Behind the mask
Diplomacy used to be simple for Beijing. During the cold war, Chinese leaders could safely count on shared geopolitical interests of other countries in securing good relations. They did not have to take into account ideological differences or economic benefits. When president Richard Nixon landed in Beijing 40 years ago, he did not make the historic visit to expand trade or make China democratic. His objective was pure and simple: ending China's self-imposed isolation and making it part of the West's anti-Soviet alliance.
Since China's economic take-off in the post-cold-war era, the disappearance of the Soviet threat did not make life too difficult for Beijing. Money became the new language of Chinese diplomacy. China could utilise, and has done so very openly, its growing economic clout to shore up its ties with key Western countries.
A pattern has emerged: before an important visit to a Western country by a top Chinese leader, a high-profile purchasing delegation will lead the way and sign tens of billions of dollars in commercial deals. Western leaders will use such occasions to tout the success of their engagement with China while Chinese leaders reconfirm their belief that, for all their rhetoric about democracy, Western politicians care more about money than human rights.
However, based on the rising anti-China sentiment, it appears that even money is losing its magic in burnishing China's image in the capitalist West. Winning the hearts and minds of the West may have become mission impossible for Beijing.
Chinese leaders have recognised this daunting challenge. In recent visits by senior leaders abroad, they have made serious efforts to engage in 'public diplomacy' - until recently a novel concept for Beijing. President Hu Jintao, for example, went to a China- sponsored Confucius Institute in Chicago a year ago when he was on a state visit, high- lighting Beijing's new campaign of projecting its soft power.
On Vice-President Xi Jinping's visit to the United States this week, undoubtedly the most important diplomatic test for China's leader-in-waiting, he is apparently devoting more time to public diplomacy than to high-level dialogue. His itinerary includes a reunion with Iowan farmers whom he befriended more than two decades ago and attendance at a Lakers' basketball game in Los Angeles. Whether such personal efforts by senior Chinese leaders will yield real results is anybody's guess. But nobody should fault them for trying.
To be sure, China's initiative to improve its image abroad consists of a far more comprehensive, if not expensive, public relations campaign. Readers of The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal may find paid full-page supplements of the China Daily, China's official English-language newspaper, advertising China's success. Chinese news agencies are expanding their presence aggressively in the West, hiring a large number of professional staff and leasing expensive office space in desirable locations. (Xinhua, for example, opened its new office in New York City's Times Square in May last year with much fanfare.) China Central Television has plans to increase its overseas staff fivefold by the end of this year. In Washington alone, it has a 60-person bureau.
A question that needs to be asked about China's public relations or public diplomacy campaign is whether the current approach is effective. Based on the experience of other countries that have pursued such diplomacy much longer than China, it seems that Beijing's strategy is based on erroneous assumptions and excessively focuses on using the instruments of the Chinese state in projecting its soft power. This approach is both costly and unpromising.
A key assumption in Beijing's strategy is that anti-China sentiment in the West originates in the lack of knowledge about China. By remedying this 'knowledge deficit' with the provision of more information by Chinese media, China can win more hearts and minds in the West. While knowledge about China is certainly dismal outside the elite circles in the West, the assumption that ignorance is the sole cause of China's image problem is questionable. Generally speaking, Western elites are quite well-informed about China.
What drives public sentiment abroad, particularly in the West, is Beijing's policy, not knowledge (or the lack thereof) about China. Whenever Chinese leaders pursue policies or engage in behaviour both at home and abroad that are seen as unfair, harsh or plainly wrong, they tarnish China's image - and no amount of public relations can undo the damage. For example, when the Chinese government kept the Nobel Peace laureate, Liu Xiaobo, in prison and prevented his wife from going to Norway to claim the award in 2010, its actions shocked the world.
For another example, when China recently joined Russia in vetoing an Arab League- sponsored UN resolution that would have helped end the violence in Syria, most of the international community was outraged. So, changing policy and behaviour, not throwing money at image-polishing, is more effective in making China more likeable.
China's soft-power offensive is unlikely to succeed if it solely relies on state-controlled media organs to get the message out. These institutions have a serious credibility problem, both inside and outside China. Beijing may choose to increase their budgets lavishly, but the money will most likely be wasted. Few hearts will be swayed or minds be changed as a result of a deluge of pro-China messages flowing from Chinese government entities housed in fancy office buildings and staffed with first-rate journalists speaking perfect English.
Given how influential the Western media are in informing and shaping public opinion around the world, Beijing should have much better success in image management, at no cost, if it treats Western journalists with minimum professional courtesy and allows them greater access inside China.
Their stories about China may not be flattering, but by creating the conditions for them to portray a more realistic and unvarnished China to the international community, Beijing can help the world see China as it is, warts and all.
Minxin Pei is a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College
