Summary
Since 2012, China’s top leadership has argued that China’s public diplomacy should integrate with the ‘New Model of Major-Country Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics’. Among this series of initiatives, China formulates a public diplomacy model that is different from those of other countries. China’s model of public diplomacy falls under the unified leadership of the Communist Party of China (CPC), but coordinates various public diplomacy players culturally rather than institutionally. The current trends of China’s public diplomacy include to evolve from listening to telling, and to be more confident, positive and active. Based on empirical studies, this article concludes that China’s public diplomacy since 2012 has created a unique model that emphasises cultural and other informal norms under the CPC’s leadership. Moreover, public diplomacy will be regarded as a necessary wisdom to understand how China has integrated with the world harmoniously.
Public Diplomacy and the China Model
Public diplomacy has been an increasingly hot topic since the early twenty-first century, because of the 9/11 attacks in 2001 and the United States’ public diplomacy response. Although the Communist Party of China (CPC) has always conducted such activities as ‘civil diplomacy [minjian waijiao]’ and ‘external communication [duiwai xuan chuan]’, there is a significant difference between the public diplomacy of Western countries and these activities, the main reason being that there is literally no equivalent of ‘public [Gong gong]’ in Chinese. In Chinese culture, the term ‘public’ often refers to governmental affairs instead of social or private affairs as it does in English. Influenced by Chinese culture, Japan, South Korea, Vietnam and other neighbouring countries of China also do not adopt the concept of ‘public’ as it is in English, and the so-called ‘public diplomacy’ in these countries is mostly quasi-public diplomacy, or even just official diplomacy in civil society.
With its different understanding of ‘public diplomacy’, China’s public diplomacy has been greatly influenced by the United States from the very beginning, focusing on ‘public relations’ and ‘media campaign’, rather than on ‘cultural diplomacy’ and ‘new public diplomacy’1 as in the European countries. The SARS virus that ravaged China in 2003 triggered a global tide of negative judgement towards China, including various kinds of ‘China threat’ criticisms, which in turn directed the Chinese leadership’s attention towards public diplomacy. However, since China has been facing ‘structural weakness’2 in the global opinion market, the media offensive in China’s public diplomacy quickly encountered difficulties, making China seek to strengthen cultural exchanges using its inherent 5,000 years of cultural resources. Under the guidance of Liu Yandong, then Vice-Premier of the State Council, a larger scale of cultural exchange mechanisms between China and foreign countries has been launched since 2009, serving as one main pillar of China’s public diplomacy. The Confucius Institutes and abundant public diplomacy projects have attracted worldwide attention to China’s public diplomacy.3
China’s public diplomacy has apparently undergone a process of the passive learning curve, because of growing pressure from the global debate regarding political legitimacy. In order to narrow the legitimacy gap effectively, Chinese leaders then resorted to public diplomacy.4 However, China’s practice of public diplomacy is not merely a replication of the European and American public diplomacy theories and models. The CPC’s leadership, together with China’s profound civilisation, have endowed China’s public diplomacy with Chinese elements in practice. Public diplomacy in China has achieved innovation, transformation and localisation, developing into the so-called ‘China Model’ of public diplomacy. To date, however, well-known scholars such as Ingrid d’Hooghe, Jay Wang, Falk Hartig and Kingsley Edney have studied Chinese public diplomacy as external observers, mainly focusing on the approaches, methods and specific skills of Chinese public diplomacy, instead of taking Chinese public diplomacy as a whole and studying its special model and systematic changes as internal observers. In this case, further study of the China Model will be helpful in understanding the basic logic of Chinese public diplomacy in the long term, as well as foreseeing the future trends of Chinese public diplomacy in practice.
China Model or Chinese Characteristics?
