Cultural diplomacy is the promotion of culture of a state or a social group to another in order to establish and strengthen relations between people and even states. Milton C. Cummings described it as “the exchange of ideas, information, art and other aspects of culture among nations and their peoples to foster mutual understanding”.
Nowadays, people engage more and more in the development and enhancement of their cultures with host countries and cultural exchanges can happen in a variety of ways: Travellers, teachers and artists can be all considered examples of informal cultural diplomats.
Like culture, sport can be a powerful means of influence that nations use to spread a positive image. In the 2008 Olympics, China succeeded in portraying itself as a modern urban country when in reality the country is predominantly rural. David Beckham, Zidane and Ronaldo are among many sports personalities who have worn the colours of their retrospective countries on the media stage world wide and The United states also know the benefits they can gain from sports heroes revered far beyond US borders. To disseminate American values in a gentle way, the United States for several years has used its high-level athletes, to gain sympathy in targeted countries. This policy began in late 2006 with five-time world champion figure skater Michelle Kwan. A more recent example is when the state department announced the appointment of the baseball player Ken Griffey as public diplomacy envoy in 2008. Baseball is still a very misunderstood sport in Europe and much of the world. However, it is very popular in several Latin American countries, including Cuba and Venezuela, two countries with whom US relations are not very friendly. The state department attaches great importance to sport as a conduit to export the American way of life and in her presentation Condoleezza Rice sums this up when saying “When Ken Griffey travels overseas, one of his greatest objectives will be to talk to young people and to spark their interest in America and in our culture.”
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