china
Public diplomacy (PD), if defined as the act of a government engaging directly with a foreign public, then many governments are currently conducting PD towards the Filipino public in the aftermath of Typhoon Haiyan's devastation. Most public diplomacy scholars and practitioners refer to the foreign aid assistance in the wake of a disaster as "aid diplomacy."
On the sad occasion of Nelson Mandela’s death, it’s worth recalling his words on languages: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his own language, that goes to his heart.”
“We’ve spent decades making their toys, their shoes, and even their flags,” a deep voice intones in Mandarin as US military tanks trundle across a desert. ”All the while, enduring their condescension and biding our time…finally the moment has come; now they will know our greatness.” A group of American soldiers looks up at the sky that suddenly fills with screaming jets, missiles, explosions, fire and fumes.
World attention today is keenly focused on nuclear proliferation in Iran, the future force presence in Afghanistan, and percolating problems between China and Japan involving islands in the East China Sea. And while officials in Washington deliberate how U.S. influence can affect these potentially destabilizing flash points, they're overlooking a country that could be a key contributor toward steadying the ship: India.
On November 8, 2013, Super Typhoon Haiyan ravished the Philippine archipelago. With 195 MPH winds and gusts of up to 230 MPH, the typhoon killed an estimated 4,000 people and displaced another 670,000. Across the southern part of the Philippines and especially in Tacloban, the city most affected by the typhoon, the scene is apocalyptic.
An announcement Tuesday by the obscure-sounding Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, better known as SWIFT, may not get much ink. China's currency, it reported, was used in 8.66 percent of global trade finance transactions in October, the group said. It's now the No. 2 most widely used currency for trade finance, supplanting the euro.
APDS Blogger: Shannon Haugh
There probably isn't a more American condiment than ketchup. Millions of Americans douse their french fries, hamburgers, hot dogs and other favorite foods with it every day. The ubiquitous tomato-based sauce has been a staple in American cuisine for over a century, with surveys finding that 97% of kitchens in the United States contain a bottle. Given those facts, many Americans may be surprised to learn that ketchup's origins aren't American at all and that tomatoes were introduced to the mix relatively late in the sauce's history.