new silk road

December 27, 2017

In this year-end round up, we share the most written-about international news related to public diplomacy.

The second China-Mongolia Expo and High Level Forum on China-Mongolia-Russia Cooperation kicked off in Hohhot, capital of north China's Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, on September 26, 2017. Under the theme "Construct the China-Mongolia-Russia (CMR) Economic Corridor, embrace global win-win cooperation," this biennial event serves as an important platform and provides a new possibility of international exchange between China and its neighboring countries.

According to Chinese vice Premier Zhang Gaoli, the media has a crucial role to play in ensuring that people all over the world understand what Belt and Road initiative is all about. [...] The NPC official, just like the vice premier, however admitted that a lot needs to be done to get more people to understand what the concept stands for. In his opinion, the “project of the century” as is being referred to, seeks to only build a community of shared future and prosperity for all.

 

Luo Shugang, China’s minister of culture has stressed that the key to sound relations between states lies in their respective people’s closeness to each other based on mutual understanding. Minister Shugang was emphasizing the essence of culture as a means of promoting the One Belt One Road Initiative, which holistically underscores “openness, inclusiveness, mutual learning and shared economic prosperity” amongst developing nations.

Dalian-based Haichang Ocean Park Holdings, the mainland’s largest marine theme park operator, has implemented a go-global strategy, with plans to build overseas amusement parks along the beltway of countries that make up China’s new silk road trade initiative.[...] Beijing has been striving to export its cultural heritage and increase the projection of Chinese “soft power” amid the country’s increasing economic might.

The “new Silk Road” is the brainchild of Chinese State President Xi Jinping, who announced it as a major project - the Silk Road Economic Belt – during a state visit to Kazakhstan in mid-2013.

China is utilizing its soft power assets to support its nation brand and win friends abroad. 

But with 998,000 overseas foreign workers in 2014, according to the Chinese Ministry of Commerce, China has slowly come to realize that operating globally means indeed greater risk and the requirement therein to protect both its foreign nationals and overseas investments. To this end, China has increasingly felt the pressure of being in the middle of potentially hostile territory throughout the Middle East and Africa.

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