China's PD Issues

Recently, I read a very interesting Stratfor article about the link between China and the unrest in the Middle East. China has been attempting to shape its image abroad through extensive PD programs, such as the movie loop that plays in Time Square, which shows pictures of famous Chinese people. China has been attempting to portray their nation as a great nation filled with extraordinary people and emphasizing their rich culture. This has been an obvious effort to take the focus of most people off of some glaring issues that China has and the criticisms from the international community.

The article discusses how China is watching the Middle East unrest closely because they are afraid their own people will see what others are doing abroad to overthrow their dictatorial regimes, yet at the same time China has been striving to portray themselves in a positive light and not as a dictatorial, oppressive nation. I think China is worried because the Middle East unrest has shown the world what grass roots movements can do and how powerful they can be and this is threatening to the rigid government of China. It will be interesting to see if China alters its PD message and strategy in light of these events in order to bolster its image as a good and free nation. It is also interesting to see how events in one nation affect the PD of another nation and how world events just tend to domino nowadays.

Article Link:

http://www.stratfor.com/analysis/20110223-dispatch-middle-east-unrest-and-chinas-resource-interests

Social Media and Public Diplomacy

Last week our class had an AWESOME guest speaker, Christopher Dufour, who discussed the role of social media in PD. Du4 explained that social media on its own will not be the saving grace for U.S. PD or PD run by any other nation. It was interesting to hear him speak honestly about social media because often I feel that people say that if the program uses Facebook or Twitter it will be an automatic success, which in reality is not the case. Du4 said that Facebook and Twitter are just tools, which can help facilitate PD, but alone do not suffice. Social media will not change the world on its own but it depends on what the people do who are behind those platforms. These electronic mediums will not and cannot replace the human element that is necessary to make PD a success.

Currently, the U.S. is utilizing all forms of social media, but according to some we are coming up short on our PD efforts in comparison to China’s aggressive PD programs. I found an intriguing article on the Huffington Post, which discussed how the U.S. is not prepared to compete with China and according to Senator Lugar, "our nation is not doing all it can to prepare for the increasingly prominent role China will play in our economic and foreign policy." The article discussed the coordinated Chinese PD strategy and how they are convinced to do all they can to get to their goal, which could be frightening or remarkable according to how you view China. So what does this mean for the U.S.? Do we need to focus on building more American centers and spaces like the Chinese are doing with their Confucius Centers, which are dramatically growing in number. Do we need to use social media more aggressively to show the world our message and positively promote our culture? Personally, I agree with Du4 and I do not think that social media is a panacea. Gladwell brings up this point in his article, “Small Change.” Gladwell discusses that social media alone cannot foster the same amount of change that a protest can cause, it can help organize those activities but the social media itself cannot cause the desired change to occur. So what does this mean for U.S. PD?

The U.S. needs to amp up its PD to be able to compete with China because according to some we are falling behind. But what do we need to do? I think we need to devote more people and resources to PD in order to stay competitive, but with this year’s budget still hanging in the balance, I am not sure what we will be able to do.

Article Link:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/philip-seib/lugar-report-offers-neede_b_825436.html

Cut, Cut, Cut

In search of blog-spiration this week, I took to the Internet to search for the outrageous, a good debate or some fascinating Public Diplomacy news. Unfortunately, Justin Bieber’s new haircut (bowl cut be gone!) does not count as world-quaking news, so I moved from Perezhilton.com to Paul Rockower’s blog at http://levantine18.blogspot.com. Anyone who describes themselves as “one of a dying breed of Bohemian, Orientalist Zionists,” and later lists both Amelie and Transformers as favorite movies deserves a read through.