People are always interested in the so-called China Model. Nevertheless, there is little discussion on whether China’s public diplomacy is really a particular model. Many scholars have studied the models of public diplomacy. One example would be Eytan Gilboa, who presented three models of public diplomacy: the Cold War Model; the Non-state Model; and the Domestic Public Relations Model5 — these are simple, clear and of significant operability. However, since one country may employ three models of public diplomacy simultaneously, such classification may face the problem of overlapping categories.
This article classifies public diplomacy models by the following two variables: power structure; and level of institutionalisation. The former variable — power structure — indicates whether the power of public diplomacy is centralised in the hands of governments or spreads out to various social actors. In this case, public diplomacy could be classified into traditional public diplomacy or new public diplomacy. The second variable — the level of institutionalisation — refers to whether there are public laws and formal institutions governing public diplomacy, according to which public diplomacy could be classified into institutionalised public diplomacy with systematic laws and formal rules, or politicised public diplomacy with few laws and formal rules. Based on this taxonomy, we can examine the characteristics of China’s public diplomacy model by assessing its power structure and level of institutionalisation. In general, China’s public diplomacy is fundamentally a type of ‘party diplomacy’ with cultural coordination and informal norms.
Power Structure: No Trivial Things in Foreign Affairs
Distinct from those of Western countries, China’s public diplomacy is led by the CPC, a system referred to as the ‘Whole-Nation System [Ju guo Ti zhi]’, under which the power structure is undeniably centralised to a large extent. According to the Amendments to the Constitution of the People’s Republic of China adopted at the First Session of the 13th National People’s Congress on 11 March 2018, Chapter I Article 1, ‘The leadership of the Communist Party of China is the defining feature of socialism with Chinese characteristics’. Meanwhile, the Constitution of the CPC stipulates that the fundamental organizational principle of the Party is ‘democratic centralism’. At the 19th National Congress of the CPC in 2018, General Secretary Xi Jinping emphasised that ‘the Party exercises overall leadership over all areas of endeavour in every part of the country’.6 The policy operation model is ‘determined by the centre and implemented by different organs [zhong yang jue ding, ge fang qu ban]’. The central leadership makes major policy decisions, while the specific execution is left to relevant political agencies, including the People’s Congresses, central and local governments, political consultative conferences, public organisations and so on. This can be regarded as the uniqueness of the Chinese public diplomacy model.
The power structure of Chinese public diplomacy is highly centralised in the CPC Central Committee. Moreover, the structure can also be summarised as a unique system of ‘party-led diplomacy’ as well as ‘centralized management [guikou guanli]’.7 The decision-making organ of the Chinese centralised public diplomacy model is the CPC’s Central Foreign Affairs Leading (Small) Group, which is responsible for coordinating diplomatic matters. In March 2018, the Group was redesignated to the Central Foreign Affairs Commission as a consultative and coordinating agency in foreign affairs. Therefore, the power structure of China’s public diplomacy is not found within the central government, but in the CPC’s Central Foreign Affairs Commission. In terms of execution, Chinese public diplomacy follows the principles of ‘No Trivial Things in Foreign Affairs’ and ‘centralized management’, which means that as long as foreign affairs are concerned, traditional or non-traditional, they must adhere to the party leadership.
Level of Institutionalisation: Cultural Coordination, Not Institutional Coordination
In terms of the level of institutionalisation of its public diplomacy, China is also different from other countries. Various kinds of actors have engaged in Chinese public diplomacy, including official agencies such as China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Ministry of Commerce, Ministry of Education, Ministry of Culture and the International Department of the CPC’s Central Committee, as well as public groups such as trade unions, the Communist Youth League, the Women’s Federation, the Federation of Industry and Commerce, the Federation of Returned Overseas Chinese and the Council for the Promotion of International Trade (to name a few). Almost all of these actors are proactive about engaging in public diplomacy, while none have sufficient legal basis to act as the ‘specialized agency of public diplomacy’. So far, China has not enacted any laws specifically governing public diplomacy. The institutions, personnel and budgets are unstable, with current institutions thus not completely institutionalised. In fact, although many organisations are competing to gain a slice of public diplomacy in the CPC’s foreign affairs management system, not all of the actors have the qualifications and opportunities to engage in public diplomacy.
