Public Diplomacy

The Beijing Olympic Games: A way to bring fame 

“Public diplomacy is the process by which direct relations with the people in a country are pursued to advance the interests and extend the values of those being represented” (Sharp, 2005: 106).

This practice is an effective way to create influence and establish a connection with other nations and the public opinion mainly through  media covering which play a significant role in portraying other countries’ image.  This is the reason why international events are often considered with great importance. They offer the possibility for a country to advance its interest by modelling a positive or attractive image to the public scope.This article will tend to focus on the sportive event of the 2008 Olympic Games in Beijing, China. The purpose will be to evaluate how the Chinese government used public diplomacy to enhance its image on different criteria through the Games.

Most countries over the world possessed their own characteristic traits or stereotypes. These characteristic are often due to the vision that people have in mind when thinking about a country. It is easy to demonstrate it. If we take for instance several countries, what are the images coming into our minds, let’s take for example, Italy, Australia, France, Cuba. Possibly we would associate these countries with, pasta, kangaroo, cheese, rum.  Well in the case of China, it has often been associated with low quality goods, cheap products and services or considered as a country which offer little design and creation (Berkovitz, 2007: 165). This criteria had been demonstrated by the Anholt Nation Brands Index (ANBI) -the founder Simon Anholt developed a nation brand hexagon which provide a way measure a country global brand equity into six areas, tourism/exports (people satisfaction of the good produced in the country)/governance/investment & immigration/culture & heritage and finally people– (see figure below source: Berkovitz ,170, 2007)
The ANBI can be explained due to different aspects of China that tend to devaluate its image in the world such as environmental degradation, ethnic disharmony (Tibet and Taiwan), communist roots, bad human record (Tibet riots in March 2008 or the Tiananmen Square protest in 1989) and finally its political set up privileging media control, propaganda and tight bureaucracy (Aryabaha 2010: 7). However which country has ever been absolutely tolerant, peaceful and open-minded? It is very difficult for the western world to talk with legitimacy about bad state behaviour when they also have perpetuated acts that could be seen controversial but this is not subject here. The point here is that no matter what if people see a country with a negative view it is important for the latter to investigate what needs to be done to change that opinion if it wants to be supported.
So The Olympic Games were the perfect occasion for China to change its image around the world. Today China has become a major player in the international “sandbox” as its GDP is valued at $5.87 trillion placing it at the second world’s largest economy compared to 1978 where it contributed to 1% of the world economy (Berkovitz, 2007: 165 ). And it is also nowadays the largest creditor nation owning about 20.8% of all foreign-owned US Treasury securities.
The Beijing Olympic Games were a way for China to show to the rest of the world that it is a major player in the world today but also that he owns a culture heritage of 5000 year (Aryabaha, 2010: 14) and as a nation that has continued to travel through history it also has a vision and ideas for the future of the world. Let’s remind us the slogan of the Games, “One World One Dream“. Through this slogan China tried to express a message of unity, friendship and harmony. Mainly this is what the opening  ceremony was all about.

The event also permitted China to affirm itself as a modern nation by developing Hi-Tech buildings such as the “Watercube” (National Aquatic Center) or the Bird’s Nest Stadium but also to promote energy conservation, green building material and plans for air cleaning in response to one of the main challenge of China which is the issues over environment concerns. Regarding views of china as a state controlled media, it had also opened the door to international journalists by allowing them to enter and leave China without visas (Berkovitz, 2007: 172) in order to express concern over media freedom although many web pages relating to political themes were inaccessible (d’Hooghe, 2007: 40).

Overall the feedback of the Beijing Olympic Games had been seen as very positive (Fehr, 2009: 47). China showed that developing states have also the capacity to hold such massive event and that they can also play with the big teams. The Ceremony had been perceived as spectacular and in this respect China managed to show the rest of the world that it is now present on the international stage and will play its role as a big player. Public diplomacy is not just a tool that Western powers have access to but developing countries can also attain people attention as the Beijing 2008 Olympic Games demonstrated. However it is important to question how China will manage its public diplomacy on the long run as events such the Olympic Games are short term enthusiasm. Long term diplomacy thinking reveals to be the most efficient approach.

REFERENCE:
~Aryabaha P.Evans (June 2010) Role of the Beiking Olympics in China’s Public Diplomacy and its impact on Politics, Economics and Environment, Faculty of Arts, University of Malta
~Berkowitz P.,Gjermano G. Gomez L. & Schafer G. (2007) Brand China: Using the 2008 Olympic Games to enhance China’s image, Place Branding and Public Diplomacy, Vol. 3, No. 2, pp.164-178, Palgrave Macmillan Ltd
~d’Hooghe Ingrid (2007) Into High Gear: China’s Public Diplomacy, The Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Vol. 3, pp.37-61, Martinus Nijhoff publishers
~Fehr Friederike (2009) China’s Management of the Olympic 2008 – Success or Failure?, Otago Management Graduate Review, Vol. 9 , abstract pp 35-50

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