As I perused Rockower’s blog I stumbled across a post called “American Ostriches.” Rockower notes that Florida’s governor had turned down funding for a high-speed rail system and questions Americans awareness of infrastructure in the United States. A few days later Rockower follows up on his post with an excerpt from a piece by Charles Blow. Blow also comments on the status of the United States in the eyes of the people. Blow notes that Americans wish to “view our eroding empire through the gauzy vapors of past grandeur.” Included in his article, Blow notes that the current budge submitted by the Republicans would cut nondiscretionary spending desperately needed by the U.S.

I heartily agree with both Rockower and Blow’s comments. The United States continues to climb out from under the dark cloud of the economic recession and American citizens are still balancing a precarious load of taxes, rising costs of living and limited paychecks. However cautious the American people and the United States must be in its spending and saving, slashing non-security programs will not bring renewed respect to the States by the international or domestic community. During the Great Depression America “went to work” on its infrastructure. During this time the American people built bridges, roadways and dams, bringing work, respect and a stronger base for the growth of America. An article published on February 21, 2011, “Danger Pent Up Behind Aging Dams,” in the New York Times states that over 4,000 of the nation’s dams are susceptible to failure. This type of failure could bring economic, geographic and societal devastation. These types of spending cuts have the possibility of quite truly opening up the floodgates to the destruction of American infrastructure.

Not only will the cuts in domestic non-security spending make a deep impact on the image of America, cuts in non-security spending in the area of foreign aid, where the submitted budget has proposed to cut $48 billion (FY 2008 levels), will do nothing to improve America’s image abroad. America’s foreign aid provides programs and services in places that might normally only hear of America’s use of bombs and guns. Engaging the international community through aid has been a highlight of the past years U.S. foreign policies, cutting this will do nothing but set back the steps the United States has taken to peacefully help in the development of other nations.

Naturally, one cannot be too frivolous with spending, as a college student, I am well aware of this. However, it is important that dollars are spent where they are most needed. Right now it is important that the strong base of American ideals is fortified, with roadwork, dam-maintenance, societal programs and foreign aid. Perhaps the United States could even engage its own cultural diplomacy by hiring artists like was done after the Great Depression, where WPA artist (including Jackson Pollock and Ansel Adams) painted murals and photographed the brilliant and beautiful parts of America, maybe then we will get to the art of the matter.

"I Hear America Singing"

“I hear America singing, the varied carols I hear…” so wrote Walt Whitman in his poem, “I hear America Singing.” Whitman, undoubtedly one of the greatest American poets of the twentieth century wrote brilliantly on America, among other topics. However, if one were to question a room of students on Whitman or some of his poems, there would be a greater possibility that the students would be able to recite lines from last week’s “Jersey Shore,” than any of Whitman’s works.

Whitman, Dickinson, Frost, Cummings, Steinbeck, Salinger, Pollock, Rothko, de Kooning…Poets, writers, artists, all American and yet, it is hard to distinguish if these great men and women are part of American history or American culture. Dr. John Brown argued that Americans define the United States in terms of ideas, whereas Russia defines itself in terms of its culture. Brown quoted Sumner Welles, stating that the “concept of culture is foreign to the United States. One wouldn’t expect the State to assist with culture.” Brown explained that the Russian educational system emphasizes culture and Russia’s superior culture. Of course with writers such as Dostoyevsky, Turgenev and Tolstoy, it would be difficult to argue against.

The United States would gain much from following Russian example. However fantastic the ideals upon which the United States is built upon, there is an American culture; one more fulfilling than Snooki and Pauly D. The great artists and writers of the past and present use the American ideals of freedom of speech, religion, and politics to write moving stories and create innovative works of art. The ideas of America and its culture can be combined, but only if the American people advocate for this synergy. There need not be an idea of an imperialistic American culture, it would be advantageous though, to discuss and share the cultures of other states and American culture. John Paul Lederach in his book on peacebuilding, The Moral Imagination, he mentions the positive effects of two men building trust and a relationship over their mutual interest in philosophy and Sufism in post-civil war Tajikstan. One can only imagine of the diplomatic possibilities if people were able to connect on topics of culture, building relationships and trust and then confronting greater challenges.

