The Expansion of China’ s Public Diplomacy System

Abstract

Public diplomacy has become part and parcel of China’s foreign policy strategy. China’ s leaders invest a huge amount of money and effort into projecting their images of China, and have rapidly developed public diplomacy skills and policies. This chapter provides an overview of China’ s public diplomacy system and discusses where China’ s rapidly expanding public diplomacy succeeds and where it fails.1 China’ s public diplomacy is gradually involving a more varied group of actors. An increasing number of Chinese individuals and civil society groups participate in global networks with public and private actors, bringing new dynamics and more legitimacy to China’ s public diplomacy. But the state still initiates most of China’ s public diplomacy, and the lack of legitimacy and credibility in public diplomacy messages remains a big obstacle.