Given the phenomena above, China’s public diplomacy attaches much significance to a complex informal cultural coordination mechanism. In response to the international criticisms, the CPC’s leadership of public diplomacy is not in charge of all matters, whether pivotal or trivial, but is a political and ideological directing. In recent years, the CPC’s Central Committee has launched a series of people-to-people exchanges as well as cross-cultural events to promote public diplomacy. Through the combination of ‘Go Global’ and ‘Bring In’ strategies, together with the ‘Let China Know the World’ and ‘Let the World Know China’ approaches, a multi-level (central, local and grassroots), multi-channel (government, enterprises, media and society, etc.) and all-round (public communication, friendly exchange and people’s livelihood cooperation) public diplomacy mechanism has been gradually established, which not only enhances the world’s understanding of China, but also expands China’s political influence and gives China a greater say in the international arena. As a result, despite the relatively low level of institutionalisation, under the guidance of the CPC’s informal arrangements, China’s public diplomacy has become a ‘loudspeaker’ in a series of norms and practices, gradually switching from the listening side featuring ‘listening to the world’, to the ‘telling’ side of highlighting ‘telling the Chinese story well, spreading China’s voice well’.8
Trends of China’s Public Diplomacy: From Listening to Telling
In recent years, as China has become the world’s second-largest economy, the international community has become increasingly concerned with China’s rise and its implications for the world. ‘China threat’, ‘China collapse’, ‘Why China is capable’, ‘Why the CPC is capable’ and other kinds of complex arguments linger continuously. The aim of China’s public diplomacy is thus to spread the China Dream presented by President Xi to the international community.
In the long run, China’s public diplomacy is highly likely to develop along the following four trends:
First, more emphasis will be laid on Chinese characteristics. At the Central Foreign Affairs Meeting held from 28-29 November 2014, Xi Jinping emphasised that China must have a new model of major country diplomacy with Chinese characteristics:
On the basis of summing up practical experience, we must enrich and develop the ideas of foreign affairs so that our country’s foreign service will have distinctive Chinese characteristics, Chinese style and Chinese spirit’.9
‘Whether it is government diplomacy or public diplomacy, we must highlight “Chinese characteristics” and we must strive for worldwide understanding and support for the China Dream’.10 The key is to explain the meaning of ‘Chinese characteristics’ to the world. However, the connotation of ‘Chinese characteristics’ has not been interpreted clearly enough.
Actually, the substantial aim of emphasising Chinese characteristics is to attach a great deal of weight to ensuring a firm grasp of ideological leadership and the right to speak up internationally, as evidenced by Xi’s speech on 19 August 2013, that ‘ideological work is an extremely important task of the party’. Xi has repeatedly emphasised that ‘among the public and ideological works under the condition of an overall opening-up, an important task is to guide general populations to get a more comprehensive and objective understanding of contemporary China and the world’.11 Another piece of evidence would be the high-profile conference held by the CPC’s Central Committee on 4 May 2018, to commemorate the 200th anniversary of the birth of Carl Marx, during which Xi declared the CPC’s firm belief in the scientific correctness of Marxism. Clearly, the growing emphasis on Chinese characteristics implies that China must highlight Marxism’s key role in guiding its public diplomacy. The deeper motive comes from the need to distinguish itself from the European and American capitalist ideologies and to further consolidate Xi Jinping’s political legitimacy — ‘Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for a New Era’ is acknowledged by the CPC as the Marxist theory of the twenty-first century. Evidently, the demand to consolidate the political legitimacy of the Xi Theory as the guiding ideas for the CPC is what characterises China’s current public diplomacy.
