ABSTRACTS

Viewpoints

Steadily Promoting the Major-Country Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics and Actively Responding to the Challenges of Instability and Chaos Yu Hongjun · 1 ·

The Party School of the CPC Central Committee (National Academy of Governance) hosted the “China Marxism Forum 2022 and the 13th Forum on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics” on November 26, 2022, jointly organized by the Research Center for Xi Jinping’s Thought on Socialism with Chinese Characteristics for the New Era, the School of Marxism and the China Foundation for Marxism Research of the Party School. Under the theme of “Continuously Writing a New Chapter in Adapting Marxism to Chinese Conditions and the Times”, the forum conducted in-depth study and interpretation of the spirit of the Party’s 20th National Congress. Mr. Yu Hongjun was invited to deliver a keynote speech entitled “Steadily Promoting the Major-country Diplomacy with Chinese Characteristics and Actively Responding to the Challenges of Instability and Chaos” at the forum. The following is the full text of his speech.

Special TopicSpecial Topic

Regional Country Public Diplomacy The Trudeau Government’s Public Diplomacy towards ASEAN Tang Xiaosong & Zhou Xiangwei · 6 ·

In recent years, the Trudeau government has carried out a series of public diplomacy actions towards ASEAN countries through assistance, people-topeople exchanges and online media. By deepening ties with ASEAN, the Trudeau government hopes to enhance its involvement in regional affairs of the Indo- Pacific and increase Canada’s trade opportunities. However, the effectiveness of the Trudeau government’s public diplomacy towards ASEAN is still constrained at present by insufficient investment, its image of American follower and differences in core values between the two sides. Despite all that, some of Canada’s experience and strategies in public diplomacy are worth learning from. China should continuously strengthen positive image building within ASEAN to create a more solid foundation for deepening China-ASEAN cooperation.

An Analysis of Maritime Exchanges and Cooperation between China and the Solomon Islands under New Circumstances Liang Guojie & Yang Qian · 18 · Of late, relations between China and the Solomon Islands have developed rapidly, providing opportunities and a foundation for the two countries to promote maritime exchanges and cooperation. On 21 September 2019, the Joint Communique on the Establishment of Diplomatic Relations Between the People’s Republic of China and the Solomon Islands was signed in Beijing, which marked the official establishment of diplomatic ties at the ambassadorial level between the two countries, ushering the development of bilateral relations into

a new historical phase. On 9 October 2019, the Memorandum of Understanding between the Government of the People’s Republic of China and the Government of the Solomon Islands on Jointly Promoting the Development of the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st Century Maritime Silk Road was signed. In March 2022, the two countries signed a memorandum of understanding on police cooperation. In the same month, the first batch of Chinese medical teams arrived in the Solomon Islands. In April 2022, China and the Solomon Islands signed the Intergovernmental Framework Agreement on Security Cooperation. The deepening cooperation between the two countries and the massive infrastructure construction under the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) are conducive to the smooth development of maritime cooperation between the two countries.

Exploring China’s Non-Governmental Diplomacy towards South Korea Liu Jiwen · 24 ·

Since the establishment of diplomatic ties, China-ROK relations have made rapid progress in multiple fields. The non-governmental diplomacy between the two countries also shows a good momentum of multi-directional cooperation and booming in multiple fields, which has become a powerful auxiliary tool of official diplomacy. However, in recent years, bilateral relations between the two countries have gone from “warm” to “cool” due to certain issues, which has led to an increase in negative sentiment towards each other among the people of the two countries, and the pace of people-to-people diplomacy has slowed down due to the COVID-19 pandemic. This paper mainly analyzes and discusses the characteristics and constraints of China’s non-governmental diplomacy towards South Korea and the ways to solve the problems.

A Probe into the Anti-Asian Wave in Germany Su Weibin & Xie Tingting · 32 · As one of the alien ethnic groups in Germany, Asians are regarded as “outsiders” who cannot be assimilated by German mainstream society and have long been plagued by racial prejudice and discrimination. With the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany, discrimination and even hate crimes against Asians in Germany are on the rise. Based on summarizing the basic situation of the anti-Asian wave in Germany, this paper compares the situation of German Asians with that of American Asians, and further discusses the feasible path for German Asians to get rid of the dilemma.

