Summary
This article addresses the question of whether the emerging role of cities in diplomacy is a reflection of the diplomatic transformation in China, and what the distinctive features are of the ...diplomatic roles of cities within China's context. It argues that city diplomacy in China falls between club diplomacy and network diplomacy by exploring five aspects: the number of players, structures, forms, transparency and main purposes. Cities have developed their representation by serving as important agents in managing domestic and international situations, developed their communication channels by contributing in shaping China's neighbouring diplomacy and global partnerships, and developed their negotiation techniques by participating in reform of global governance system. The article concludes that the diplomatic role of cities in China is to consolidate the social foundation of relations between nations, promote the establishment of a new type of international relations, and promote a community of a shared future for mankind.
The adoption of the World Heritage Convention (WHC) in 1972 was the response to a world asking for peace after the destruction caused by the two world conflicts, particularly to cultural heritage ...(CH). UNESCO World Heritage Sites (WHS) act as enablers in establishing strong and effective relationships among countries, people, culture and history, while influencing and attracting these elements to promote a positive national image and fostering mutual understanding, which is the main objective of cultural diplomacy (CD). This holds true also for China and this institutes the need to investigate on how UNESCO World Heritage acts as a strategic asset in Chinese CD. This paper will provide an empirical framework addressing the position of WHS embedded in the Chinese CD. Discussion on the growing Chinese involvement of WHS in cultural projects fostering international relations and considerations on the potential impact and future development of this phenomenon with regards to China and the WHC are offered. Keywords World Heritage, Cultural Diplomacy, China, Soft Power, Silk Roads.
The emphasis on cultural connectivity in China's growing presence and involvement in Southeast Asia highlights the importance China places on people-to-people exchanges as part of its global ...engagement strategy. _x000B__x000B_The remarkable ascension of China over the recent decades has precipitated a proliferation of anti-China sentiments, particularly galvanized within the crucible of a discourse war with Western powers, as expressed in the latter's China threat narrative._x000B__x000B_In response to such challenges, China has made substantial investments in cultural diplomacy, to augment its soft power through orchestrated global outreach initiatives._x000B__x000B_This article examines Chinese cultural diplomacy in the realm of entertainment, specifically The Melody of Spring: Transnational Spring Festival Gala hosted in Nanning, Guangxi, and disseminated globally each Chinese New Year._x000B__x000B_Against the legacy of China-Indonesia bilateral relations as well as Indonesia's treatment of its Chinese minority, this study explores China's cultural diplomacy and soft power in contemporary Indonesia._x000B__x000B_Through the case study of the Transnational Spring Festival Gala, this article posits that China's cultural dissemination as an instrument of soft power has yielded little influence on the Indonesian public and has limited impact on the formation of a transnational imagined community.
This article examines the diplomacy of small states, focusing on the case of TimorLeste. It analyzes the foreign policy strategies of small states, which encompass bilateral and multilateral ...diplomacy, engagement in international organizations and global governance, and the utilization of public diplomacy. These diplomatic tools enable small states to pursue their foreign policy objectives despite their limited resources, while also fostering cooperative relationships with larger powers. Diplomacy is regarded as a universal mechanism through which small states like Timor-Leste can integrate into the global international relations system.
Given the inherent limitations of small states in contesting with major and middle powers, they seek to enhance their international influence through collective actions, such as forming or joining coalitions in international organizations or intergovernmental forums. Additionally, small states employ public diplomacy to draw attention to their issues and needs, thereby reducing their reliance on greater powers and forging more advantageous collaborations with other states. Strategies such as imitation and balancing, participation in coalitions, promotion of international initiatives, provision of expertise, and adherence to the principles of international law are utilized to cultivate a positive image of small states as responsible actors in international relations and reliable partners.
The article concludes that Timor-Leste has been successful in maintaining bilateral and multilateral relations and actively participating in international organizations. However, it faces systemic challenges in effectively employing public diplomacy mechanisms. These challenges can be attributed to underdeveloped national public institutions and the enduring influence of greater powers, which affect not only Timor-Leste but also the wider region.
In The Cold War from the Margins, Theodora K. Dragostinova reappraises the global 1970s from the perspective of a small socialist state—Bulgaria—and its cultural engagements with the Balkans, the ...West, and the Third World. During this anxious decade, Bulgaria's communist leadership invested heavily in cultural diplomacy to bolster its legitimacy at home and promote its agendas abroad. Bulgarians traveled the world to open museum exhibitions, show films, perform music, and showcase the cultural heritage and future aspirations of their "ancient yet modern" country. As Dragostinova shows, these encounters transcended the Cold War's bloc mentality: Bulgaria's relations with Greece and Austria warmed, émigrés once considered enemies were embraced, and new cultural ties were forged with India, Mexico, and Nigeria. Pursuing contact with the West and solidarity with the Global South boosted Bulgaria's authoritarian regime by securing new allies and unifying its population. Complicating familiar narratives of both the 1970s and late socialism, The Cold War from the Margins places the history of socialism in an international context and recovers alternative models of global interconnectivity along East-South lines. Thanks to generous funding from The Ohio State University Libraries and its participation in TOME (Toward an Open Monograph Ecosystem), the ebook editions of this book are available as Open Access volumes from Cornell Open (cornellpress.cornell.edu/cornell-open) and other repositories.
