City-level Diplomacy Of Chinese Cities In The Age Of Globalization

In the age of globalization,function of city as a clot point of development is gradually revealed,which is a gathered area of fortune,technology and talents.The developments of external exchanges in cities of different countries and areas shows that international interests of cities are growing greatly and acting ability is strengthened.International position of city is exalted.Since more and more influential ability cities make to nations,regions and even world politics,studying on external exchanges of cities is one of most significant works of international relations.This article,based on over viewing modern theories of sub-national government diplomacy and world-city development,gives forth to a theory of "city-level diplomacy",which takes city as an object of study and believes that city is a non-sovereign actor and its diplomacy is one part of state-foreign policies. City-level diplomacy has its own features,such as forms,characters,which is determined by political structure of a state,natural geographical conditions and international interests of city(including politics,economics and cultural,and so on).The article also briefs history of city's external exchanges,in the perspective of central-local relations,experiences and lessons of China's opening and reforms, which shows and analyses opportunities and difficulties raised by city's external exchanges.The author takes city of Guangzhou as an example of case-study,and summarized structure,functions and features of Guangzhou's city-level diplomacy. The purposes of author is to makes a conclusion that although as a unitary state, there exists active city-level diplomacy in China and they played more and more important roles in world arena.Meanwhile,author put forward a tentative solution, such as how to make up a "win-win" foreign policy of central-local relations and hope to give an assistance to build up more reasonable and better structure of China foreign policy.