Second, more attention will be attached to cultural self-confidence. In addition to the growing emphasis on Chinese characteristics, China’s public diplomacy also attaches more significance to cultural self-confidence [wen hua zi xin]. Chinese government leaders no longer use the Western concept of ‘public diplomacy’ in public disclosures, but instead turn to other relatively local concepts, such as ‘cultural diplomacy [wen hua wai jiao]’, as well as ‘people-to-people exchange [ren wen jiao liu]’, which are crucial signals implying that China is now highlighting cultural self-confidence. China has been shedding greater light on ‘cultural self-confidence’ since 2012, especially the importance of promoting its excellent traditional culture while achieving creative transformation and innovative development. Xi commented that ‘the excellent traditional Chinese culture is the spiritual lifeblood, the “root”, and the “soul” of the Chinese nation’.12 In his opinion, if China loses its ‘root’ and ‘soul’, it would lose the foundation of its diplomacy. President Xi therefore emphasised that China would need to promote exchange among different civilisations, but at the same time would also need to strengthen China’s faith and determination in itself. Certainly, Xi, like his predecessors, also emphasised that China should revitalise the positive parts of China’s traditional cultural heritage to adapt to the new era and promote innovation. Accordingly, China’s public diplomacy should focus on contributing China’s wisdom to global governance reform. China will doubtless present more and more initiatives on global development and transnational governance based on Chinese cultural confidence in the coming decades.
As a major part of manifesting China’s cultural self-confidence, public diplomacy is required to play an active role in ‘explaining China to the world’, strengthening China’s capacity in international communication and empowering China with a greater say in the international arena. Facing great changes in relations between China and the world, Xi Jinping has emphasised the need to build stronger cultural self-confidence, tell Chinese stories and further spread Chinese voices in the world. On 25 October 2013 at the Central Working Conference on Neighbourhood Diplomacy, Xi pointed out that it was particularly necessary to strengthen China’s campaign, public diplomacy, non-governmental diplomacy and people-to-people exchanges among its neighbouring countries. It was necessary for China to make friends and build friendships with its neighbours. The Chinese Dream should be associated with the wish for a better life for all the people in China’s neighbouring countries, and potential regional development prospects in those countries, which is how the idea of ‘a community of shared future for mankind’ took root in China’s neighbourhood.13 In November 2014 at the Central Working Conference on Foreign Affairs, Xi once again proposed that China should upgrade its soft power, tell Chinese stories better, and improve its ability to tell Chinese stories internationally.14 In recent years, China has emphasised ‘explaining China to the world’ and improving its ability to tell its story at the international level. It shows that the main focus of China’s public diplomacy is not ‘listening’ but ‘advocating and telling’, which will also be a major trend of China’s public diplomacy in the future.
Third, more ‘China Plans’ will be shared with the world. When China was weak in the past, it was incapable of proposing a China Plan for global challenges. However, with the continuous accumulation of China’s capabilities, China shows more enthusiasm about providing public goods for the international community, regionally and globally. China’s public diplomacy now channels more efforts into proposing Chinese plans, contributing Chinese wisdom and providing more public goods.15 This China Plan [zhong guo fang an] is to adhere to the path of peaceful development and to promote the construction of a new model of international relations and a community with a shared future for mankind. In recent years, China has proposed a number of international and national initiatives, such as the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank, the New Development Bank with its fellow BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), the Silk Road Fund and the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI), all of which are key derivatives of this China Plan. Given the strong vigour demonstrated by the idea of ‘a community of shared future for mankind’ in China’s contemporary international relations and diplomatic practices, this idea was written into the 19th CPC National Congress Meeting Report and the newly revised CPC constitution at the 19th CPC National Congress Meeting, escalating into one of the main guidelines of the new era.
