The report mainly gives an analysis of how China’s growing economy is affecting the US. It states that many American’s accept now that China has started to become more important than Europe, and this is a truly historic shift.
The report is mainly divided in three main parts. The first part mainly is a letter from a member of a Congress addressed to his colleagues who raises the concerns of Chinas growing powers, in economy, military and public diplomacy. The author gives examples of how China using is promoting its public diplomacy by using modern tools and censoring the internet. The second part gives an executive summary of the whole report. Through the summary the stress falls on how china’s power is rising in different sectors, such as military, trade, technology and the raising concerns of the USA that China is taking over. The main body addresses the issue as why China badly needs public diplomacy with the main reason being that China needs to look good in the eyes of the world, seeking to avoid the appearance of an aggressive or hostile country since a bad image will harm its economic expansion. To do so, China relies on the early part of its 4,000 years of cultural history to form the core of its public diplomacy. One of the other methods used by Chinese to promote its public diplomacy is to open many of the so called “Confucius Institutes’ ‘throughout the world that provide classes in Chinese language, literature and China’s arts. Only in America are counted about 70 institutes in general, there is less efforts by the USA to do the same. The report comments that the history of the “Confucius Institutes’’ are a version of the British Councils. By doing so, China hopes to convey a thoughtful, innovative, responsible and, most importantly, peaceful friend to all nations. A graph to show how the “Confucius Institutes’’ has drastically increased since 2004 is also given.
The report mentions that American Public Diplomacy in China is too Small, too few to matter. China currently has 71 Confucius Centres in the U.S., while the U.S has only five public diplomacy spaces in China – for a country of some 1.3 billion. The report also gives a chart of how the American Peace Volunteers has changed since 1993-2010.
It is analysed how China has tried to portray a different image to the world by the Olympic Games and the increased presence in U.N. peacekeeping operations. A chart which shows the increase in number of Chinese peacekeepers in years is given. The article also mentions about the official press agency of the Chinese government, which will soon be allowed to open a multi-floored office in Times Square and how the Chinese government has limited the Voice of America to a single, two-person office there, blocks the opening of a VOA bureau in Shanghai.
The report makes huge comments of how China controls the Web by using its official Golden Shield Project Internet software (more commonly known as the Great Firewall of China) in order to stop the people from outside from intruding with its own citizens. This has lead to websites such as Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Blogspot, Voice of America, and Radio Free Asia to be banned in China. Chinese officials are quick to point out that their citizens have a home-grown search engine – Baidu – that is just as efficient as Google as well as online market places – AliBaba and TaoBao – that compete toe-to-toe with Amazon and EBay.
The report ends giving an expensive a list of Confucius Institutes in USA, U.S. Legislation Regarding Funding of International Expositions, Foreign Film Box Office Gross in China 1999-2010, and Committee to Protect Journalists 2010 List of Imprisoned Chinese Journalists and Screen Shots of Baidu Searches as Seen from Inside the Great Firewall
Findings, Observations and Recommendations
The author makes many recommendation and observations raised in the main body. It recommends that the fact that China has opened its press offices in the USA and has blocked the VOA and RFA’s websites via its ‘‘Great Firewall,’’ is something which can be challenged. To challenge the so called “Confucius Institutes’’ the USA has begun to assist American universities who have pre-existing programs in China in opening more Centres for American Studies at Chinese universities. The report gives a very impressive example when stating the China’s moves toward a greater market-oriented economy should not be understood as for the Communist Party’s willingness to tolerate organized political opposition by providing a comparison that “an iPhone does not equal democracy!”
The report recommends that current U.S. Peace Corps program in China of some 140 ‘‘Chinese-American Friendship Volunteers’ which is primarily engaged in English-language instruction provides valuable, long-term interaction with American citizens and should be expanded to more volunteers. China continues to harass, prosecute and imprison bloggers and journalists on a routine basis there are over 1,400 political prisoners in China as of the date of this report.
Report Access-“Another U.S. Deficit- China and America- Public Diplomacy in the age of the Internet-http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1574605/Blog/Reports/20112%20Another%20US%20Deficit%20-%20Public%20Diplomacy%20in%20the%20Age%20of%20the%20Internet%20%28SFRC%20report%29.pdf
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