Monday, April 28, 2014

China PD strategy: Operation Happy Life

With China, it is about quality over quantity.  As a part of China's PD strategy, the Chinese government has been funding programming on radio stations that reach out to radio stations in indigenous Arabic communities. The Chinese government has partnered with the Egyptian Information ministry to provide Chinese informational programming about Confucius and Confucius institutes. China has not had whopping outreach in large numbers. They have had an outreach of no more than 5,000 listeners on a regular basis, but they have reached out to Arabic communities that have not had the most positive perception of them. For this reason, this method is more effective than proliferating to a mass audience. They are seeking to strategically target audiences.

One of the main initiatives that China has been displaying their television show "Happy Life" with Egyptian-Arabic subtitles. The show has been airing consistently. This goes to show that niche public diplomacy is perfect for a country like China that is not lacking notoriety, but lacking positive perception in several countries.

Overall, I think China's PD method in Egypt is genius and will set a precendent for the U.S. to make more strategic efforts to partner with governments of concerns for PD efforts.

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