digital diplomacy

Clingendael's Jan Melissen and Emillie de Keulenaar on the urgency of going digital.

China has employed tens of thousands of scholars to write an internet version of its national encyclopaedia, which will go online next year to compete against Wikipedia. [...] Designed to be the nation’s first digital book of “everything”, it will feature more than 300,000 entries, each about 1,000 words long, making it twice as large as the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and about the same size as the Chinese-language version of Wikipedia.

More than 20,000 other people also observed that moment after Adam posted a 40-second video of his experience on Facebook. It was one of many this social activist would share during his six-week trip to Somalia [...] Today, Adam is harnessing that following to galvanize support for Somalia, which is on the brink of a famine that threatens the lives of an estimated 6 million people, according to the United Nations.

Many who speak Q’eqchi never learned to read or write it. And even if they did, it’s Spanish that’s the lingua franca at colleges, employers, and any other opportunity for economic growth. In turn, the nonprofit Choice Humanitarian–backed by Microsoft’s Edge team and the agency Pixel Lab–has launched a pilot program called Accent to teach 18 women from Chulac, Guatemala, how to read and speak Spanish.

Ilan Manor on the historical relationship between diplomacy and technology, and how it can help a world in crisis.

Ilan Manor explains why "post-reality" is the most important digital diplomacy concept of the moment.

A co-authored textbook on international diplomacy, a paper on ethics in digital diplomacy, a Doctoral Conference in Oxford, and more. 

When dealing with the Trump administration, China should pay attention to several factors. First, China should get to know Trump's political ambitions, and establish contacts with his core team. China should strengthen the role of non-governmental actors in public diplomacy, and improve Sino-US public diplomacy by using think tanks to effectively control conflicts. Last but not the least, China needs to enhance social media communication and promote international discourse.

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