China’s Public Diplomacy Goes Political

Summary China’s growing confidence on the world stage under the leadership of President Xi Jinping is reflected in the country’s more active, vocal and, lately, even ‘wolf warrior’ diplomacy. It is also clearly visible in China’s public diplomacy approach, where priorities have shifted from advertising Chinese culture as the country’s major source of soft power to promoting China’s models of domestic and global governance. The Chinese government proudly presents policies such as the Belt and Road Initiative and, more recently China’s approach to the COVID-19 pandemic, as improvements in global governance or sometimes even as Chinese ‘gifts’ to the world. This article argues that under President Xi, the content and form of China’s public diplomacy have changed. China’s public diplomacy has hardened, it is more strongly controlled by the Chinese Communist Party and the content of China’s public diplomacy messages have become more political.

Demystifying the Belt and Road Initiative: China’s domestic and non-strategic policy?

Asian Journal of Comparative Politics ◽

10.1177/20578911211038876 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 205789112110388

Author(s):

Yuan Jiang

Keyword(s):

Global Strategy ◽

Chinese Economy ◽

Chinese Government ◽

Xi Jinping ◽

One Belt One Road ◽

Belt And Road ◽

Strategic Policy ◽

The Difference ◽

The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is a central policy of the Chinese government. The initiative is directly associated with President Xi Jinping, who first put forward the BRI in Kazakhstan and Indonesia in 2013, initially as One Belt One Road. Different from repetitive literature that concludes the BRI as China's global strategy, this article makes a contribution to argue that the BRI is China's domestic and non-strategic policy. To justify this argument, this article analyses how the BRI has been embedded into aspects of Chinese domestic policy by revealing its nexuses with Chinese domestic economy, politics and ideology. To deepen the understanding of the BRI's connection with the Chinese economy, this article explores the link between the BRI and China's supply-side structural reform. Meanwhile, this research demystifies the BRI as a global strategy and the difference between joining and rejecting the BRI to prove the BRI's non-strategic essence. In the end, this article discusses the BRI's far-reaching geopolitical influence.

The Belt and Road Policy and Traditional Chinese Culture

Asian Culture and History ◽

10.5539/ach.v11n2p87 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (2) ◽

pp. 87

Author(s):

Wei Zheng ◽

Qing-Xiang Feng

Keyword(s):

Chinese Culture ◽

Policy Initiative ◽

Xi Jinping ◽

New Era ◽

Chinese Characteristics ◽

Traditional Chinese Culture ◽

Belt And Road ◽

National Congress ◽

The Belt And Road ◽

Major Decision

Since the 18th CPC national congress, the development of socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered into a new era. In the new context of development, Chinese President Xi Jinping has put forward the Belt and Road Policy. The Belt and Road Policy is not only a major decision for China to promote regional economic integration and international economic and trade exchanges, but also a project to spread traditional Chinese culture. The Belt and Road Policy initiative bears the mission of spreading the Chinese civilization and building a community with a shared future for humanity. It attempts to provide a set of Chinese solutions to the bottleneck of global development and demonstrates the cultural confidence of the CPC.

China’s Engagement with Former Foreign Leaders

Asian Survey ◽

10.1525/as.2020.60.4.634 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 60 (4) ◽

pp. 634-658

Author(s):

Andrew F. Cooper ◽

Hongying Wang

Keyword(s):

Public Diplomacy ◽

Chinese Communist Party ◽

Systematic Analysis ◽

Policy Initiatives ◽

Belt And Road ◽

Foreign Governments ◽

Political Legitimation ◽

The Belt And Road ◽

Party State

In recent years many former heads of foreign governments have visited China, appearing at various forums, conferences, and other events. China’s engagement with these former leaders may appear to be a form of public diplomacy, but even more importantly it has been a strategy of political legitimation adopted by the Chinese Communist Party. Based on an original database of hundreds of cases, we provide a systematic analysis of the visits of former foreign leaders to China and of their role as external validators for the party-state and its policy initiatives, particularly the Belt and Road Initiative. By shedding light on the Party’s search for external consent and support, we seek to fill a significant gap in the literature, which tends to focus narrowly on the domestic sources of legitimacy and domestic strategies of legitimation.

