China’s Groundbreaking Use of “Non-State Actors” as Part of its Public Diplomacy Strategy in Africa

Typically, public diplomacy initiatives are carried out either by embassies in different countries or state-led media organizations (VOA, FRANCE 24, etc…). Rarely do governments entrust this kind of outreach to private organizations, or “non-state actors” (NSAs) as they’re known in government-parlance. 

But Angela Lewis, a Ph.D. candidate in the School of International Communications at Nottingham University in Ningbo, China, writes today in an article on the University of Southern California’s Center on Public Diplomacy website that the Chinese appear to be pioneering a wholly new approach to public diplomacy by relying heavily on NSAs to carry out its agenda.

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by Eric Olander

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