedural legitimacy of the bank: Sub‐standard, Tool and Rival promoted by the United States; High‐quality, Equality, Complement and Welcome Change by China. To flesh out China's rhetorical coercion, I gauge the coercive power of the frames identified before zooming in on Complement and Welcome Change and uncovering therein three coercive claims: shortfalls in Asia's infrastructure finance, weaknesses in the existing system of international financial institutions and inconsistency in the US approach to the AIIB and China's rise. These claims considerably restricted the room for the United States to engage in principled opposition, and in tandem with developments favourable to the AIIB (not least the participation of Western countries), enabled China to rhetorically coerce the United States.

This article examines the (de)legitimation of a global governance institution (GGI) in the throes of a full-blown legitimacy crisis: the World Health Organization (WHO) during the coronavirus pandemic. Substantively, it fleshes out systematically the discursive (de)legitimating practices of six (types of) actors: the Trump administration, US allies, US quality press, global health-scientific community, the WHO, and the Chinese government. To that end, it synthesizes elements from the rich literature on legitimacy and elaborates a conceptual apparatus bolstered by operational sources of legitimacy. Empirically, it is grounded in a qualitative content analysis of a purpose-built data corpus of 458 texts that contain justifications for (de)legitimation. In so doing, this study not only presents a holistic and yet granular view of discursive (de)legitimation by some pivotal actors surrounding the WHO and its pandemic response, but offers general insights on legitimacy and (de)legitimation of GGIs during times of crisis.

Impact litigation, a popular technique among non-governmental organizations, while yielding numerous benefits, exercises limited influence over traditional family matters in China, like those of domestic violence. A closer examination of the factors attributed to the failure of the domestic violence case litigated by the Peking University's Center for Women Law Studies and Legal Aid Services highlights the need to explore the potential of the procurator. As cases and events show "family matters" transgressing from the private to the public sphere and as setbacks continue to plague non-governmental organizations in their struggle to advance social causes, the institutionalized procurator can utilize its traditional function and legal authority as a public interest advocate to litigate domestic violence cases. By implementing its existing authority and cooperating with the legal aid centers, government agencies, women's federations, and judiciaries, the procurator may be able to achieve more optimal results for victims where external techniques have attained limited success through its multilateral approach and internal channels.

This research examines throughout the rhetorical efforts of Chinese state media to externally legitimate the AIIB. To that end, it builds an analytical framework of legitimacy comprising four general dimensions—external, institutional, procedural and performance, each of which is substantiated by legitimacy claims specific to the AIIB. Empirically, the article is based on an in-depth content analysis of 730 AIIB-centric articles collected from four state media. The study finds the following: (1) Chinese state media grounded the AIIB's justificatory rhetoric primarily on institutional legitimacy and external recognition, and more specifically, the bank's utility, complementarity, and growing membership/support; (2) Chinese state media intensified rhetorical efforts following the UK's announcement to join and increasing international attention on the new bank. The framework built and conclusions drawn herein can shed some light on China's rhetorical legitimation of its emerging institution-building behavior. (J Contemp China/GIGA)