In the eyes of Chinese leaders, the ‘American Plan’ has the ‘Washington Consensus’ as its main content, while the ‘European Plan’ has its main idea as promoting regional integration. The idea of ‘a community of shared future for mankind’ aims to surpass both of these. Different from the ideas of ‘colour revolution’, ‘democratic output’ and ‘new interventionism’, which are promoted through the ‘Western Plans’, China adopts an attitude of ‘respect’, ‘tolerance’ and ‘non-discrimination’ towards related countries, which paves the way for China’s public diplomacy.
Fourth, more stress will be laid on cultural as well as people-to-people exchanges. Since the 18th National Congress Meeting of the CPC in 2012, in the context of global challenges such as global economic imbalances, China has proposed an initiative to promote the construction of the BRI, which aims to achieve win–win cooperation and common development. More than one hundred countries and international organisations have responded positively to this initiative. A large number of early projects have already blossomed and have been written into the resolutions of the United Nations and other international organisations. From China’s perspective, the BRI is essentially a ‘Friendship Circle’ that facilitates win–win cooperation, and would be one of the focal points of China’s public diplomacy from now to the future. In designing and promoting the Initiative, Xi Jinping highlighted the significance of people-to-people exchanges, regarding them as one of the ‘Five Exchanges’16 to promote the BRI. Xi believes that the key to a new model of international relations lies in an affinity with their people, and such an affinity largely stems from mutual understandings. He has stated several times that it is necessary for China to ‘make friends and build good relationships’ with the rest of the international community, and this could be achieved through the approach of ‘moving people by sincerity, warming people by heart and touching people by affection’.17 Politicians, diplomats, experts and scholars, media elites and non-governmental organisations (NGOs) dedicated to friendly non-governmental communication could all play a role in realising this vision.
As for the task of winning people’s support, promoting people-to-people exchanges is the most effective vehicle and channel. President Xi believes that China must vigorously strengthen cultural exchange and reciprocal communication, while public diplomacy remains the most profound way to achieve this goal. In July 2017, the General Office of the CPC’s Central Committee and the General Office of the State Council jointly issued the ‘Several Opinions on Strengthening and Improving the People-to-People Exchange Work between China and Foreign Countries’ to map a path for strengthening people-to-people exchanges. In November 2017, China’s Ministry of Education established the Chinese–Foreign Humanities Exchange Centre. Moreover, Liu Yandong, after fulfilling her tenure as the Vice-Premier of the State Council, continues to devote herself to the promotion of people-to-people exchanges between China and foreign countries. The central goal of people-to-people exchange is to promote mutual understandings among people. From a long-term perspective, the priority of the people-to-people exchange’s approach will only be increasingly enhanced, not the other way around.
Implications for Established Models
Most academic scholars and practitioners usually take the definition of public diplomacy for granted, as dealing with the influence of public attitudes on the formation and execution of foreign policies,18 or as the process through which connections with the people of a country are pursued to advance the interests and extend the value of those represented.19 In particular, Jan Melissen underlines the importance of the socially constructed network into diplomacy to coin the ‘new public diplomacy’.20 Both definitions on public diplomacy have already been established as consensus around the world. However, China’s endeavours to develop public diplomacy since 2012 may create new implications for established models and even contribute an alternative model of public diplomacy.
Distinct from that of Western powers, China’s model of public diplomacy is fundamentally party diplomacy led by the CPC, a system referred to as the ‘Whole-Nation System’. Under such a system, China’s public diplomacy has formed a party-dominated model and all the endeavours to develop public diplomacy should serve the party’s preference rather than the government policy. This model is characterised by the fact that the CPC has centralised the power of public diplomacy. Government agencies and social actors under and surrounding the CPC, as well as a set of social networks, should be formed under the unified leadership of specified government departments. In this case, instead of being driven by a clear system of laws and rules as in the United States and European countries, the operation of these social networks in public diplomacy is driven more by the CPC’s domestic policy agenda than foreign policy agenda.