This thesis examines Anglo-Korean relations between 1895 and 1905, when Korea was independent of both Qing China and Japan. This thesis mainly uses official archival documents from both governments ...to study their high-level diplomacy and policy-making. In 1895, when Britain and Korea faced the change of the international order of Northeast Asia as a consequence of the First Sino-Japanese War, both nations shared that Korean independence would be desirable for their interests. However, both countries had different approaches to achieve it. Britain preferred the self-strengthening and the modernisation of the Korean administration, whereas Korea focused on diplomacy due to its incapacity to oppose foreign aggression by its own forces. Therefore, Anglo-Korean relations gradually deteriorated through a series of political crises in Korea and eventually reached a point where Britain gave up its hope in Korean independence. Meanwhile, Korea became a new battlefield for rivalry between Russia and Japan. Having confronted Russian advance together, Britain and Japan found that they shared the same interests in Korea. By 1900, both countries closely worked together to deter any Russian attempts to obtain concessions on the Korean Peninsula, which would potentially damage their interests in the region. Afterwards, British and Japanese representatives in Seoul worked not only for the defence of their shared interests, but also for the other's own interests in the country. Thus, when the Russo-Japanese War broke out, British Legation in Korea helped Japan facilitate the occupation of Korea and eventually agreed with Japan' establishment of a protectorate over Korea.
This dissertation aims to explore the lives, activities, experiences, and the social impact of the members of the virtually unstudied Manas family who operated in the fields of art, diplomacy, and ...finance, and to analyze the ramifications of the family's controversial Catholic identity in the 18th-and 19th-century Ottoman context, by tracking the individual stories of the Manases as social and cultural actors, and knitting them together with the lived realities of other members in order to situate them both individually and cumulatively into the social and political matrices of the period. In order to decipher the motivations and aspirations of the individual Manases, the current study will use the family as a nexus through which to discern the Manases' engagement with the society and the state. The multiple social, religious, and vocational layers in which this family existed, as Armenian by ethnicity, Catholic by denomination, and court artisan, diplomat, and banker by profession will be used to reflect on the travails of the Manases, as well as their comfort and success. This study has been able to fill in many of the extensive lacunae in the narratives of the Manas family members as well as rectify misconstrued facts about their lives and careers through rigorous archival research, enabling a firm scaffolding to stand on while tackling the family in a much more nuanced and profound manner. It places the Manas family within the context of a multivalent and porous society as opposed to one with impermeable barriers between its various communities, thereby understanding its members as part and parcel of Ottoman existence and history in contrast to dichotomizing frameworks that sever Armenian reality from its historical context. Through this approach it restores the historicity of the Manases as Ottoman actors, who were not extraneous to the axes of social and political change, but were participants in the processes of negotiation with the state alongside other Ottomans of various ethnic, social, and religious backgrounds to effectuate change. The dearth of insightful scholarship on the family in contexts where they have so far been discussed will be addressed in the first part of this dissertation. Chapters One and Two dealing with the family members' activities pertaining to imperial identity construction, through sultanic portraiture and diplomacy, respectively, aim to correct the historical record and offer further insights through the greater contextualization and analytical synthesis of the already available data with the vast body of newly introduced documents. The latter two chapters, which are centered around the Catholic identity of the Manases and the discussion of banking, prestige, and wealth in relation to the family, draw on a range of hitherto unstudied archival sources. These chapters considerably develop the extant scholarship, breaking ground to establish new frameworks for discussing the Manases.
Recently-released intelligence material makes clear that secret information and clandestine diplomacy were central to the failure of Anglo-French relations. International intelligence archives ...present a “deeper level”, where personal relations and grand strategy intertwined to shape international diplomacy. Intelligence reveals that Churchill conducted an “unofficial” policy against France in the Middle East. During the war, Churchill embarked on a secretive and ambitious effort to reorganize the Middle East under British hegemony. In order to create a Jewish State and consolidate British control, he opted to support Arab dreams for a Greater Syria which would include the French Levant. Churchill knew that British agents, led by Spears, were conducting a campaign of systematic subversion to oust France from the region. He permitted this operation despite knowing that de Gaulle had evidence on it and despite what it was doing to Anglo-French relations. Eden disagreed with this policy. Intelligence material reveals that he opened a secret channel to de Gaulle and orchestrated a “manoeuvre” to regain control of British grand strategy. Eden’s clandestine diplomacy failed and Churchill was allowed to ruin Anglo-French relations. Intelligence shows that, for larger strategic aims, Churchill betrayed France and made de Gaulle an “enemy of Britain”.
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced diplomats to work online, but how have they adapted and what impact will this have going forward? Drawing on survey results from 105 diplomats, this article argues ...that diplomacy is about to enter a hybrid phase, in which physical and virtual engagements are expected to integrate, complement and empower each other.
Abstract
The COVID-19 pandemic has forced diplomats to embrace virtual platforms and to learn to combine virtual and physical meetings in their work. In this article, we investigate how this process has taken place and with implications for the conduct of diplomacy. Specifically, we ask how diplomats have adapted to the transition to the virtual medium, what lessons have they learned from this, and how these lessons may inform the conduct of diplomacy in the post-pandemic period? We argue that diplomacy is about to enter a new phase, which we call hybrid diplomacy, in which physical and virtual engagements are expected to integrate, complement and empower each other. We begin by distinguishing between digital adaptation, a forced process brought about by external changes, and digital adoption, a strategic decision by diplomats to use specific technologies towards specific goals. Building on the results of a survey disseminated to 105 diplomats during the pandemic, we then examine how diplomats have adapted to the virtual medium and what challenges they see facing as they transition to the post-pandemic phase. While responders largely agree that virtual interactions are not a good substitute for physical diplomacy, we find strong support for the continued mix of virtual and physical meetings. They enable diplomats to maintain working procedures, collaborate with their peers from around the world, and continue negotiations that began offline. We conclude with a discussion of the technological and social factors that may inform the shape of hybrid diplomacy.
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