The Cultural Diplomacy-the Role Of Artworks In China’s Republican Period’s Foreign Policy

What is cultural diplomacy and how does it work? This is an under-explored question in international relations study. As Professor Huntington P. Samuel says culture and civilization play a key role in contemporary international relations and deeply affect the relations between countries. International relations scholars are trying to understand and explain how cultural factors can affect the international cooperation and conflict. Religion, lifestyle, even movie and music are being explored from different perspectives, but the role of artworks is overlooked. To understand the role civilization played in international relations realistically and comprehensively, the explanation of the role of artworks is necessary, because artwork is an indivisible part from culture and civilization. States’foreign policies not only depend on their interests; but also depend on cultural identification. In some case, for identification states may do something against their own interest. Many cases during the Cold-War are proof to this argument. This thesis aims to provide an explanatory framework for this question though the application of different IR theories, especially the constructivism theory, and also several art history theories. The interaction between civilization and identification of one another sets a theoretical background for the understanding of the role of artworks diplomacy. The context of this research is the emergence of cultural diplomacy from the end of19th century till now. Different methods of cultural diplomacy had used by different country. In the case of China and Japan, it is art diplomacy, which is also the major case will be studied in this thesis. This paper consists of four chapters. The first chapter describes the relationship between artworks and international relations. The second chapter introduces the early Republic’s art diplomacy. The third chapter is the case study. This chapter describes the London International Exhibition of Chinese Art. Chapter IV is the suggestions of contemporary Chinese artwork diplomacy.