Concept of diplomacy expands to people-to-people connections

Zhao Qizheng (second from left), dean of the School of Journalism and Communication of Renmin University of China, and Li Zhaoxing (fourth from left), former minister of foreign affairs, participate in a group photo along with other representatives following a discussion of public diplomacy and national image. The discussion was part of the Boao Forum for Asia. Huang Yiming / China Daily

With China becoming increasingly connected with the rest of the world, scholars and politicians are calling for public diplomacy as a way to build its image.

Traditional diplomacy was defined as communicating the official policy of the government, but in recent years, the general public - including scholars, celebrities and entrepreneurs - has shared the responsibility of communicating with foreign citizens, said Zhao Qizheng, dean of the School of Journalism and Communication at Renmin University of China, on the sidelines of the annual conference of Boao Forum for Asia in Hainan province on Friday.

Martin Jacques, senior fellow of the department of politics and international studies at Cambridge University, said a new trend is that countries are becoming more influenced by outside factors, including the growing connectivity of people.

"The consequence of this is that you can no longer define the idea of foreign policy and the idea of inter-state relations in terms of a professional call of diplomats," he said.

"There are many other layers that shape the way people think about other countries. We can expect the role of people, or people-to-people connections, to become more and more important to the formulation of relations between countries."

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For example, China's public image will be affected by how its tourists behave in other countries, and the enormous number of Chinese students going overseas also will shape the perception of China in many ways. This can be extended to scientists, scholars and writers.

"People from many different backgrounds are helping to shape the perception of how we see different countries," Jacques said.

"This is a challenge for foreign policy establishments everywhere because you can't carry on making foreign policy in the same old way," he added.

For China, a huge structural reform will take place in the country's diplomatic system, which will change the current situation of being strong in terms of official diplomacy but weak in public diplomacy, said Chen Yulu, president of Renmin University of China.

He noted that growing overseas education will make the case even stronger.

More than 410,000 Chinese students went abroad in 2013, and they now number more than 1.5 million.

The number of foreign students in China also has grown and is expected to rise from 290,000 last year to 500,000 in 2020, making China the No 1 destination for overseas education in Asia by that time, Chen said.

A study by Renmin University of China found that at least 20 percent of its graduates will participate in cross-cultural communication activities by 2020. As a result, the university is putting a lot of effort into cross-cultural communication and public diplomacy.

"If China wants to step into the center of the world civilization system, one of the major tasks for the next generation is to build a good relationship with both Western and Islamic civilization systems," Chen said.

"We have to start from education to have a strong voice in the future."

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