American Pop Culture and Public Diplomacy

This past week Dr. John Brown, former Foreign Service officer and blogger, came to class to discuss cultural and public diplomacy. Through his animated and engaging stories the disparity of cultural understanding between Americans and Russians became evident. Russians value culture and it is a huge part of their society, where it is also important to Americans, but not exactly in the same way. We don’t memorize poetry or songs the way the Russians do Brown explained. Russians value high culture where as most Americans ascribe to popular culture, which is not bad, just a different mindset. Thus when doing PD with nations who value high culture, a different approach needs to be taken. Throughout Brown’s talk the ways in which America was lacking in cultural diplomacy were clear.
The U.S. has a huge media presence, which accounts for some of the stereotypes of Americans around the world. Peter Van Ham discusses the idea of cultural and media diplomacy in his chapter entitled, Culture and Constructivism. Van Ham writes that Hollywood can exercise America’s social power easily through films and TV shows because they are easily available to watch and they appeal to a wide audience. This can have both positive and negative effects depending on the film or TV show. Van Ham discusses a survey taken in 2003 in which teenagers in twelve countries associated America with sexual amorality, materialism and violence…just to name a few things (Van Ham 54). That shows that many people have no idea about the positive aspects of American culture Van Ham concludes that characters like Tony Soprano may be as much to blame as the Iraq war (54). That is a very interesting statement that shows America’s image is just as connected to a fictional character as it is with our foreign policy.
The next season of Jersey Shore is going to be filmed in Italy, which may be a good or bad idea depending on your impression of the show. It will be interesting to see what happens as they start to film the next season and what impact it will have on the U.S. image for better or for worse, we shall see.

Olympics and Public Diplomacy

Olympics and Public Diplomacy

In our first class we talked about China and their performance during the Olympics. We all totally agreed that it was a PR move to establish the country’s image among western states, especially in America. China did a pretty good job in promoting themselves and indicated their potential, abilities, and power. However, as I found out, China is not the only country that used Olympics as public diplomatic move. In 2012 the Olympics will be organized by the United Kingdom and as I read in the article “UK weighs special unit to combat Olympics bad news”, the only thing that the British are concerned about is public diplomacy and worlds opinions about Britain during the Olympics. They recommended "that the The Foreign Office should form a 'rapid response unit', set up well before the Games, which is adequately resourced and prepared to take swift action to rebut or challenge negative stories appearing in the world media." Their goal is for the rest of the world to see them as a "diverse, inclusive and friendly country. Or in a word ... generous." This situation disappoints me a little bit just because I always saw the Olympics as a friendly tournament between countries, and its objective was to unite and get some gold medals. Was not that the point when the Greeks start the Olympics? They had to stop all the wars just during that time in order to have some fun. But now I can clearly see that Olympics have become a tool of international politics and are used by the countries to propagate their image. Guess Arthur Schlesinger was right when he said that the “ability to attract others and move [public] opinion was an element of power” and power is what matters in today’s world. Why not attract people by a phenomenal performance and organization during the Olympics? (Nye, 96). Well what we can conclude is that the 2012 Olympic Games will be a show full of generosity and kindness… Who would though?!

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/06/us-britain-olympics-foreign-idUSTRE71503620110206

Public Diplomacy as a Passat

Superbowl Sunday is upon us and along with the unbelievable amounts of chips, guacamole, sandwich platters and assorted grilled meats are a flurry of very expensive commercials, oh and of course, football. A personal favorite of the night showed a miniature “Darth Vader” attempting to use the force on various objects in his house. A dog, a doll, laundry machines and a sandwich were left unmoved by mini-Vader’s powers, however, his small yet mighty hands did manage to have an effect on the Passat parked in his driveway.