Party diplomacy will undoubtedly play a leading role in all endeavours related to public diplomacy in China for a long time. Significantly, the CPC’s Central Committee has launched a big campaign known as ‘Two Upholds’, which asks all Party members and agencies to maintain Xi Jinping as the core leader of the CPC and its central committee and to maintain the authority of the Central Committee and its unified central leadership over political issues. This campaign indicates that all participants and players involved in public diplomacy and foreign affairs in China would have to follow the rules in the coming years. A good example is the new public law regulating international NGOs in China. As Chinese NGOs have been playing an increasingly active role in China’s diplomacy since the new millennium, the CPC started to specify the responsibilities of these lower-level organisations. A case in point is the Law of the People’s Republic of China on Administration of Activities of Overseas Non-Governmental Organisations in the Mainland of China, announced on 28 April 2016, which initiated the laws and directives governing grassroots exchanges.21 Based on this new legislature defining the allocation of responsibilities, international NGOs in China are regulated by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the Ministry of Public Security, while Chinese NGOs abroad are supported and promoted by the CPC’s International Department. With leadership shared among these three ministries, Chinese grassroots associations — including companies, the media, think tanks, local groups and public organisations — will establish increasingly closer ties with their international counterparts. Obviously, in the next ten years or even longer timeframe, the centralised power structure of Chinese public diplomacy is not likely to see any fundamental change. China’s model of public diplomacy, to some extent, is more inclined towards party diplomacy or people-to-people diplomacy with their cultural and informal norms than public diplomacy with its public law. Institutionally, the International Department of the CPC’s Central Committee will play a more substantial role in public diplomacy than China’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs and other governmental agencies in the long run. In the eyes of the International Department of the CPC, public diplomacy is only one of the major pillars of China’s party diplomacy as a whole, besides international party exchanges and people-to-people exchanges.
Conclusions
Although China’s public diplomacy started relatively late, China has formed a practical party-driven model of public diplomacy with strong Chinese characteristics. With the deepening of relations between China and the international community, China’s public diplomacy will have more Chinese characteristics and lay more emphasis on its cultural self-confidence. However, an inevitable trend is that China’s public diplomacy will have to shift its focus, from the listening side of ‘listening to the world’ to the telling side of ‘telling the Chinese story well, spreading the Chinese voice well’.22
As a result, how to prevent China’s public diplomacy from falling into ‘Chinese-centrism’ is also a problem that deserves more attention. As China is increasingly approaching the centre stage, other countries of the world will have to learn how to get along with China, regardless of whether they like it or not. Correspondingly, regardless of the Chinese leadership’s attitudes towards the concepts and ideas of public diplomacy, the role of public diplomacy will still be strengthened, helping China to become harmoniously integrated with the international community and to build a new type of international relations.
Kejin Zhao
is tenure-track Professor and Dean of the Department of International Relations, Tsinghua University. He has a Ph.D. in International Relations from the School of International Relations and Public Affairs of Fudan University, and from 2005-2009 he worked at the Center for American Studies, Fudan University. Since 2009, he has been teaching and researching at Tsinghua University in Beijing. His research mainly focuses on US government and politics, public diplomacy and Chinese diplomacy. He has published more than 80 papers in academic journals and has written many books, including Diplomacy beyond Foreign Ministries (Beijing: Peking University Press, 2015) and Public Diplomacy: Theory and Practice (Shanghai: Fudan University Press, 2007) [both in Mandarin].
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The Five Exchanges were first proposed by Xi Jinping in his vision for the Belt and Road Initiative in 2013. According to Xi, the Belt and Road Initiative should be jointly constructed with policy exchange, infrastructure exchange, trade exchange, financial exchange and people-to-people exchange as a whole.
Xi Jinping, ‘Speech at the 60th Anniversary of the Founding of the Chinese People’s Association for Friendship with Foreign Countries and the China International Friendship Conference’, People’s Daily (16 May 2014), available online at http://politics.people.com.cn/n/2014/0516/c1024-25023611.html (accessed 14 May 2018).
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