The Politics of Soft Power:Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) as Charm Influence in South Asia

China and the World ◽

10.1142/s2591729319500020 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 02 (01) ◽

pp. 1950002

Author(s):

Buddhi Prasad Sharma ◽

Raunab Singh Khatri

Keyword(s):

South Asia ◽

Soft Power ◽

Security Threats ◽

Security Threat ◽

The South ◽

The World ◽

Belt And Road ◽

World Economic ◽

Tremendous Amount ◽

Over the last three and half decades, China’s rapid advancement in development efforts has been accompanied by a conscious effort in projecting itself as a major frontrunner in the economy. Despite being a developing country (Huang, 2015), Chinese President Xi Jinping’s announcement in World Economic Forum (WEF) (Bruce-Lockhart, 2017) had hinted China’s growing interest in the development of trade and network among countries. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is also one such development put forward to institutionalize China’s soft power presence in the world and create harmony with rest of the world. The Initiative has been placed as synonymous to a way of friendly cooperation signaling the project as “Road for Peace” (Kasturi, 2017). China has placed a tremendous amount of effort for its “charm offensive” approach with an estimated US$10 billion spending every year on its global soft power presence (Kurlantzick, 2017). Under the project, China has placed initiatives in approaching for regional connectivity in the South Asia region with China–Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) being regarded as its flagship program. As it goes, of all the projects China has undertaken in the BRI, its ventures in South Asia are considered challenging and need strong cooperation (Stratfor Enterprises, 2017). The unstable geo-politics and security threats in the region pose Beijing with a lot to consider before it can preach about the peaceful connectivity. Most significant of all, the problems in the region will be with India as it has openly expressed its dissatisfaction towards BRI. India not only observes the initiative as a security threat with CPEC corridor passing through the controversial Kashmir area, but also sees it as an initiative to undermine its traditional influence in the region. As such, this paper tries to provide an analytical view of BRI with China’s soft power presence in the South Asia region.

Supercontinent, Neo-Renaissance and Cultural Communications:The Millennium Mindset Transformations Induced by the Belt and Road Initiative

China and the World ◽

10.1142/s2591729318500098 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 01 (02) ◽

pp. 1850009

Author(s):

Da Hsuan Feng

Keyword(s):

Xi Jinping ◽

The World ◽

Belt And Road ◽

The Creation ◽

In September and October 2013, President Xi Jinping unveiled for the world, the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). In this paper, we shall argue and discuss that three major outcomes with global implications and impact can and will result from this initiative. They are the formation of SUPERCONTINENT, the creation of a NEO-RENAISSANCE and China proactively engaging in a hitherto unprecedented CULTURAL COMMUNICATIONS with the outside world. All three are the result of the transformation of a millennium mindset of China and Chinese; without the BRI, they may not happen.

Tourism as an Instrument of Rapprochement between the PRC and the Russian Federation

Administrative Consulting ◽

10.22394/1726-1139-2021-9-112-120 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 112-120

Author(s):

R. Kh. Bu

Keyword(s):

Russian Federation ◽

Soft Power ◽

Rapid Development ◽

Xi Jinping ◽

Chinese Science ◽

Tourist Flows ◽

Belt And Road ◽

The Russian Federation ◽

The One ◽

After the PRC President Xi Jinping put forward a proposal for the implementation of the Belt and Road initiative in 2013, this initiative of the PRC faced a phenomenon that has been called “soft power of resistance” in Chinese science. The PRC leadership, as a way to overcome this challenge, sees the need for humanitarian rapprochement with the participating countries of the initiative, one of the manifestations of which is Chinese outbound tourism. In Eurasia, the one of the most rapid development of Chinese tourism in recent years has been in Russia, which allows us to consider this phenomenon as an attempt from the PRC to cultural rapprochement with the Russian Federation through increasing tourist flows.

