China's Public Diplomacy: What's Working and What's Not

No other Asian country has contributed more resources to improving its image than China. The rising power has recently been operating on a two-year cycle of hosting major events: the Beijing Olympics in 2008, EXPO 2010 in Shanghai along the Huangpu River, and the Miss World competition in 2012. Consequently, China is looking to be the site of the Youth Olympic Games, hoping to attract global attention and tourist traffic. Despite all its efforts, this method of public diplomacy in conjunction with the other strategies China has employed is not entirely successful.

In measuring the effectiveness of China’s public diplomacy endeavors, one must first identify the country’s target audience. It seems that China’s main goal is to spread its values and influence around the world and more specifically the West. In 2004, the Confucius Institute was founded in 93 countries to promote the worldwide study of Chinese language and culture. China is also trying to break into the international news market by broadcasting China Central Television in five languages. Several Chinese papers, such as, China Daily, People’s Daily, Global Times, and Shanghai Daily, have begun circulating in English with hopes of competing with Western news media. Unfortunately, little interest has been shown by the target audience.

The majority of the Westerners that China is trying to reach fall between the range of sixteen to thirty-five years of age. Yet the mediums of communication, such as television news stations and newspapers, China is utilizing do not appeal to this age group. Today most young people get their news the internet and social media, not television or newspapers. However, China’s stringent monitoring of the internet blocks many of the most popular social media outlets and websites like Facebook, Twitter, and Youtube. This directly contradicts China’s goal of reaching the young people of Western countries who are or one day will be in the position to influence government and business organizations. Furthermore, because the content of these publications is largely influenced by the Central Committee of the Communist Party of China and lacks freedom of speech, the audience tends to find the information provided to be untrustworthy. Much of the news presented by Chinese media outlets intended for Western consumption only highlight positive aspects of China, and viewers see the material as being propagandistic. 

If China truly wishes to reach its audience in Western countries, then it will have to look at the successes of other more subtle policies, like its "panda diplomacy". In order to ease the tensions after the high-profile arrest of an Australian business executive of a mining corporation, China sent the pandas Wang Wang and Funi to visit the Adelaide Zoo. In 2011, pandas were also leased to the Smithsonian's National Zoo in the United States. These acts alone harnessed more good will for China than previous efforts of public diplomacy. If China can harness the sincerity of its more successful diplomatic attempts and applies it to all of its endeavors, then China will be closer to achieving its diplomatic goal of Western recognition.

This is the article I used: http://thediplomat.com/2013/12/beijings-public-diplomacy-challenge/?allpages=yes