Comments

Export of Domestic Products and International Dissemination of Chinese Brands Yan Jingchu & Zhao Xinli · 38 ·

Driven by trade policy dividend for exporting domestic products, more and more complete Chinese industries have started to go overseas, forming a surge of China’s “industrial belt going overseas” in the era of digital economy, which will promote the change of cross-border e-commerce and marketing mode. In the future, the scale of domestic products going overseas will be further expanded to achieve full coverage of the Belt and Road market as well as the mainstream markets in Europe and the United States. In this endeavor, domestic brands will also become an important carrier to tell China’s stories well and permeate Chinese culture. In addition, whether the batch of born-global brands born in the new era or the Chinese brands reversely exported, are leading the development direction of the world’s brands. The Chinese brands should make greater efforts to grasp the technology changes and market trends, further improve the basic skills of product innovation, marketing strategy and communication, and lead a new round of globalization with a new concept of internationalization.

International Students in China as Media: A Study of their Motivation to Tell China’s Stories through Social Media Yao Meixian & Shao Lei · 48 ·

The availability of social media technology enables international students in China to break through the limitations of time and space to present their life in China in an immediate, continuous, detailed and unconstrained manner. The use of social media by this specific group of international students in China to tell their China’s stories, a grand narrative term from the national level, presents a brandnew landscape of creating their own issues without gatekeepers, mouthpiece and megaphone, which even becomes an internalized part of the daily life of these international students. Through semi-structured interviews, this paper interviewed four international students in China who use social media extensively, and concluded that these international students as media, when using social media, are endowed with the dynamics of sharing from the perspective of communication economics and have certain ability of self-planning and publishing contents, hence realizing cross-cultural and “disembeding” communication.

The Eurasian Geo-Economic Landscape, Technology Transformation and Russia-Ukraine Conflict**** Zhang Yi · 57 · Countries on the Eurasian landmass vary greatly in economic development level, industrial structure and energy structure. Central Asian countries and the Caucasus are rich in energy and have important strategic significance for Chinese enterprises, while Eastern European countries are generally short of labor force and suffer from severe ageing population. This is caused by geopolitical factors as well as religious and cultural influences. The Russia-Ukraine conflict since the end of 2021 should be understood in the geo-economic context of Eurasia, whose underlying motivation is to reshape the new security order in Europe while resolving Russia’s national security risks and legitimacy crisis. Russia is working towards digital sovereignty in two areas: technological independence and information control. In the face of increasing conflicts with Western countries and rising legitimacy crisis at home, the Russian government hopes to achieve security and stability by controlling the digital industry. Russia’s considerations of background factors in the geo-economic field are often ignored by the academic circle.

Public Diplomacy Conducted by Chinese Businessmen in the Context of the Belt and Road: Status Quo, Problems and Countermeasures Jin Xin & Zhai Kuo · 66 ·

Overseas Chinese businessmen play an important role in enhancing the international influence of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) and China’s national image. At present, the development trend of China’s public diplomacy through Chinese businessmen is good, which has formed an institutionalized communication platform, with cultural exchanges as a direct way of communication flourishing and diversifying, and economic project cooperation as an indirect way of communication achieving fruitful results. But at the same time, public diplomacy by Chinese businessmen also faces a series of challenges: at the level of overseas Chinese businessmen, the identity of the new generation Chinese businessmen is weakened, some bad behaviors of Chinese businessmen damage the national image, and the economic basis for Chinese businessmen to participate in the interaction is limited; and at the level of diplomatic practice, their discourse ability of public diplomacy still needs to be improved, the security protection of overseas Chinese businessmen calls for strengthening, and the cooperation mechanism of economic and trade projects is not yet perfect. These factors have a negative impact on the effect of Chinese businessmen’s public diplomacy. Faced with these challenges, China needs to adopt comprehensive measures, including promoting the culture of overseas Chinese businessmen and encouraging them to build a “new image”; perfecting public diplomacy discourse and optimizing strategies for diplomatic practice; improving the security mechanism to protect the overseas interests of Chinese businessmen; and refining the economic cooperation mechanism to boost the development of Chinese enterprises overseas, on whose basis to improve public diplomacy by Chinese businessmen, enhance the national identity of overseas Chinese businessmen, build a better international image of China, and create a sound international environment for the development of the Belt and Road.

Case Studies

Fluid Identity and the Special Bicultural People: The Role of the “Second Generation Overseas Chinese” in Folk Communication Peng Weibu · 76 ·

The “second generation overseas Chinese”, who were born abroad or immigrated with their parents when they were young, live abroad for a long time and receive education from both family and school. In the process of contact with the outside world, they are influenced by globalization and postmodernism, and at the same time, they form a fluid sense of identity under the cultural narrative framework of new media. As a result, their advantages in channel communication and content creation have enabled them to play the role of biculturalists, carrying out people-to-people exchanges, promoting exchanges and mutual learning between Chinese and Western civilizations, and enhancing mutual cultural trust between countries around the world and China.

