foreign policy

December 18, 2015

While China’s foreign policy has traditionally relied on economic leverage and “soft power” diplomacy as its primary means of power projection, Beijing has also been actively exploiting concepts associated with strategic information operations as a means to directly influence the process and outcomes in areas of strategic competition.

This article takes a historical and theoretical approach to the application of paradiplomacy to foreign policy, citing examples such as Scotland, Catalonia and Quebec.

December 7, 2015

All — hawks and doves, left and right — agree that the United States must prioritize diplomatic solutions and public diplomacy and refocus on human rights as a core priority. That means a better, smarter foreign affairs budget, recalling that all of our largest trading partners are former recipients of U.S. aid.

Cotton recommends we deploy “prosecutorial resources on Putin’s worldwide corruption racket”; “craft laws in the tradition of the Helms-Burton Act and the Alien Tort Claims Act to open U.S. courts to victims of Russian aggression, theft, and war crimes”; and utilize “public diplomacy and information strategies … [including taking] the lead in funding translation services to make Western media available in Russia.”

 This is reflected in China’s active global public diplomacy drive [...] which started in the mid-2000s. This aspect of people-centred relations has also featured as an element in official Focac documentation. China’s current engagement in South Africa has expanded to include the subset cultural diplomacy, a term described by the US State department as the ‘linchpin of public diplomacy’ that reveals the soul of a nation.

The U.S. House of Representatives and the U.S. Senate should pass the bipartisan H.R. 2323 Royce-Engel U.S. international broadcasting reform bill to eliminate waste and improve response to ISIS and Putin propaganda. [...] Because international broadcasting, public diplomacy, foreign policy, and counter-propaganda are simply too big, too complex, charged with too many different missions, and politically too sensitive to be managed centrally by a single government agency or a single CEO. 

In the first few days since he won the presidential election in Argentina, President-elect Mauricio Macri has already shown a glimpse of what can be expected of his economic and foreign policy[...] includingrenewed public diplomacy, initiation of high-level economic dialogue, the offer of technical assistance on economic and trade issues, supporting the resolution of arbitration claims and conflict with the “holdout” bond-holders, promoting regional leadership and enhancing cooperation against drug trafficking.

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