This paper aims to conduct a corpus-based critical discourse analysis of discursive construction of China’s image of economic rise in the U.S. broadsheets by adopting a transitivity perspective of “what did China do to X”. Findings indicate that China’s image of economic rise is represented as being related to three participant roles, i.e. “Buyer”, “Surpasser” and “Builder”; the evaluative meanings behind the role constructions are delicate and mixed, entangled with ideological biases. These findings are found to confirm and complement the results of our previous research, conducted from the other transitivity perspective of “what did X do to China”. This not only provides linguistic evidence for a coherent understanding of the evolution of the U.S. discourse about China, but also provides a feasible and effective analytical method for researching national image.