PUBLIC DIPLOMACY IN THE NEWS

MAY 6, 2008
China’s ‘soft power’ blitz no major concern: US study
AFP
The study, undertaken by a group of China specialists and regional analysts, examined the strengths and weaknesses of China's foreign policy and growing use "soft power" in Asia, Africa, and Latin America. "Contrary to some projections of China's ability to displace American influence through the use of soft power, the CRS report indicates that China must grapple with many limitations on its influence," said Senate Foreign Affairs panel chief Joseph Biden, who commissioned the study.
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MAY 6, 2008
All the World’s A Stage: America’s Image in the Muslim World
The National Interest
One challenge is that Muslims tend to believe the United States is inconsistent when it comes to democracy. When in 2007 Pew asked whether the United States promotes democracy wherever it can or mostly where it serves its interests, Muslims overwhelmingly answered the latter. And stories about prisoner abuse at Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo have added to the perception that America does not always practice the respect for individual rights it espouses. Pew polling from 2006 showed that large numbers of Muslims in many parts of the world had seen, heard or read reports about Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo.  Read more...

MAY 6, 2008
China employs sing-song diplomacy
The Guardian
It may sound more highbrow than ping-pong diplomacy, but China hopes that an orchestral performance at the Vatican tomorrow will be as effective in thawing frosty relations. Diplomatic ties between the Catholic church and Beijing were severed shortly after the Communists took power in 1949 and Catholics in China had to worship underground.
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MAY 6, 2008
The concert of the Chinese orchestra at the Vatican
AsiaNews
The China Philharmonic Orchestra of Beijing and the chorus of the Shanghai Opera will perform Mozart's Requiem and Chinese folk songs for Benedict XVI. Interpretations of the event abound: preparation for diplomatic relations; publicity by Beijing to improve its image, after the violence in Tibet and international criticism.  Read more...

MAY 6, 2008
Pakistani activists, students on goodwill visit to India
The Hindu
A group of youth activists and students from Pakistan is on a goodwill visit to India to enlist the help of young Parliamentarians to promote peace moves and people-to-people contacts between the two countries.   Read more...

MAY 6, 2008
Presidential Candidates Urged to Use International Education to Improve U.S. Global Image
The Chronicle of Higher Education
The next president needs to act deliberately to respond to “serious concerns” about the United States’ standing on the global stage and should act to leverage international-education programs as a way to build a strong foundation for collaboration with other nations, officials at NAFSA: Association of International Educators said in an interview posted on a blog about public diplomacy in the 2008 presidential election.  Read more...

MAY 5, 2008
Listen! A professor of marketing is talking (II)
Daily Sun (Nigeria)
What are your views about brand Nigeria? What are those things we need to fix? And those things we need to play up? Brand Nigeria’ is at a pivotal stage at the moment. We initially confused branding with advertising.   Read more...

MAY 5, 2008
The Facets Of Chinese Nationalism
The Washington Post
Frequently the past few months, I have been asked about the wisdom of using the Olympics as an opportunity to push China to improve its human rights record. Underlying these questions is a sense that international pressure may have played into the hands of the Chinese Communist Party by triggering nationalist emotions and rallying indignant Chinese people behind the regime.  Read more...

MAY 5, 2008
The Chinese Student Frontline in PRC’s Olympic Public Diplomacy
The Huffington Post
The US government has (especially in its more lucid moments) seen the public diplomacy benefit to America of having foreign students at US universities, though it's striking how complex achieving that goal has been to administer post 9/11. But it's interesting to see the strategy for the sending country, in this case China. There are now 45,000 Chinese students in the United States. This carries the potential for them to become a voice in the US. We've seen the effect of this in the torch debates and the counterpart protests elsewhere.   Read more...

MAY 5, 2008
Retired VOA Veterans and BBG Manager Talk About Challenges Ahead for US International Broadcasting
Voice of America
In 2002, VOA’s Arabic Service was abolished and replaced with Radio Sawa in an effort to attract a younger audience. Asked about the impact of that change, Mr. Heil calls the loss of VOA Arabic “one of the tremendous blows in the history of U.S. international broadcasting.” He says in the view of many of the authors of Local Voices/Global Perspectives, discarding the VOA “brand name” in the Arabic-speaking world, and replacing it with a new service, was a “serious mistake.” Barry Zorthian explains that “surrogate” broadcasting is the “presentation of a broadcast that the target audience would have had in its own territory – if it had a free press.”  Read more...

MAY 3, 2008
Six Afghan exchange students flee to Canada
The Star (Canada)
But three weeks ago, the Afghan exchange students on a U.S. State Department program started to go missing. Since the second week of April, six have fled to Canada to make asylum bids just weeks before they were to have been returned to their Afghan villages.  Read more...

MAY 3, 2008
Syrian Cultural Week announced
Yemen Observer
The PM, with the Yemeni and Syrian Culture Ministers, announced that the opening of the Syrian Cultural Center in Sana’a will be on May 12 at Yemeni Syrian committee meetings. The Syrian Cultural Center’s manager told Mo’tamarnet that the cultural week will accompany the Center’s official opening, adding that this activity comes at a great time of bilateral cultural relations.   Read more...

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