Category: Public Diplomacy
Public Relations with Chinese Characteristics
The Chinese approach to public relations often comes under fire by groups that espouse values of engagement and transparency. There is an attempt to measure Chinese PR performance against liberal democratic ideals, and unsurprisingly, those using this metric often come up disappointed time and time again. ...
Russian, Chinese and South African Warships Docked in Cape Town Harbor Put on a Good Show
The visiting warships from China and Russia, along with South Africa's own vessels, were open to the public in Cape Town harbor for the past few days before they head out to sea for joint naval exercises that begin today. The ...
Chinese Diplomats and Missions in Africa Are Opening Twitter Accounts. Here’s a List of Who’s Online.
2019 will go down as the year when Chinese diplomacy officially entered the "Twitterverse." Over the past six months, a small but steadily growing number of Chinese missions and diplomats in Africa have started to open Twitter accounts. It seems like it's up to each embassy and ...
BBC Africa Correspondent Dickens Olewe Wasn’t Shy Asking China’s Ambassador to Kenya About Debt Traps and Asset Seizures
Chinese ambassadors are notoriously media-shy, particularly with U.S. and European news organizations like the BBC who Beijing often regards as adversarial. And when these officials do grant interviews, they're often very stilted, constrained by ground-rules and limited to pre-approved questions. But ...
Although Relatively New to Twitter, China’s Ambassador in Zimbabwe Isn’t Afraid to Fight
He's only been using Twitter since April, but Ambassador Guo Shaochun is really getting the hang of the social network's bare-knuckle brawling culture. His feed is filled with strongly-worded rebuttals against China's critics in Zimbabwe, no matter if the accuser is someone popular ...
China Appears to be Using African Mass Media to Try and Sway Public Opinion on Xinjiang
China has been very effective in persuading African governments to take its side against U.S. and European-led critics of its policies and well-documented human rights violations in the western province of Xinjiang where hundreds of thousands, even millions of Uighur minorities have been detained. ...
Tweet of the Day: Chinese Ambassador Wu Peng Sits Down for No-Limits Interview With the BBC
Fudan University PhD candidate Cliff Mboya shared his surprise on Twitter that China's ambassador to Kenya, Wu Peng, agreed to a sit-down interview with Dickens Onditi Olewe, a correspondent from the BBC's Africa Desk. He interviewed the ambassador last Friday and the embassy was seemingly pleased with ...
Zimbabwe Elephant Sale to China Sparks Outrage, Prompting New Set-Back for Chinese Public Diplomacy in Africa
Up to 30 young elephants were flown overseas this weekend from Zimbabwe, reportedly to zoos in China, prompting widespread anger in Africa, Europe, and the United States. News headlines, conservation groups, and social media users all expressed varying of ...
China’s Ambassador to South Africa Is New to Twitter but From the Looks of It, He’s Learning How to Waste Time on Social Media Just Like the Rest of Us
China's outspoken ambassador to South Africa, Lin Songtian, just joined Twitter last month and for the most part, he's been posting the usual things that ambassadors tend to post on social media like photos from official events and pro-Beijing propaganda. Then out of character, a video ...
Ready, Aim, Fire! China’s Outspoken Ambassador in South Africa Shoots Back Against Critics in US & EU
China’s ambassador to South Africa, Lin Songtian, helmed a characteristically shoot-from-the-hip session at a recent conference on China’s impact on African industrialization at the University of Johannesburg. Lin accused Western countries of misrepresenting Chinese financing to the continent as a trap, continuing: “Sometimes