APDS Blogger: Aparajitha Vadlamannati

At USC on April 6, the Association of Public Diplomacy Scholars held a conference on the Future of Public Diplomacy. Experts, academics, and practitioners gathered to discuss what lies ahead for the field of public diplomacy. There were a couple of major takeaways from the conference.

Hong Kong has already been drawing attention from all continents as a cultural hub...Filmmakers like Paul Schrader and Mike Figgis will hobnob cross-culturally with Hong Kong film producer Nansun Shi during the three-day ‘cultural convention’

“I hope that through this, the first of our cultural dialogues with China, we will develop deeper ties across all the areas that interest us. China is a country with a vibrant cultural past and a growing economic future. There is much that we can learn from one another.”

These were the words of China’s highest ranking female politician on the second day of her trip. Madam Liu Yandong, the most powerful woman in the country’s ruling Communist Party, said she “especially” selected Northern Ireland as the first stop on her European tour. She was speaking as she opened the new Confucius Institute at the University of Ulster..

Though the corporate figures often come to stand as symbols for Western political and media imperialism, state‐sponsored media organisations exist as direct mouthpieces for that nation’s ideology. In official rhetoric this strategy is referred to as ‘public diplomacy’.

There is no doubt that the Chinese government tries to present to the world a cultural landscape that accords with its own political narrative...But there is equally little doubt that Chinese publishing today is a vast and varied field in which it is not hard to find writers who both satirise and criticise the Communist party and its record.

If a high-profile event focusing on Chinese literature risks further undermining freedom of expression in China, then why is the British Council teaming up with the body responsible for censorship to bring a bevy of Chinese authors to London?

“Hajj: Journey to the Heart of Islam,” the exhibition at the British Museum that has drawn more than 80,000 visitors since it opened in late January is a remarkable achievement