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