Open AccessBranding the Chinese Dream: Reception of China’s Public Diplomacy in Britain’s “Cultural China”
Author(s) -
Yan Wu,
Siân Rees,
Richard Thomas,
Yakun Yu
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
journal of the british association for chinese studies
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
ISSN - 2048-0601
DOI - 10.51661/bjocs.v11i0.128
Subject(s) - public diplomacy , china , chinese dream , dream , ideology , narrative , nation branding , soft power , politics , public opinion , media studies , diplomacy , political science , national identity , diaspora , identity (music) , sociology , gender studies , public relations , aesthetics , law , literature , psychology , art , philosophy , neuroscience
Over four decades, China’s transformed propaganda system has embraced public diplomacy to dispel its perceived “threat.” The most recent strategy has been the branding of the Chinese Dream narrative. Although there has been some academic focus on China’s nation branding, little has been written about its reception by overseas audiences. Accordingly, this article draws on focus-group data and employs Tu Wei-ming’s “cultural China” framework in exploring how the Chinese Dream is received and interpreted in the United Kingdom. This article contributes to understandings of nation branding by recognising how Chinese diaspora communities and British intellectual and professional elites engage with and promote brand values. It argues that the socio-cultural aspect of branding is important for China’s identity and that using the Chinese Dream as a branding narrative is successful when it focuses on cultural and economic messaging but divides opinion when political ideology is used.
Image © Yan Wu