Meet Joshua Shen, Public Diplomat in Residence

This feature was included in CPD's 2023–2024 Annual Report. 

Joshua Shen is CPD's current U.S. Public Diplomat in Residence (2024-26)

Can you overview your career in public diplomacy, including what first got you excited about the field?

Growing up as an Asian American immigrant to the United States, my desire to understand how American culture, values, and society share similarities with people across the globe echoes my own search for self-identity.  What are universal commonalities?  What differences are a product of distinct histories and philosophies, and how do we manage those differences?  How do we avoid the very human instinct to simplify and generalize the "other" while affording nuance and complexities to ourselves?

It wasn't until several years after graduating college that I learned of jobs in the United States government for diplomats who could help bridge these gaps.  Thus, having first trained and worked as a journalist and an educator, I felt drawn to the public and personal engagement opportunities of a career in public diplomacy.  Starting as a junior Foreign Service Officer under then Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice, I've had the opportunity to work in Malaysia, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, and Indonesia, as well as become the lead program officer for public diplomacy programs through sports and video games at the Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs in Washington, DC. 

Tell us about your research at the Center.

There is no bilateral relationship more important to future global peace, prosperity, and sustainability than the complex and challenging ties between the United States and the People's Republic of China, full stop.  Simply put, too many people in powerful positions are eager to push us towards greater distrust, enmity, confrontation, and even military conflict.  

The State Department provides its diplomats the opportunity to work with a whole-of-society approach to explore alternative policies and platforms to ensure that this competition does not explode through misunderstanding to an all-out war.  Through USC's Center for Public Diplomacy and its sister office at the U.S.-China Institute, my research hopes to better understand the audience of China's nearly 300,000 international students in the United States while providing policy recommendations to refine U.S. policies that can help enlist, rather than antagonize, these people as future mediators in a more stable, mutually prosperous relationship.

Where do you see public diplomacy heading in the next ten years?

It is important for public diplomacy practitioners — especially in the Global North — to better listen to the voices of the Global South, and not project our own fears, concerns, and problems onto them.  This includes more rapid-response public opinion polling, aided through technological innovations, to craft messages and develop outreach programs that are more responsive to their needs — and not just the small cohort of English-speaking like-minded who are clustered around urban centers.