As I watched this commercial, created to show the best of German engineering, I could not help but let my mind wander to Public Diplomacy. In my quest to exert the force over the somewhat confusing realm of Public Diplomacy, the relationship of soft power and Public Diplomacy has to be confronted. In some ways, it seems that soft power is much like marketing and one could easily change foreign policy goals for sales goals. Joseph S. Nye, Jr. describes soft power as “means getting others to want the same outcomes you want” (Nye 95). In the realm of auto manufacturers, this means using soft power to have customers buy your products. In the realm of foreign policy, this means exerting soft power to have other countries or foreign publics share the same feelings or goals as you do.

Nye further develops his idea of soft power addressing three components of current soft power. “Daily communication,” what and how the government tells the press, “strategic communication,” which focuses on specific policy initiatives and the “development of lasting relationships with key individuals” (Nye 101). Just as VW may control its publicity, or specific policy initiatives, all while establishing lasting contacts with customers and powerful members of different foreign publics, countries can build their appearance. It appears that image is as important to foreign policy as it is in marketing brands. A country’s power does not remain just with its expansive geography, or amount of bombs, but also its image.

However, similarly to auto customers’ opinions, states cannot totally control what other states or publics want. As Peter Van Ham writes, just because one has a vehicle (or a Passat) does not mean one has power. Van Ham relates that power is everything…it is the ability to define the rules of conduct, how the system should be etc. With this in mind, power is also perception-based. As perception is subjective, one person’s idea of power ownership may be different from another. Hocking states that just because one shares a cultural affinity does not mean there will be consensus on everything. (35) Though the United States and the United Kingdom share a cultural affinity for McDonalds and MTV does not mean they will maintain the same foreign policy initiatives. It is this ambiguous nature of soft power, in comparison to the more concrete sense of hard power that makes its inclusion in Public Diplomacy and foreign policy initiatives much more confusing. Unlike Volkswagen, one cannot always use the force to change people’s and governments’ opinions and actions.

U.S. Dialogue Shift...Soft Power Potential?

Yesterday, Secretary of State Hilary Clinton announced that the U.S. will stand behind the Egyptian people and give them support to guarantee their desires for free and fair elections and the other freedoms they have been deprived of. This is a dialogue switch from prior statements that were made by the U.S. government. Hilary stated that she wants to ensure a peaceful, smooth transition to a transparent government.

It seems that the U.S. has learned from past revolution disasters, such as the Iranian Revolution of 1979, which stemmed from discontentment with the U.S. backed Shah. Thus instead of backing Mubarak strongly, they are opting for a “new beginning”, which harkens back to Obama’s June 4^th 2009 speech in Cairo, which promised a fresh start for U.S. relations with the Middle East and the Muslim world. Until now Obama has not kept the many promises he made in that speech, but now his words may be holding true.

The U.S. favors an orderly transition because it will give the government and people time to process the change, rather than a violent ousting of Mubarak, hence why the U.S. is softly urging him to start transitioning out of office. Alternatively a very slow transition in which Mubarak stays in power until September would not be ideal either because it would give the Muslim Brotherhood more time to gather support. In a Washington Post article Secretary of State Clinton stated that Egypt’s leadership should seek dialogue with the opposition, but as of yet no progress has been made on that front.

It will be interesting how the U.S. will handle this transition because Egypt has been an ally, but at the same time the Egyptian people have been cheated and deprived of their rights. Thus the U.S. cannot be too harsh in their dialogue, but they cannot be too weak because the people of Egypt are looking for support in their fight for freedom. To reference our class discussion about soft power last week, this is a prime opportunity for the U.S. to exercise our soft power. The Egyptian people want freedom and the U.S. has the opportunity to foster freedom and fair government within the nation. The U.S. has the potential to be a hero in this situation and exercise a fair amount of soft power but will the U.S. take the bait?

Links to the articles:

http://us.mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE71175920110206?WT.tsrc=Social%20Media&ca=rdt

http://blogs.state.gov/index.php/site/entry/update_egypt

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/05/AR2011020501707_3.html?wpisrc=nl_headline&sid=ST2011020402531