An Analysis of Xinhua News Agency’s Foreign Reports on the COVI-19 Pandemic from the Perspective of Disaster Diplomacy Huang Baoyi & Zhao Hongyan · 83 ·

Disaster diplomacy is regarded as a crisis response mode of public diplomacy and an important strategic mean to maintain national image at critical moments. In different phases of disaster’s latence, breakout, persistence and recovery, the mainstream media’s foreign reports showed differed macro frameworks of international communication. During the COVID-19 pandemic, China’s mainstream media, taking Xinhua News Agency as an example, carried out a series of reports on international platforms as the key medium to tell stories about China’s fight against the epidemic, demonstrating China’s responsibility as a major country in various aspects. With the advent of the post-COVID-19 era, the world has entered a period of “risk society”. In this regard, Chinese mainstream media should seize the opportunity of communicating community discourse, to tell China’s stories well, broadcast China’s voice, and make China’s contribution to resolving global crises.

The Management of the South China Sea Dispute and the Transcendence of the China-Vietnam “Volatile Relationship” Liu Linzhi · 92 ·

Vietnam is not only an important southern neighbor of China, but also a major player in the South China Sea game. In recent years, China-Vietnam relations have shown a trend of “fluctuating development”. Although bilateral relations between them remain stable on the whole, multiple volatile factors have exerted an undeniable impact on the normal development of China-Vietnam relations. On the one hand, Vietnam has consolidated and expanded its strategic interests in the South China Sea through military, diplomatic and other means in recent years, resulting in the periodic intensification of maritime disputes between China and Vietnam. On the other hand, the change of political situation in Vietnam, the change in Vietnamese people’s attitude towards China and the development of US-Vietnam relations have also posed compound challenges to the steady development of China-Vietnam relations and become major volatile factors affecting China-Vietnam relations. In the international environment featuring profound changes unseen in a century and in the face of the complex situation of the South China Sea dispute and the impact of multiple volatile factors, China and Vietnam should have a big-picture thinking, properly manage the South China Sea dispute and other contentious issues in bilateral relations, actively promote inter-party exchanges between the ruling parties of the two countries and friendly exchanges between the two peoples, and strive to explore new areas of cooperation. To ensure the steady development of China-Vietnam relations not only fundamentally serves the national interests of both countries, but also is of great significance to the overall security and stability of the South China Sea and East Asia.

Foreign Exchanges by Local Entities in the Context of Profound Changes Unseen in a Century: Basic Connotation, Realistic Development and Future Options Fan Lei · 101 ·

The current world landscape and international system are undergoing profound adjustments, and the global governance system is also experiencing major changes. The international balance and distribution of power is going through the most revolutionary re-alignment in a century, while the historical process and development trend of human civilization are taking on unprecedented new features and momentum in the world. In the context of great changes, how for local entities to seize the period of strategic opportunities while avoiding realistic strategic risks and challenges, how to better promote the high-level opening-up to the outside world and multi-level international cooperation in order to promote the sound development of local economy and society, and how to define the identity of local actors in foreign exchanges have all become practical problems that both the state and local entities must clarify and solve in the new era. This paper chooses Shandong Province for a case study to try to answer the above questions.

History

From Imagination to Reality: The Philadelphia Expo 1926 and the Spread of China’s Image Zhao Xiaoyun · 112 ·

In the wake of the “Gold Rush” and along with the increasing number of Chinese immigrants, the Chinese exclusion events occurred constantly in the United States, and the American society’s understanding of the image of China was fixed in the imagination of the “Yellow Peril”. In the 1920s, when playing an increasingly important role in the international strategic arena, China decided to participate in the Philadelphia Expo 1926 in order to alleviate the strong pressure of public opinion at home and the fierce anti-China sentiment in American society, change the image of China in the United States, build a “progressive” and “friendly” national image, and promote the development of trade with the United States. To this end, China actively prepared for the fair, attaching special importance to the exhibition of arts and crafts as well as educational products, emphasizing the practicality and nationality of the exhibits, and trying to promote the American people to feel the real China through the decoration and presentation of the exhibition pavilion. In this period, the public opinion response in the United States to the Chinese exhibition reflected the change of the American people’s understanding of the image of China.