China’s Global Cultural Interactions

China and the World ◽

10.1093/oso/9780190062316.003.0007 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 137-155

Author(s):

Shaun Breslin

Keyword(s):

Communist Party ◽

Soft Power ◽

Chinese Communist Party ◽

Chinese Culture ◽

Olympic Games ◽

Chinese Media ◽

Mega Events ◽

International Image ◽

Confucius Institutes ◽

Belt And Road

As China continues to “rise” in world affairs, its international image is becoming more and more important. The Chinese Communist Party and government has become interested in—some would say obsessed with—its international image. In recent years it has sponsored mega events such as the Shanghai Expo and Olympic Games, G-20 Summit, and Belt and Road Forums. Beijing has also established Confucius Institutes (CIs) and classrooms worldwide, and has internationalized the Chinese media. This chapter examines China’s “soft power” and traces the historical precedents behind the contemporary promotion of Chinese culture abroad. It finds that, despite enormous investment, China’s internatonal image continues to be mixed and challenged by a number of domestic impediments.

Tension and Rivalry: The ‘Belt and Road’ Initiative, Global Governance, and International Law

The Chinese Journal of Comparative Law ◽

10.1093/cjcl/cxaa009 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 8 (1) ◽

pp. 177-196

Author(s):

Jianfu Chen

Keyword(s):

International Law ◽

International Cooperation ◽

Global Governance ◽

Economic Strategy ◽

The World ◽

Belt And Road ◽

Initial Perception ◽

The Belt And Road ◽

Do So

Abstract This article attempts to establish a context in which the controversies of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and its practice can be better understood. It is argued that, earlier, the background to the birth of the BRI had effectively determined the initial perception of the initiative as a geopolitical move and that this perception has increasingly led to a view that the initiative is a Chinese geo-economic strategy. While there is no universally agreed meaning of the notion ‘geo-economics’, this notion, more often than not, conjures images of winners and losers in geopolitical manoeuvring. As such, China needs to convince the world that the BRI is indeed a ‘win-win’ scenario in international cooperation. To do so, China needs to engage much more closely with international law and talk less about China’s own model of global governance.

Modernization of Confucianism: An Ethnographic Observation of Cultural Promoting Community

Mediterranean Journal of Social Sciences ◽

10.5901/mjss.2017.v8n2p137 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 8 (2) ◽

pp. 137-146 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Xing Yu Zhu ◽

Abdul Razaque Chhachhar

Keyword(s):

Soft Power ◽

Chinese Culture ◽

Chinese Government ◽

Cultural Elements ◽

Modern Culture ◽

New Era ◽

Chinese Traditional Culture ◽

The World ◽

Ethnographic Observation ◽

The Cold War

Abstract China is becoming one of the super powers in the world and the Chinese government is trying to promote Confucianism, the core philosophy of East Asia to the rest of the world in order to strengthen its soft power. As modernization is becoming the global process since the Cold War, the modernization of Confucianism is as well under process to fit in the new era. This article is based on a case of Confucianism promoting project to study the process and effect of cultural modernization and test how modernization helps the promotion of traditional Chinese culture. Such as, 1. The modernization will trigger voluntary and involuntary changes of the culture. 2. Cultural modernization will create a common language with other culture background people that are helpful in order to better understand Chinese traditional culture. 3. Different cultural background people are more sensitive to their own cultural elements even modernization combines various factors of traditional and modern culture or foreigner and local culture.

“BELT AND ROAD INITIATIVE”: CHALLENGES AND OPPORTUNITIES FOR CHINA AND FOR THE WORLD

Austral Brazilian Journal of Strategy & International Relations ◽

10.22456/2238-6912.96646 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 9 (17) ◽

Author(s):

Bruno De Conti ◽

Petr Mozias

Keyword(s):

Point Of View ◽

Chinese Government ◽

Economic Problems ◽

The World ◽

Challenges And Opportunities ◽

Belt And Road ◽

Direct And Indirect Impacts ◽

Indirect Impacts ◽

The “Belt and Road Initiative” (BRI) is quite impressive in the amount of resources and the number of countries involved, but also in the diversity of intentions it reveals. In one hand, it is a demonstration of strength for China in the international arena; in the other hand, it is an effort of the Chinese government to face important economic problems. Nevertheless, it may not be studied only from the point of view of China, since it has direct and indirect impacts over the whole globe. This paper aims therefore to analyze BRI under the framework of associated opportunities and challenges for China and for the rest of the world.